The Wreck of Catalonia: Civil War in the Fifteenth Century

THE WRECK OF CATALONIA

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The Wreck of Catalonia Civil War in the Fifteenth Century AL AN RYDER

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 2 6 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Alan Ryder 2007 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978-0-19-920736-7 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Preface A visitor to the Catalan region of Spain will nowadays encounter an assured air of purpose and prosperity, an exuberant creativity, and the pride of a dynamic people in its achievements. The traveller six hundred years ago would have found a similar spirit and confidence in the Principality of Catalonia, as the territory was then known: Catalan commerce held sway over the whole of the western Mediterranean and gave the principality a dominant voice in that commonwealth of eastern Spanish states known as the Crown of Aragon.1 A century later the power and splendour had vanished; commerce had shrunk to a shadow of its former self and Catalonia had become an outlying province of an expanding Castilian empire. Bloody consequences have time and again flowed from that humiliation—most memorably in the Catalan revolt of 1640,2 the War of the Spanish Succession, and the Civil War of 1936—and it rankles still in the Catalan psyche to this day.3 Blame for the catastrophic change of fortune was pinned by the nationalist school of Catalan historians (notably Domènech i Montaner and Soldevila)4 upon the extinction of a native line of kings and its replacement with a branch of the ruling Castilian dynasty, the Trastámara. From that moment (1412) onwards, they maintain, its alien rulers relegated the interests of Catalonia to a lowly place in their schemes of self-aggrandizement across the Mediterranean and within the Spanish peninsula, leading ultimately to the principality’s subjection to Castile. There is substance in that interpretation for, although kings of Catalan stock had pursued an aggressive policy of territorial expansion, Catalonia had remained at the heart of all their designs. The Trastámaras, by contrast, had neither patience with Catalan pretensions to primacy nor any 1 This group of states comprised the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca, the principality of Catalonia, and the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne; further afield it embraced the kingdoms of Sicily and Sardinia. These states had no common institutions or bonds save allegiance to a common sovereign. 2 J. H. Elliot, The Revolt of the Catalans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). 3 While the Spanish Succession War (1702–13) and the Civil War (1936–9) had their origins elsewhere, they afforded Catalans the opportunity to rise in arms against a ‘Castilian’ state, on both occasions with disastrous consequences. 4 L. Domènech i Montaner, La iniquitat de Casp i la fidel comte d’Urgell, (Barcelona: Llibreria Verdaguer, 1930). F. Soldevila, Història de Catalunya, ii (Barcelona: Editorial Alpha, 1935). Their work gave teeth to a similar line of argument pursued by the romantic historians of the 19th cent.

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sense of personal identification with the principality. To them Catalonia was not a patria but one of many subject territories whose resources they employed in quest of Mediterranean empire and hegemony within the Iberian peninsula. A younger generation of scholars (among them the Catalan Vicens Vives and the French historians Vilar and Carrère)5 adopted a more nuanced, socioeconomic approach to the problem, attributing Catalonia’s calamities to fundamental economic and social ills, many of them common to the whole of Europe in that epoch, but others peculiar to Catalonia and few susceptible to easy remedy. As with all such analyses, everything depends upon the quality of the statistical material available and its interpretation. So there are others, most notably the Italian historian del Treppo,6 who have argued that, despite its problems, the Catalan economy was marked by no fundamental deterioration but proved adaptable and resilient until in 1462 it was plunged into terminal decline by a disastrous civil war. Another important dimension to this argument has been highlighted by Abulafia; he stresses the importance of a flourishing coastal trade which leaves little trace in the records utilized by historians to measure economic health.7 It is also significant, as Coral Cuadrada has recently emphasized,8 that much of this interpretation of Catalan economic fortunes depends very heavily, some of it almost exclusively, on statistics drawn from the economy of Barcelona; and most, with the exception of del Treppo, close the account at the onset of the civil war as though what happened over the succeeding three or four decades was of little account in deciding Catalonia’s fate. This is to ignore years of strife which ravaged the land, and gave the coup de grâce to its ailing trade and industry. Nor will any purely domestic explanation suffice, for Catalonia lay enmeshed in the Aragonese confederation where its sister states were readier to turn its misfortunes to their own advantage than to proffer assistance. More fatally still, its travails from the outset awoke the predatory ambitions of its great neighbours, France and Castile. Nor did outside involvement end there; Portugal, Navarre, Genoa, Naples, and Burgundy all played their part in a tangle of foreign intrigue which brought ruin upon 5 J. Vicens Vives, Els Trastàmares (segle xv) (Barcelona: Teide, 1956). P. Vilar, Catalogne dans l’Espagne moderne, i (Paris: SEVPEN, 1962). C. Carrère, Barcelone centre économique à l’époque des difficultés (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967). 6 M. del Treppo, I mercanti catalani e l’espansione della Corona d’Aragona nel secolo xv, 2nd edn. (Naples: Libreria Scientifica Editrice, 1972). Carrère agrees with del Treppo to the extent that she identifies a revival of Barcelona’s commerce in the 1450s. 7 D. Abulafia, ‘L’economia mercantile nel Mediterraneo occidentale: commercio locale e commercio internazionale nell’età di Alfonso il Magnanimo’, CHCA XVI (Naples: Paparo, 2000), ii. 8 Cuadrada, La Mediterrània, cruïlla de mercaders (segles xiii–xv) (Barcelona: Dalmau, 2001).

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Catalonia. In the conflict’s final stages Catalans found themselves hardly more than hapless bystanders as wave upon wave of foreign soldiery devastated their land. It is one of the curiosities of Catalan historiography that so little attention has been paid to these catastrophic events. For example, the third volume of the Història de Catalunya edited by Pierre Vilar and published in 1988 devotes less than three of its five hundred pages to the civil war. La ciutat consolidada (segles xiv i xv), volume iii of the Història de Barcelona edited by Jaume Sobrequés i Callicó (Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1992) skips over the period in equally summary fashion. In the general histories of Spain it is equally almost invisible9 save for the valuable pages in the second volume of Hillgarth’s The Spanish Kingdoms. More than half a century ago a Barcelona publishing house did attempt to fill the void by commissioning a history of the war from Santiago Sobrequés i Vidal and his son Jaume Sobrequé i Callicó, both of them specialists in fifteenth-century Catalonia. But, as the two admit, the project never got off the ground and ended up as one of those unfulfilled contracts which gather dust on publishers’ shelves. In its place they brought together a number of articles and papers bearing on the causes and course of the war which they had written over many years. These appeared in 1973 as the twovolume La guerra civil catalana del segle xv, an invaluable guide to numerous aspects of the conflict, but not the history which had been expected. Since then the field has been abandoned. In this study I have endeavoured to move towards filling that gap in the broader context of the forces and events which shaped Catalonia’s fortunes throughout the fifteenth century. Much still lies hidden in the abundant archival records. The first section examines the part played by social conflicts, economic problems, and dynastic politics in leading the principality into war. Particular emphasis is laid upon peasant unrest, hostilities within urban communities, endemic feuding among the aristocracy, royal absenteeism, and the destabilizing effect of quarrels within the royal family. For reasons already explained, the war, in both its internal and international dimensions, is treated in some detail in the second part and because I believe that the manner in which it was conducted decided the fate of Catalonia. A third section surveys the nature of the regime imposed by Fernando after hostilities had come to an agonizingly protracted end. Conformity to royal will and a deep social 9

e.g. L. Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámara y los Reyes Católicos (Historia de España, 7; Madrid: Gredos, 1985).

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conservatism were its hallmarks. How little Catalans could now resist, let alone defy, their Catholic monarch was demonstrated in two calamitous episodes, the expulsion of the Jews and the introduction of the Inquisition. Geographic names are given in the form currently employed in those places, hence the Catalan Lleida, not the Castilian Lérida, the French Roussillon, not the Catalan Rosselló. Exceptions are made where a standard English version is in common use, as with Catalonia and Castile. For personal names I have adopted the practice of using the form appropriate to the nationality of the person concerned, so Juan for a Castilian, Joan for a Catalan, João for a Portuguese, Jean for a Frenchman, and Giovanni for an Italian. The genealogical tables will, I trust, make clear the relationships between the principal characters in this somewhat tangled tale. My gratitude is due to my wife for preparing the maps and above all for her patience and encouragement throughout the long gestation of this project. A. R.

Contents PART I. THE COMING STORM 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

A Fine, Well-Ordered Country Strains in the Fabric ‘A Widowed Land’ A Clamorous Peasantry Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga A Peasantry Expectant

7. Busca in Triumph and Disillusion 8. The Violence of an Urban and Rural Aristocracy 9. Catalonia Defiant 10. Juan II, a Monarch Beset

3 9 17 30 40 51 55 61 72 80

PART II. WAR, CIVIL AND FOREIGN 11. The Drawing of Swords 12. Catalonia at Bay: Enter Castile

109 124

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

138 151 175 192 210 226

Diplomacy, or War by Other Means The Portuguese Saviour In Extremis, France The Castilian Marriage A Rebellion in Ruins The Lost Lands PART III. FERNANDO THE CATHOLIC

19. The Monarch Triumphant

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Bibliography Index

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PART I THE COMING STORM

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1 A Fine, Well-Ordered Country . . . la terra e bella e ben piena de gente e bene adatta a merchatantia e bene ordinate de tutto; e sechondo le chosse si posono vedere, questa pare una richa terra. (Baldo Villanuzzi, 22 December 13971)

At the dawn of the fifteenth century Catalonia stood at the height of its fortunes, mistress of the western Mediterranean and the dominant power in the Crown of Aragon. Bounded to the north by France, to the east by Aragon and Castile, and on its southern flank, at the delta of the River Ebro, by the kingdom of Valencia, the principality extended over a modest 37,000 square kilometres and was well populated with some 375,000 inhabitants. An unusually high proportion of this number, around 30 per cent, lived in towns, thirteen of which had populations exceeding 2,000. On the coast, Barcelona, Perpignan, Tortosa, Tarragona, and Castelló d’Empúries controlled a flourishing maritime trade;2 Reus, Valls, Vilafranca del Penedès, and Girona were the commercial centres of the fertile coastal plains. Further inland, Vic commanded the road along which textiles and spices travelled northwards to France, while Montblanc, Cervera, and Lleida served a similar function as trading centres on the routes leading to Aragon and Castile. Largest of these urban centres was Barcelona with a population of some 35,000, a city acknowledged as the capital of Catalonia. A common language and culture gave the people a strong sense of identity; of the Moors there remained no more than 10,000 and of the Jews far fewer after the pogroms of the late fourteenth century; only a few Gascons had as yet migrated into the mountainous regions of the north.3 All 1 ‘. . . it is a fine country, well-peopled, well-suited to trade and well-ordered in every respect; and, as far as one can tell, it seems a rich country’. Archivio di Stato di Prato, Archivio Datini, Carteggio Barcellona-Firenze, lig. 635. 2 Abulafia, ‘L’economia mercantile’, emphasizes the importance of the short-distance trade, especially that with Languedoc and Provence, conducted from these and other small ports. 3 J. Iglésies, ‘La població de Catalunya durant els segles xiv i xv’, CHCA VI (Madrid: La Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales del Ministeno de Asuntos Exteriores, 1959).

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the major towns and cities were subject to the crown, but elsewhere two-thirds of the land and people fell under the jurisdiction of either the church or of that 1.5 per cent of the population constituted by barons, knights, squires, and gentlemen. The latter’s power was especially felt in the north (Old Catalonia) where feudalism had been long entrenched.4 In southern Catalonia ecclesiastical authority and the military orders dominated the countryside. Agriculture was the bedrock of the Catalan economy, employing about three-quarters of the people, including many who lived in towns but gained their livelihood in the surrounding countryside. They worked on a land constituted in almost equal parts of rugged mountains, barren plateaux, and fertile plains, a combination which had encouraged in these latter areas a development of cash crops such as saffron and vines at the expense of cereals, and elsewhere a dramatic expansion of sheep-rearing. From the sheep came the wool which provided the raw material of Catalonia’s staple industry, textiles, and the source of much of its riches. Barcelona and Perpignan, its greatest cities, flourished on the manufacture and export of woollen cloth; many other towns, among them Girona, Lleida, and Tortosa, grew in size and wealth through its manufacture. Civic affluence and confidence was made manifest in the magnificent municipal and ecclesiastical buildings erected in the earlier years of the fifteenth century. From Perpignan (with its port at Collioure) to Tortosa a large number of coastal towns had grown prosperous through trade around the shores of the Mediterranean, none more so than Barcelona which functioned as a major entrepot as well as an outlet for the produce of its hinterland, handling more than half of the total commercial traffic of Catalonia. Each year saw its merchants dispatch four or five large vessels to the markets of the Levant. Their outward cargoes consisted mainly of cloth and coral (brought from Sardinia and Sicily); in return they carried home the spices, silks, and cottons of the East as well as considerable numbers of slaves. In the central Mediterranean, Sicily offered rich commercial pickings based upon the exchange of Catalan cloth for Sicilian wheat.5 An exchange of Spanish wool for Italian woad and alum sustained a profitable trade with Genoa despite the contest for control of Sardinia and Corsica which put Catalans and Genoese perpetually at odds. Southern France provided another lucrative outlet for Catalan cloth and spices 4 See P. Freedman, The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 5 Del Treppo (I mercanti catalani, 99–110) delves into the intricacies underlying this exchange.

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carried by overland routes rather than by sea. Trade with North Africa, important as a source of gold, passed mostly through Majorca, dominated by a Catalan population and since 1343 subject to the Crown of Aragon. Even in Flanders there flourished a sizeable colony of Catalan merchants but the balance of trade with northern Europe was unfavourable.6 From the great Arsenal in Barcelona and from many other shipyards came the vessels which carried most of the principality’s commerce, vessels of every size and design owned by native merchants. Those same merchants furnished most of the capital which sustained the economy; Italians, although prominent, did not exercise the degree of control they enjoyed in Valencia and Castile.7 Barcelona’s municipal bank, the Taula de Canvi, established in 1401, ensured the financial stability of the system’s nerve-centre. A visitor to that city may still admire the splendid architectural manifestations of Catalonia’s fifteenthcentury prosperity in the cathedral, the merchants’ Exchange (Llotja), the church of Santa Maria del Mar, and many noble mansions in the Carrer Moncada. Perpignan and Tortosa likewise celebrated their economic vitality with the construction of fine llotjas.8 Catalonia owed its prosperity in considerable measure to its association with the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca in that curious congeries of states, the Crown of Aragon, brought into being by dynastic accident and the vagaries of the Reconquista. Despite the name, Aragon enjoyed no constitutional primacy, for each component state retained its own administrative, judicial, and representative institutions, having nothing in common with its fellows other than the sovereign monarch who, on his accession, swore to each to uphold its laws and liberties. Aragon was indeed the poorest partner in the confederation; yet it appears, in the earlier decades of the fifteenth century, to have enjoyed a moderate prosperity thanks to a growing external market for its wool, wheat, and saffron, even if much of the profit ended up in the hands of Catalan and foreign merchants. Descending from the crest of the Pyrenees to the Ebro basin, its dry uplands were screened from the moist Mediterranean winds by the mountain ranges of Catalonia; only by the course of a few rivers did the harsh climate permit vegetation to flourish. Of its sparse population of 6 Cuadrada, La Mediterrània, provides an excellent overview of the Catalan trading system in its Mediterranean context. Carrère, Barcelona, studies the period in great detail but with an overemphasis on the theme of decline. See also Vilar, Catalogne, and J. N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), ii. 7 See J. Aurell, Els mercaders Catalans al quatre-cents (Lleida: Pagès, 1996). 8 A. Cirici, L’art gòtic català: L’arquitectura al segles xv i xvi (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1979).

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some 200,000, approximately 20,000 were to be found in the capital, Zaragoza; the rest lived a rural existence in scattered small towns and hamlets. Few Jewish communities had survived the pogroms of the late fourteenth century, but Moors (Moriscos) still made up 11 per cent of the population. Barely 35 per cent of Aragonese lived on land under the direct jurisdiction of the crown, land which lay for the most part in the Pyrenean region. Elsewhere nobles, the church, and the military orders held sway through the members and dependants of some score of noble clans.9 The kingdom of Valencia, by contrast, with around 320,000 inhabitants was well populated. Of the Aragonese states it was the one most recently conquered from the Moors who still accounted for no less than 40 per cent of this total and furnished most of the labour that supported a flourishing, diversified agriculture on which the kingdom based its wealth. Like Catalonia, Valencia enjoyed the advantages of a long Mediterranean coastline where a flourishing commerce was already making its mark. Over Catalonia it had the added advantage of direct access to the wool and wheat of Castile, a market vigorously exploited by a Catalan merchant class which had taken root in the kingdom. Also, it was better situated than Barcelona on the shipping routes to the Atlantic, southern Spain, and North Africa. Although, as in the other states, the crown had direct jurisdiction over less than one-third of the territory, that portion included all the major towns and hence a larger proportion of the population. The capital city, Valencia, is reckoned to have had between 32,000 and 40,000 inhabitants early in the fifteenth century, a population comparable to that of Barcelona. Royal influence over the kingdom was also enhanced by the fact that most private estates were very small because custom required that they be divided between all heirs; a major exception was the large area controlled by the military Order of Montesa. As for the kingdom of Majorca, which comprised all the Balearic islands, Catalans had participated enthusiastically in its conquest by their king Pere III in 1343, and had ever since striven to ensure that it should not challenge their commercial ascendancy. Fifty years later, with a population of barely 50,000, a chronic cereal deficit, a crippling public debt (much of it owed to Barcelona) and a dependence on foreign shipping, it posed no threat to Catalonia. It

9 E. Sarasa Sánchez, Sociedad y conflictos socials en Aragón, siglos xiii–xv: Estructuras de poder y conflictos de clase (Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno, 1981). C. Laliena Corbera, Sistema social, estructura agraria y organización del poder en el bajo Aragón en la edad media (siglos xii–xv) (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1987).

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offered, rather, a field for investment and an important way-station for Catalan ships bound for the Eastern Mediterranean or North Africa.10 From the foregoing it will be evident that Catalonia enjoyed great advantages in human and natural resources, in wealth and economic development over its partners in the Crown of Aragon. That preponderance it could translate into political influence over its rulers as by far the largest contributor to their coffers. It benefited, too, from the fact that those rulers were a Catalan dynasty descended directly from the Counts of Barcelona. The bond between crown and Catalonia was consequently one of particular significance: Barcelona became an unofficial capital; kings were laid to rest on Catalan soil in the Cistercian monastery at Poblet. The Crown of Aragon was very much a Catalan show. Most striking of all in its manifestation of Catalonia’s power and enterprise was the establishment of an informal Mediterranean empire in the teeth of opposition from France and Genoa. The saga had begun in 1229 with the conquest of Majorca from the Moors, followed by an influx of Catalan settlers.11 During the period 1276–1343, when Majorca existed as an independent kingdom under a junior branch of the Catalan dynasty, it rivalled Catalonia as a trading power, but its reconquest by Pere III of Aragon in 1343 (enthusiastically supported by Barcelona) brought it under the commercial hegemony of the Catalan mainland. On the heels of the Majorcan campaign came the victory over the Moorish kingdom of Valencia (1232–45) where Catalans gathered the lion’s share of lands granted to immigrants. Another leap forward came in 1282 with an expedition to aid Sicilian rebels against their French king (the Sicilian Vespers); it led to the enthronement of a Catalan prince in the island, with consequent benefits for Catalan trade, although it was not until 1409 that Sicily became united with the Crown of Aragon. Out of the diplomatic imbroglio generated by the Sicilian adventure Jaume II extracted from Pope Boniface VIII in 1297 a title to two more island kingdoms, Sardinia and Corsica. Not until 1324 was he able to make good his claim to Sardinia by driving out the Pisans; the capital, Cagliari, developed into a Catalan colony organizing the export of the island’s grain, salt, and silver. As for Corsica, it was judged prudent not to attempt to dispossess the incumbent Genoese. Nor did 10 G. Sabater, Historia de la Baleares (Palma de Mallorca: Ediciones Cort, 1987). J. Alzina et al., Història de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca: Moll, 1982). P. Macaire, Majorque et le commerce international (1400–1450 environ) (Lille: Université de Lille, 1986). Majorca also conducted a flourishing trade to North Africa employing its own small vessels. 11 The occupation of Ibiza and Minorca followed in 1235 and 1287 respectively.

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Catalan commerce benefit from that amazing offshoot of the Sicilian wars, the rampage of Catalan mercenary bands (known as almogàvars) in the eastern Mediterranean which ended in their seizure (1311) of the Duchy of Athens; it remained a fief of the Sicilian crown until 1387 but never attracted the attention of Catalan merchants.12 By 1400 Catalan influence had been firmly established in all but one of the western Mediterranean islands and with it control over a network of ports and shipping routes which no competitor could rival. 12 C. E. Dufourque, L’expansió catalana a la Mediterrània occidental, segles xii–xv (Barcelona: Ed. Vicens Vives, 1969). J. Lalinde Abadía, La Corona de Aragón en el Mediterráneo medieval (1229–1479) (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico’, 1979). J. N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, i 1250–1410 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976) and id., The Problem of a Catalan Mediterranean Empire 1229–1327 (London: Longman, 1975).

2 Strains in the Fabric Most of his fin-de-siècle contemporaries, Catalans and non-Catalans alike, would have agreed with the Florentine merchant Baldo Villanuzzi that Catalonia showed a face of prosperity, orderliness, and fair prospects. However, as many historians have been at pains to stress, the picture was not without its darker, troubled side; some indeed would argue, erroneously in my opinion, that the land was already in the grip of a crisis which would carry it to destruction. All societies are inherently subject to the potentially destabilizing effects of conflicting elements within them; most contrive to contain the stresses and so avoid breakdown or disaster. Where conflict does result in civil war or revolution the cause is to be found in an overwhelming accumulation of unresolved problems whose origins recede indefinitely like those of waves breaking wildly upon a shore. Historical analysis nonetheless demands that we seek a point at which the rhythm changes significantly, a watershed (to vary the metaphor) dividing one tract of human experience from another. When considering the civil war which irreversibly altered the course of Catalonia’s history we may conveniently take as our point of departure the cataclysmic impact of pulmonary plague (the Black Death) and bubonic plague in the preceding century. In May 1348 the first great epidemic struck Spain where it raged with especial ferocity in the towns of Catalonia and Valencia; the city of Valencia lost, according to the most reliable estimates, 35 per cent of its population, Barcelona 20 per cent. Further outbreaks followed at regular intervals (1362, 1371, 1381, 1396, 1410, 1429, 1439, 1448, and 1457). As elsewhere in Europe, depopulation resulted in severe social and economic dislocation: labour shortage pushed up wages (initially four or fivefold) and prices, less fertile land fell into disuse, a decimated royal and ecclesiastical bureaucracy struggled to control a restless population, and landowners, lay and clerical, seeing their incomes drastically reduced, placed heavier burdens and restrictions on the surviving peasants under their control. At the same time, peasants in the more fertile areas—around Vic, in the Valls, and the

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Llobregat valley—were able to enlarge their holdings. To the trauma of plague was added the misery of a devastating war with Castile which dragged on for almost twenty years (1356–74), further harrowing a suffering population and driving the state towards financial ruin.1 Even if demographic upheaval had not sent the Catalan economy into a long spiral of recession, it had severely dislocated its workings. Towns, with Barcelona in the van, advanced their grip upon their rural environs by the acquisition of lands intended to secure the foodstuffs and raw materials needed to sustain urban life and trade.2 Rural areas had also suffered a disproportionate loss of population as towns attracted immigrants to sustain the labour force vital to their industrial life, and especially to the textile industry which employed up to one-third of Barcelona’s inhabitants and similarly large numbers in many other towns.3 Towards the end of the fourteenth century, when Catalan textiles ran into recession, those artisans saw their standard of living decline as wages fell by 15 to 20 per cent. Measures, largely ineffective, taken by government and civic authorities to protect the urban economy put new strains upon the social fabric and financial structures. Agricultural production, especially of cereals, declined sharply from the first onset of pestilence, leading to shortages, lasting price rises, and perennial problems with urban food supplies. Social relationships in the countryside had become more sharply antagonistic when landowners, lay and clerical, responded to the shrinkage in the peasant labour force with measures, legally sanctioned, which reinforced their power to restrict freedom of movement, increase burdens, and inflict severe punishment on any who resisted. Against that drive to bolster servitude the peasantry affected, many of whom had seized the opportunity of depopulation to enlarge their holdings, reacted with some violence and demands for the general abolition of the status of serfdom. Currency devaluation in 1413 may have quietened peasant agitation by reducing the burden of seigneurial dues but it also strengthened the determination of lords to safeguard their incomes through legislation that further reinforced their power over a subject peasantry. Currency instability stemmed in part from a remorseless growth in public debt fuelled largely by fourteenth-century wars which kings had financed by 1 C. Batlle, ‘La crisi demogràfica’, L’expansió baixmedieval (segles xii–xv), Història de Catalunya, 3, ed. P. Vilar (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1988). 2 García-Oliver, ‘Estructura agrària i crisi rural’, 48, in E. Sarasa and E. Serrano, (eds.), La Corona de Aragón y el Mediterráneo (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico’, 1997). 3 M. Riu, ‘The Woollen Industry in Catalonia in the Later Middle Ages’, in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe (London: Heinemann, 1983).

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taxes converted by state and municipal authorities into long-term, interestbearing loans (censos). That process had created a growing class of fund-holders, recruited in the main from the dominant urban groups whose interest lay in sustaining the value of the currency and hence their investment. Royal mints, on the other hand, were under pressure to keep royal coffers supplied by debasing the coinage; those who lived by commerce were likewise driven to demand currency adjustment when the national money fell out of line with that used by their competitors. In the popular mind devaluation too readily became viewed as a happy device to fill pockets and make life easy. With its strong capitalist class and dependence on commerce, Catalonia was particularly prone to the tensions generated by these financial questions. In the midst of this prolonged epidemic ordeal the Aragonese state suffered in 1410 an additional shock with the extinction of the Catalan dynasty which had ruled since the county of Barcelona was united with the kingdom of Aragon in 1137. The candidate with probably the strongest claim to the vacant throne, because nearest in the male line of succession, was a Catalan magnate, Jaume, count of Urgell. However, powerful interests in Aragon and Valencia saw an opportunity to end more than two centuries of Catalan domination in the federation, while within Catalonia Jaume had to contend with the enmity of great noble clans (Pallars, Cervelló, Illa) who had long sustained feuds against his family. Furthermore he faced opposition from Benedict XIII, the Aragonese anti-pope, who manœuvred to ensure that the outcome should favour his cause in the tangled international politics of the Schism.4 Jaume’s main rivals, the French Louis of Anjou and the Castilian Fernando of Trastámar, based their claims on alternative, female, versions of proximity to the royal line. Martin the last king of the old dynasty having shirked the choice of a successor, it was left to those who controlled each of the component states of the crown—Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia—to agree upon a procedure to fill the throne, and meanwhile conduct the business of government. Given the antagonisms that existed within and between those states, it is hardly surprising that the ensuing interregnum witnessed widespread violence and bitter dispute. In Aragon Jaume’s chief partisans, the Luna clan, murdered the archbishop of 4 A disputed papal election in 1377 had led to a division in the church with one party owing allegiance to a pope living in Rome and another supporting a pope based in Avignon. The Aragonese cleric, Pedro de Luna, elected to the Avignon throne in 1394, hoped to find in the new Aragonese monarch a champion who would drive his rival from Rome and make him undisputed head of the church.

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Zaragoza, leader of their rivals the Urreas. In Valencia the urgellist Vilaraguts, entrenched in the capital, were defeated by their opponents the Centelles in a bloody battle fought at Murviedro in January 1412. Catalonia, while avoiding open hostilities, found itself paralysed by divisions among the great nobility and by anti-urgel sentiment in the chief cities, especially Barcelona. In these circumstances it proved impossible to assemble a general parliament that might consider the succession problem. The initiative passed instead to Benedict XIII who through the Cortes of Aragon proposed that each of the three states should nominate three commissioners who would jointly declare which of the claimants had the best right to the throne. When the nine delegates met in the Aragonese town of Caspe they were undoubtedly much influenced by the charismatic personality of Benedict’s henchman, the Dominican preacher Vicent Ferrer. He it was who in a sermon delivered on 28 June 1412 announced their verdict in favour of the Castilian Fernando by a two-thirds majority that included the delegate of Barcelona.5 Although the populace of some cities in Catalonia and Valencia responded to the decision by rioting, the Sentence of Caspe accurately reflected the sentiment of a majority of those then wielding power and influence. The man they had chosen was undoubtedly the most prestigious of the candidates. The second son of Juan I of Castile, Fernando had married the richly endowed Leonor de Alburquerque and thereby become lord of the greatest estate in Castile; the death of his brother King Enrique III in 1406 made him co-regent for the infant Juan II; in 1410 his campaigns in crusader guise against Granada were crowned with success in the capture of Antequera.6 To Pope Benedict he could guarantee the allegiance of Castile, one of the few states which still recognized the schismatic pontiff. To the anti-urgell factions in Aragon and Valencia he could offer the support of Castilian gold and soldiery which had poured generously across the frontier even as debate proceeded on the dynastic crisis. Catalan historiography of a nationalist hue has portrayed the defeat of Jaume of Urgell and the victory of the Castilian Fernando at Caspe as the 5

Domènech i Montaner’s polemic, La iniquitat de Casp, famously denounced the verdict. For a favourable view see J. Camarena Mahiques (ed.), El compromiso de Caspe (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico’, 1971). See also J. N. Hillgarth, ‘The Compromiso de Caspe: A Castilian Dynasty in Catalonia–Aragon’, The Spanish kingdoms, ii, and S. Sobrequés i Vidal, El compromise de Casp i la noblesa catalana (Barcelona: Curial, 1982). 6 He was subsequently known as Fernando de Antequera. Although the subject of a biography by the humanist Lorenzo Valla (Gesta Ferdinandi Regis Aragonum, ed. O. Besomi (Padua: Antenore, 1973)), Fernando has not been accorded the honours of an adequate modern biography. I. I. Macdonald, Don Fernando de Antequera (Oxford: Dolphin Book Co., 1948) relies heavily on a single Castilian chronicle. Vicens Vives provides an excellent but brief account in Els Trastàmares.

(1369–1379) ENRIQUE II (of Trastamara K. of Castile) (1379–1390) JUAN I = ELIONOR (of Aragon)

ENRIQUE III = CATALINA of Lancaster (K. of Castile 1380–1406)

FERNANDO (of Antequera) = LEONOR (K. of Aragon 1412–16)

MARIA = ALFONSO V (K. of Aragon 1416–58)

1

CATALINA = ENRIQUE = BEATRIZ Pimentel 2

2 = JUAN II ISABEL = (K. of Castile 1406–54) of Portugal

2

LEONOR = FREDERICK III AFONSO V (H. R. E. 1452–93) (K. of Portugal 1438–81)

MARIA 1 d. 1445

1 BLANCHE = = JUAN II (Queen of Navarre) (K. of Navarre 1425–79) d. 1439 (K. of Aragon 1458–79)

JUANA = ENRIQUE IV = BLANCHE 1 CHARLES of Viana (K. of Castile 1454–74)

Strains in the Fabric

FERRANTE (K. of Naples 1458–94)

LEONOR = DUARTE (K. of Portugal 1433–8)

JUANA 2 Enriquez

ELINOR = GASTON de Foix

JUANA ‘la Beltraneja’

Figure 1. The Houses of Trastámara and Antequera

=

(K. of Aragon 1474–1512) FERNANDO II

13

ISABEL (Queen of Castile 1474–1504)

14

The Coming Storm

origin of a long succession of calamities that was to befall their land. That line of thought shies away from the fact that in the circumstances prevailing Jaume could not have been elected king of Aragon. Nevertheless it is certainly true that Catalonia (and indeed its sister states) was henceforth ruled by a dynasty which, unlike its predecessor, had no emotional ties to the province. An era of alien rule had begun, as was made manifest by the great train of Castilian courtiers, soldiers, and officials accompanying Fernando when he entered his new kingdom in August 1412. His subjects lost no time in launching an energetic campaign to send them home. Politically too the new ruler kept one foot firmly in Castile where he retained the regency, vast estates, and the masterships of the military orders of Alcántara and Santiago in which he planted his younger sons, Sancho and Enrique. Moreover, in his mental baggage came a Castilian centralizing, authoritarian tradition potentially at odds with the confederal, pactista7 custom that had hitherto prevailed in the Aragonese realms. Small wonder then if his Aragonese subjects exacted oaths to observe the laws and constitutions of their respective states before they swore allegiance. Fernando trod carefully, rewarding supporters and placating the prickly Catalans by conceding to the Diputació, the executive organ of their parliament (Corts), a permanent supervisory role in administration. So central were these bodies to the political and administrative life of Catalonia, and so crucial their role in the upheavals of the fifteenth century, that some account is needed. Of thirteenth-century origin, the Corts (the Catalan parliament) consisted of three estates—clergy, nobility, and the representatives of certain royal towns. Triennial meetings, the power to authorize taxes and legislation, the right to present complaints against royal officials, gave these assemblies a voice in public affairs that no king could ignore.8 From the Corts had emerged in 1364 a permanent executive body, the Diputació del General (known also as the Generalitat), charged with administering funds voted by the Corts. It was composed of three diputats and three oydors (auditors), one for each estate, appointed for a three-year term.9 The concessions made by Fernando in 1413 vastly extended the powers of these dignitaries who henceforth presided over 7 The term applied, especially in Catalonia, to a constitutional theory which held that a pact of mutual obligation bound together ruler and subjects. See J. Sobrequés i Callicó, El pactisme a Catalunya (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1982). 8 Les Corts a Catalunya (Actes del Congrés d’història institucional; Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 1991). 9 J. Borja de Riquer (ed.), Història de la Diputació de Barcelona, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Diputació, 1987). I. Rubio y Cambronero, La Deputació del General de Catalunya en los siglos xv y xvi (Barcelona: Diputació, 1950).

Strains in the Fabric

15 Narbonne

FRANCE

R. E o br

Bayonne COUNTY OF FOIX Fuenterrabia Perpignan San Sebastian Pamplona Vitoria N A V A R R E Girona Estella Ejea de los caballeros Logroño Tudela Monzon NIA Burgos ALO Zaragoza C AT Barcelona Burgo de Osma Lleida Calatayud Medina del Tarragona Belchite Rio Seco Hijar Valladolid Alcañiz Olmedo ARAGON Tortosa Segovia Arévalo Ávila MINORCA Cuenca Ocaña MAJORCA Valencia Toledo

Toro

VA

LE

NC

IA

Madrigal

PORTUGAL

CASTILE Guadalupe

IBIZA

Lisbon

Cordoba

Seville

GR

AN

A A D Granada

Jerez

Ceuta

Map 1. The Iberian context

an administrative network which rivalled that of the crown, although the two were in theory complementary. It saw to the promulgation of acts of the Corts; it safeguarded the constitutions and privileges of the principality, in defence of which it could summon the population to arms; it maintained a fleet to protect the coasts and shipping; it collected and disbursed taxes known as ‘drets del general’ or ‘generalitats’ and oversaw the gathering of subsidies granted by Corts to the crown. In addition it exercised civil and criminal jurisdiction, and maintained an agent (‘diputat local’) in the major towns. Fernando’s concession had the effect of making this powerful body a watchdog over the conduct of his own royal officials. How much support the new king enjoyed in this honeymoon period was demonstrated when in 1413 the count of Urgell, after much prevarication,

16

The Coming Storm

stumbled into rebellion; with rare dispatch and unanimity the Catalan estates joined with Aragon and Valencia to denounce Jaume and offer aid to defeat him. Some differences did later arise—notably from Fernando’s decision to jettison Benedict XIII in favour of the programme for church unity championed by the Emperor Sigismund—but these were overshadowed by an unexpected collapse in the king’s health which led to his death in 1416 at the age of 37. He left a 19-year-old heir, Alfonso, already well versed in affairs of state, and three other sons to secure the succession. The dynastic crisis had thus been surmounted with remarkably little apparent damage to constitutional and social structures but the installation of a Castilian line created a psychological barrier between monarch and subjects that Fernando’s sons did little to bridge. Alfonso had already married the king of Castile’s sister, and for several years was heir apparent to the Castilian throne. His brothers retained their lands, titles, and offices in Castile; and in 1418 he was to betroth his sister to the Castilian king, Juan II. The junior branch of the Trastámares was patently resolved to maintain and, if possible, to tighten its hold upon its native land. Alfonso, moreover, showed little inclination to settle down to a routine life as the monarch of his new kingdom; instead, in 1420 he embarked upon the Italian adventures which were to embroil him in a lengthy conquest of the kingdom of Naples and consequent absence from his Spanish states that lasted from 1432 until his death in 1458. From 1442 the city of Naples became the capital of an empire that was as much Italian as Spanish in character. Those years which he did spend in Spain were chiefly remarkable for two armed incursions into Castile in support of his brothers’ ambitions in that kingdom.10 10 A. Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, King of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily, 1396–1458 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Id., The Kingdom of Naples under Alfonso the Magnanimous (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).

3 ‘A Widowed Land’ A difference in political culture between the Trastámar dynasty and its subjects was exacerbated, as noted earlier, by Alfonso’s abandonment of his Spanish domains. All the states resented his absence—Aragon with most reason, for it saw less of him than either Catalonia or Valencia—but it was in Catalonia that resentment found its most sustained and vehement expression. Relations between the principality and the new dynasty had got off to a bad start for reasons already explained: the politics behind the Compromise of Caspe, urgellist sentiment in Catalonia, and the strength of the pactist tradition there. Fernando’s subsequent sacrifice of Benedict XIII to the cause of church unity went down badly with the Catalan clergy,1 and he ended his life on a note of acute conflict with the governing oligarchy of Barcelona. That oligarchy wielded its power by manipulating membership of the two bodies which ran the city: the five-man executive Council (Consell) and the deliberative Council of a Hundred (Consell de Cent Jurats) which, save in exceptional circumstances, delegated its authority to a smaller commission known as the Council of Thirty (Consell de Trenta). The tone of Alfonso’s relations with the Catalans was set in his first encounter with their Corts at the outset of his reign. Fired by visions of glory in the only field of action open to him—the Mediterranean—the young monarch hoped to enlist support in a campaign to wrest Corsica and Sardinia definitively from the Genoese, secular opponents of Catalan mercantile and territorial expansion.2 Instead he found an assembly determined to put domestic affairs at the top of its agenda with demands for constitutional reform, greater accountability in royal officials, stern measures against peasant unrest, and the dismissal of Castilians in his service. Frustrated and furious, Alfonso turned instead to the Corts of the Valencian kingdom which, by contrast, 1

See Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 38–42. For many aspects of this relationship see Atti del primo congresso storico Liguria–Catalogna (Bordighera: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1974). 2

18

The Coming Storm

proved relatively amenable and financially forthcoming in backing active preparations for an expedition to Sardinia and Corsica.3 This forced the Catalans, fearing they would be outflanked by their burgeoning southern neighbour, to offer a grudging aid (60,000 florins), but they failed again to make any progress towards their goal of tight control over the crown and its agents. Their plans for control of the royal council, independence of the judiciary, and subordination of the royal prerogative to the constitutions of Catalonia Alfonso dismissed out of hand; his father, he believed, had already conceded too much in that direction. When at last his fleet sailed for Italian waters in May 1420 he left behind a resentful principality convinced that its alien sovereign cared little for its interests, and vexed by its inability to coerce him. Catalan anxiety over the king’s intentions sharpened markedly when news came in 1421 that Alfonso had accepted an invitation to go to the rescue of Queen Giovanna of Naples in return for adoption as her heir in that kingdom. Ever since the Sicilian Vespers had brought the houses of Aragon and Anjou into conflict over southern Italy neither had finally accepted an outcome which had established an Aragonese dynasty in Sicily and an Angevin on the throne of the mainland kingdom. Early in the fifteenth century the Crown of Aragon appeared to be gaining the upper hand when it incorporated Sicily, and its first Trastámar monarch, Fernando, tried to marry his second son to Queen Giovanna, last in the line of Angevins on the Neapolitan throne. Although that project came to nothing, civil war within her kingdom and desperate intrigues over the succession brought the dominant faction in her court to the conviction that salvation lay in the arms of Aragon. Hence the appeal to Alfonso, spiced with the prospect that he might soon add the kingdom of Naples to his dominions; glory and empire beckoned irresistibly. The Neapolitan enterprise, following hard upon the king’s successful subjugation of Sardinia,4 presented Catalans with a dilemma. On the one hand it fuelled fears that the principality would find its weight still further diminished. On the other there were those who scented opportunities: merchants who hoped that they might extend to the Italian mainland the commercial advantage they had already gained from Catalan control of Sicily; nobles who relished the prospect of exercising their warrior profession with good prospects of material and honorific rewards. In 1422 the Corts responded skilfully to Alfonso’s initial success and request for aid, offering both money and a fleet in the hope 3 4

They were rewarded with some important administrative reforms. He had, however, failed to oust the Genoese from Corsica.

A Widowed Land

19

of concluding the Neapolitan adventure swiftly and bringing home a beholden ruler. At first, perceiving the snare attached, he summarily rejected the offer of ships, but later that year when Giovanna turned against him he was forced to snatch at it on the conditions demanded.5 By the time the fleet of twenty-eight vessels carrying 4,000 men hove in sight of Naples in June 1423 Alfonso, besieged in the fortress of Castelnuovo, was in desperate plight. Thanks to this Catalan reinforcement he was able to wreak vengeance on Giovanna and the Neapolitans by sacking the city, only to find himself cornered by the accompanying ambassadors of Catalonia who insisted that he return to his neglected ‘natural kingdoms’ and his abandoned wife.6 For three months he held out, hoping for a change of fortune, until he had no choice but to embark with the fleet on its homeward voyage. Having augmented its Neapolitan spoils by sacking Marseille en route,7 it reached Barcelona on 9 December 1423. The city received him with ceremonial pomp and a Te Deum which celebrated as much a Catalan triumph as its ruler’s return. Catalonia had successfully flexed its financial and maritime muscle. So satisfied were the Catalans with the fleet’s demonstration of their maritime power that Alfonso had no difficulty in winning support for the immediate arming of another expedition designed to chastise the Genoese and relieve the garrison left in Naples under the command of his brother Pedro, but on condition that he would remain in Spain.8 A Catalan council led by the count of Cardona supervised the preparation of twenty-four galleys and the command Alfonso cannily entrusted to a Catalan idol, Frederico, count of Luna.9 A profitable slave-raid on the coast of North Africa and some successes 5

The shifting sands of Neapolitan and Italian politics had engulfed him when the principal players became convinced that they could not manipulate him. See Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 96–106. 6 Relations between Alfonso and his Castilian wife, Maria, were never cordial and became ever more distant as it became probable that she could not bear a child. Catalonia, ‘the abandoned country’, took to its heart this ‘abandoned queen’ who acted as regent during most of the long years of Alfonso’s absence. 7 After breaking with the king of Aragon, Giovanna adopted as her heir Louis III, duke of Anjou, who had already entered the lists as Alfonso’s rival for the Neapolitan throne. Louis’s French homeland, Provence, thereupon became a legitimate target for Catalan attacks. 8 Valencia laid down the same condition when it agreed to help finance the fleet: ‘ques deixara d’anar altra volta a Napols’, A. Santamaría Arandez, Aportación al estudio de la economia de Valencia durante el siglo xv (Valencia: Diputación Provincial de Valencia, 1966), 188. 9 Frederico was the illegitimate, and only, son of King Marti of Sicily who died in 1409 while his father, Marti I, was still reigning in Aragon. Because the king of Aragon had no other sons, many expected him to legitimize Frederico, although still a young child, in order that the Catalan line of rulers might not die out. He failed to do so, but Frederico remained for many a symbol of past glories. In reality an ineffectual, dissolute figure, he was lured into rebellion in 1429 and ended his life in inglorious exile in Castile.

20

The Coming Storm

in Genoese waters, but under the leadership of Pedro, not Frederico, were the sum of its achievements. If his Iberian subjects thought that Alfonso’s ambitions had been tamed, they were very soon disabused. Frustrated in Italy, he immediately turned his attention to his homeland, Castile. The hegemony which the junior branch of the Trastámares (known as the Antequeras) had exercised in that kingdom for two decades had been undermined by violent dissension between its principal protagonists, Alfonso’s brothers, Juan and Enrique. Their enemies led by Álvaro de Luna, favourite of the Castilian king, Juan II, had exploited the breach to such good effect that the brothers became open enemies, Enrique resorted to arms, and was in June 1423 thrown into captivity. The urgent need to attend to so dire a situation had served as a pretext to cloak Alfonso’s inglorious exit from Naples. It was none the less a situation which he was resolved to turn to some account. As early as April 1424 measures were set in train to rally foreign allies and dissident Castilian nobles for an invasion of the neighbouring kingdom. His avowed aim was to oust Álvaro de Luna and his party from court and government in order that the Antequeras might resume their domination over king and state. Whether he contemplated going further and taking the crown from his cousin, the hapless Juan II, can only be a matter of speculation for he was always careful to deny any such intention. Without doubt he had at least arrogated to himself the role of arbiter and guardian in Castilian affairs with the implicit threat that he would intervene again whenever he saw fit.10 This lurch from one entanglement in Naples to another in Castile aroused deep mistrust in Barcelona, so when cities were invited in January 1425 to send delegates to a gathering in Zaragoza in order to lend a show of popular enthusiasm for the enterprise, Barcelona’s representatives from the outset took a firm stand against it. Their opposition culminated in June 1425 with a public statement in which they criticized the king’s conduct and dissociated the Catalan capital from any resort to force. Doubtless they were influenced by fears that hostilities with Castile would entail financial burdens similar to those that had wrought such havoc in the preceding century. More fundamentally they were concerned that the root purpose was to re-establish and consolidate Antequera domination over Castile, from where Alfonso might in future draw resources that would free him of that dependence on subjects they had struggled so hard 10 Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámara y los Reyes Católicos, ch. 5. Hillgarth, ‘The Confusions of Castile 1416–74’, The Spanish kingdoms, ii. Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 121–30. N. Round, The Greatest Man Uncrowned: A Study of the Fall of Don Alvaro de Luna (London: Tamesis Books, 1986).

A Widowed Land

21

to assert. While Barcelona’s declaration did not deter the king from what proved to be a triumphant venture into Castile, it did breed in him a lasting hostility towards the city’s oligarchy. Henceforth Valencia became his favoured, regular residence; Barcelona he visited only for necessary business; in June 1427, for example, he spent a bare ten days there meting out justice in the wake of civil disturbances. A similar but deeper confrontation erupted in 1429 when family interests again led Alfonso to mount an invasion of Castile. On this occasion the king’s plans misfired disastrously, leaving his dominions open to Castilian retaliation.11 His summons to the Catalan militia to aid in the defence of the Aragonese frontier met with the legally valid objection that it could not be called upon to operate outside the principality. The Catalan Corts, summoned to Tortosa in November 142912 to offer aid and counsel in this crisis, infuriated Alfonso by its proposal to send a fact-finding mission to Castile (‘fruitless, shameful and damnable’ he dubbed it),13 and by its determination to extract substantial political concessions in return for a modest subsidy. The only outcome of the session, which ended in May 1430 amid mutual recriminations, was a short-term loan of 30,000 florins. Although the Catalans were certainly not to blame for the consequent loss of all Antequera estates in Castile, their conduct had once again demonstrated how little they sympathized with those concerns that lay at the heart of their sovereign’s policy. ‘Above all it was those in the principality of Catalonia’,14 he declared, who had wrecked his strategy. Attempts to fine them for ignoring the calls to arms only sharpened the antagonism; so too did Barcelona’s refusal to sign as a guarantor the truce with Castile until compelled to comply by a threat of military action. Concerned at so dangerous a deterioration in their relationship with the king, and by his evident preference for Valencia, the city fathers of Barcelona subsequently sought to mend their fences with the most effective means at their disposal—money. By offering a subsidy for his ‘living expenses’ they 11 Mistrust between the brothers Juan and Enrique had again allowed Alvaro de Luna to establish himself at court and engineer a coalition of nobles keen to carve up the vast Antequera estates. Against his better judgement, Alfonso found himself driven by Juan’s insistence that only force could save those estates and family domination in Castile. In the event the Castilian nobility did not rise in support of the invasion which turned into a disastrous rout. From his triumphant foes he could secure nothing but a truce which was renewed until it suited both parties to conclude a peace treaty in 1436. 12 The Tortosa assembly was a General Corts, a joint meeting of the Corts of Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia. 13 ‘infructuosa, vergonyosa e damnosa’. ACA 2692, 38. 14 ‘los vassals del dit Senyor . . . no se son moguts ne mostrats en aquests affers ab aquella arder que ell pensava, senyaladament los del principat de Cathalunya’. ACA 2692, 94.

22

The Coming Storm

persuaded him to take up residence in the Catalan capital and summon another session of the Corts to meet there in 1431. From that assembly Alfonso hoped to extract funds for a new expedition to Italy;15 the bait he offered was judicial reform, a cause dear to Catalan hearts. But it quickly became evident that their concepts of reform differed radically: what the Corts proposed Alfonso stigmatized as ‘a new ordering and complete transformation of justice’.16 Months of bluff and haggling delivered more modest results to the satisfaction of clergy and commons, and to the chagrin of the military order. What angered the latter, many of whom had pledged their lands as security for loans from urban financiers, was a provision which favoured creditors seeking to enforce payments due on annuities; debtors now faced the threat of coercion by militia action and even life imprisonment. On the other hand, as landowners the aristocracy benefited from royal assent to a law which permitted a lord to take possession of any remensa landholding abandoned for a year. One other major source of dissension between king and Corts arose over the appointment of the person who should represent the king in his absence. Alfonso had intended to entrust all his Spanish dominions to his eldest brother Juan, King of Navarre,17 but the Catalans made it quite clear that they had no wish to be governed by someone whom they regarded, with some justification, as obsessed by his Castilian ambitions. Impatient to be gone, the king surrendered to Catalan sensibilities and agreed to leave them their own viceroy in the person of his wife, the amiable, neurasthenic Queen Maria, while Juan took control of Aragon and Valencia. In return Alfonso collected an aid of 80,000 florins. On 23 May 1432, ‘with a few gentle words’,18 he took his leave of the Corts; three days later the royal galley bore him away from Barcelona on the Italian adventure from which he was never to return. If his Spanish subjects expected any profit from their investment in this new expedition, they were sorely disappointed. Alfonso took no advantage of a recent Venetian naval victory over the Genoese to pursue his claims in Corsica, nor could he prevent Louis of Anjou consolidating his position as heir 15

The experience of 1425 had convinced him that Castile offered no prospect of personal aggrandizement, whereas from Naples came a stream of inducements persuading him that he had good prospects of possessing that kingdom. Plans for a second Italian expedition had been thrown out of gear by the Castilian war of 1429. Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 149–50, 175–6. 16 ‘Ne per via de reparacio ne reformacio, mas per via de nova ordinacio de justicia e de alteracio total de aquella’. Cortes, xvii. 88. 17 Juan had married Blanche of Navarre, heiress to the throne of Navarre, and on the death of her father in 1425 became king of Navarre—another step in the family project to gather to itself the crowns of Spain. 18 ‘Ab dolces e breus paroles’. Cortes, xvii. 249.

A Widowed Land

23

apparent in Naples.19 Two brief forays against Tunisian territory ended ingloriously. Such a performance hardly justified the royal absence from Spain where the truce with Castile remained extremely fragile and noble unrest festered in Catalonia. While Juan urged his brother to return to face the former problem, Maria pleaded for his attention to the latter. People fear to travel ‘except in large groups because they are robbed, beaten, wounded and killed, and the penalties are trifling. If heavy punishment were imposed, everything would be remedied and put to rights, for fear would bring order in many things.’ ‘Have pity on this land’, she begged her husband.20 In reply Alfonso affirmed his approval of stern justice towards such malefactors; these were matters for the queen and her council, not a reason for his return. Meanwhile she should get rid of the troublesome Catalan Corts which he had earlier dubbed ‘useless and a waste of time’,21 meaning that it would neither cooperate with the government nor give it money. As for Castile, against the ill-concealed desire of his brothers for another trial of strength, he persisted with tortuous negotiations towards a prolonged truce and eventual peace. Much to the consternation of his Spanish subjects he also displayed no inclination to leave Sicily, a vantage point for the Neapolitan project, which had become the goal of all his ambition, and for possible further ventures against North Africa.22 Even the joint persuasion of his brothers, who travelled to Sicily for that purpose, failed to lure him away; instead, all three of them joined with him in the expedition designed to seize the Neapolitan prize when both Queen Giovanna and her designated heir, Louis of Anjou, died in 1435. In the power and riches of that kingdom, Alfonso sought to persuade them, lay the key to triumph in Castile. But instead of enlarging their freedom of action, the enterprise led to a disaster which made them yet more dependent upon Spanish goodwill. Defeated by a Genoese fleet at the battle of Ponza (5 August 1435), Alfonso, Juan, and Enrique along with dozens of Aragonese, Catalan, and Valencian nobles found themselves prisoners of the duke of Milan, overlord of Genoa. Loss of their king and many ships badly wounded the pride and confidence of his Spanish 19 The promises of support held out to him by a number of Neapolitan barons bore no fruit, so he made instead for Sicily to await developments in the chaotic scene of mainland politics. 20 ‘. . . sino en gran companyha car son robats, batuts, nafrats e morts, e les punicions son poques. E si un gran castich sich fahia, tot seria reparat e redreçat, car la temor arreglaria moltes coses . . . Senyor sie vostra merce haver pietat de aquesta terra.’ ACA, Reg. 3173, 7 (15 Dec. 1432). 21 ‘. . . inutil e perdicio de temps’. ACA 2688, 141 (15 Nov. 1433). 22 His attention was drawn in that direction by Sicilian claims to tribute from Tunis and by a number of crusading incentives (among them his father’s exploits in Granada and the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta), not least a papal aid of 100,000 florins for ‘crusade’.

24

The Coming Storm

subjects; they faced moreover the prospect of paying enormous sums to ransom the captives. It fell to Maria and her counsellors to rally them by summoning a general Cortes in the Aragonese town of Monzon.23 Within the unusually brief space of three months the Catalans agreed to a grant of 100,000 florins to equip a fleet destined to succour their monarch and, of course, fend off the Genoese.24 Well before the Cortes reached that decision (March 1436) it had become known that Alfonso and his brothers had been freed without ransom, and—far less welcome to Iberian ears—that the duke of Milan was helping the king to resume his Neapolitan campaign. Clearly no quick victory was in sight because Isabelle of Anjou had arrived in Naples to uphold the Angevin cause and her husband René, heir to his brother Louis’s claim on the Neapolitan throne, was rumoured to be on his way.25 Everything that happened in the year following the Ponza disaster had demonstrated Alfonso’s resolve to devote his person and all the resources he could muster to the prodigious task of conquering southern Italy. It was not an enterprise that commended itself to his Spanish subjects, least of all to the Catalans whose discontent, to the intense irritation of their sovereign, soon became noised abroad. He countered by appealing to their mercantile instincts: ‘The ancient enmity between Genoa and Aragon cannot possibly ever end without the destruction of one party’, and he had the enterprise against Genoa no less at heart than that in the kingdom.26 The plea met with little response. By the spring of 1437 it had become clear that the Catalan Corts refused to continue financing a fleet in Italian waters, ‘which had been the principal reason for convoking it’,27 except in return for the constitutional concessions Alfonso had previously refused as tantamount to ‘the total destruction and overthrow of his royal supremacy’.28 Equally uncompromising was a message from the counsellors of Barcelona urging that he should ‘return home 23 A general cortes brought together the assemblies of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia in one place in order to consider matters of common interest. 24 To put the Catalan aid into perspective it should be noted that the Cortes of Aragon later that year voted a subsidy of 220,000 florins, the largest ever given by that kingdom. 25 At the time of Louis’s death René was a prisoner of the duke of Burgundy; his wife, Isabelle, accordingly assumed the leadership of the Angevin party in Naples. 26 ‘. . . la inimicia antiga [sc. between Genoa and Aragon] no seria may possible poderse cessar sense gran destruccio dela una part’, and the enterprise against Genoa, ‘lo dit Senyor no te menys a cor que aquella del Reyalme’. ACA, Reg. 2649, 21 (8 May 1436). 27 ‘. . . pus de les Corts de Catalunya no se spera algun fruyt e bona conclusion de fer armada contra Genova per la qual cosa era stada principal intencio del dit senyor de convocar aquelles . . .’ ACA 2695, 67 (15 May 1437). 28 ‘. . . sens total destruccio e abatiment dela sua preeminencia reyal . . .’ ACA 2695, 80 (3 Aug. 1437).

A Widowed Land

25

quickly, for presiding over the Corts he would achieve greater and better things than in pursuing that enterprise’.29 So concerned did the king become at the damage inflicted on his reputation by such patent opposition that in August 1437 he sent his senior chaplain, the abbot of Santes Creus, to remonstrate with the Corts and the counsellors of Barcelona. Reports of dissension had, he contended, encouraged the Genoese in their onslaught on Catalan shipping and commerce with dire consequences for the principality. Playing further on the theme of self-interest, he suggested that Barcelona send ships to the Levant in order to intercept Genoese merchantmen which sailed those waters without the protection given them in the western Mediterranean.30 Earlier he had first mooted the idea that the Catalans should be encouraged to build very large vessels, both because it would be commercially advantageous to them in competing with the Genoese, and because he needed such ships to confront his enemies.31 Months later he was still having to appeal to Catalan pride and pockets against their ‘disastrous inclination’.32 Had their forebears been so unforthcoming, Majorca, Sardinia, and Sicily would never have been won. Genoa, though inferior in power and population, did not hesitate to bear the cost of far-off conquest, even in the Orient. Already his subjects were reaping the fruits of his labour in the newly won city of Gaeta, ‘an exceptional port, famed throughout Italy, close to Rome and its patrimony, and to many other regions; a main centre for trade in Italy’.33 As for the whole kingdom, ‘they should think how much merchandise comes from there, how much might be opened to those kingdoms (sc. in Spain)’,34 once it was in his hands. All to no avail; the Catalans were determined to voice their ill-concealed misgivings and Alfonso met with scant success in his efforts to head them off by insisting that if they wished to send an embassy to him it must make a public statement supporting his enterprise whatever they might say privately. Maria was accordingly instructed to dissolve the Corts and ensure that it sent no delegation to the king, unless it brought some money. Heedless of such admonitions and angered by the dismissal of the Corts, in July 1438 Barcelona dispatched a mission which, to the king’s face, damned his Italian ambition as 29 ‘. . . degues repatriar prest que president en les dites Corts faria maiors e millors coses que proseguint la dita empresa . . .’ ACA 2695, 110 (May 1437). 30 31 ACA 2695, 87 (4 Aug. 1437). ACA 2695, 40 (4 Jan. 1437). 32 ‘sinistre intencio . . .’ ACA 2695, 111 (n.d. Nov. 1437). 33 ‘. . . notable port singular e famos en tota Italia, vesi a Roma e a son patrimoni e a moltes parts altres e scala principal en Italia de mercaderia’. Ibid. 34 ‘. . . deven pensar quanta mercaderia hix de aquell, quanta sen desempatxa de sos regnes dalli . . .’ Ibid.

26

The Coming Storm

‘most elusive, full of snares’, warning that it must end in disaster and dishonour should he not abandon it forthwith.35 Catalan disquiet over the Italian adventure affected clerics as well as laymen. Despite his father’s repudiation of Benedict XIII, Alfonso had kept the Schism alive until 1429 solely in the interest of his Neapolitan ambition. A brief rapprochement with Rome brought him various benefits, including large subsidies paid by the clergy of his Spanish states,36 but not the investiture of the Neapolitan kingdom which was technically a papal fief. He thereupon turned to schism in another form by adhering to the Council of Basle which was locked in confrontation with Pope Eugenius IV.37 Catalan prelates and abbots, with those from Aragon and Valencia, were coerced to attend the council; relations with Rome were severed and sanctions imposed upon anyone who challenged the breach. Doubts raised, even within the queen’s council, Alfonso brushed aside: ‘They should not be unaware that his royal forebears and he himself on occasion, in matters touching the reformation, good and benefit of the universal church, have been used to exercise authority over the clergy, as by law they are justly entitled to do; and in such cases they are not bound to observe constitutions and privileges.’38 Any who questioned that authority were to be sacked from the council. In the face of such sentiments the opinion gained ground that the king’s real intention was to secure a free hand over church appointments and pocket ecclesiastical revenues. There arose a great ‘muttering’ that this was ‘a new breach through which to impoverish the land and to extract from it that little money which is now left’. Subjects already discontented with royal policy in the temporal sphere should not, the queen warned her husband, be offended over matters spiritual.39 35 ‘. . . molt esquivada, que és ple de molts laços . . .’ J. M. Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros barceloneses en la corte de Nápoles de Alfonso V de Aragón, 1435–1458 (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1963), 192. 36 W. Küchler, Die finanzen der Krone Aragon während des 15 Jahrhunderts (Alfons V und Johann II.) (Münster: Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, 1983); Catalan trans., Les finances de la Corona d’Aragó al segle xv (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1997), ch. 4. 37 A. Black, Council and Commune: The Conciliar Movement and the Council of Basle (London: Burns & Oates, 1979). 38 ‘No deven ignorar com los reys sos predecessors e ell en son temps en les coses que toquen reformacio, be e utilitat dela sglesia universal indistinctament han acostumat segons per dret justament poden fer exercir potestat en lo clero, ne en tal cas es subject a servar constitucions o furs.’ ACA 2695, 109 (n.d. Nov. 1437). 39 ‘. . . un gran murmurament e dien les gents que aquest es novell forat pera dapauperar tot lo regne e traure aquella poca moneda que vuy hic resta. . . . deve considerar sa longa absencia e no donar occasio a sos subdits e vassalls que ab raho se puscen descontentar de sa senyoria ja que en lo temporal son massa descontents almenys non sien en lo spiritual.’ ACA 2695, 141 (20 June 1440).

A Widowed Land

27

Friends and foe alike rightly saw the fall of the city of Naples in June 1442 as a defining moment in the protracted war; already Alfonso had the greater part of the kingdom in his hands and could expect the remainder to submit without serious resistance. Anticipation of his return to Spain accordingly sprang to life anew, fostered in part by his own assurances. The more wary might, however, have noted two conditions signalled as early as August 1442 for the benefit of Barcelona: the first was the need to secure the Neapolitan kingdom in his absence; the second stressed his obligation to settle huge debts accumulated in Italy. What could not be made common knowledge was his fear of being dragged by his brothers into the maelstrom of Castile’s civil wars. And what he could not, at that moment, have foreseen was the well-nigh insoluble problem of extricating himself from the entanglements of Italian war and diplomacy. Together these constraints, reinforced by an unmistakable appreciation of Italian culture, were to keep him away from Spain for the remainder of his life. Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca all trembled under the seismic shift of central authority from Spain to Italy. Very quickly they understood that the revenues regularly available to Alfonso from the kingdom of Naples far exceeded the sums he could with difficulty extract from his western realms. Subsequent development of their ruler’s appetite for further acquisitions in Italy, eastwards to the Balkans, the Levant, and even Hungary, only strengthened convictions that Antequera imperialism was relegating its Spanish lands to a subsidiary role. Injured pride and fear of an uncertain future undoubtedly played a part in unremitting efforts by all these states to reverse this shift by bringing back the king. His repeated procrastinations opened a gulf between the dynasty and subjects, a gulf which Alfonso’s presumptive heir Juan, inextricably linked with Castilian ambitions, could not bridge. Nowhere was the alienation more marked than among the Catalans who found their former paramountcy facing an additional menace nearer at home from the rising prosperity of Valencia. A buoyant economy together with shrewd political dealing enabled the southern kingdom to reap great mercantile advantage from the conquest of Naples and to secure a disproportionate share of offices in the court and administration which Alfonso established in his new capital. His ostentatious preference for Valencia exhibited in earlier years was thus continued from afar; hence the advice to Maria in 1442 that she should hold the Corts of Valencia before those of Catalonia because they were likelier to reach a speedy and satisfactory conclusion. Barcelona had voiced its disquiet over a perceived discrimination against its citizens in royal appointments as early as 1437. ‘In that city it is said that he

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The Coming Storm

does not love the people of Barcelona, and that this is shown by the fact that in his household its citizens enjoy no offices or favour’. To which Alfonso replied: ‘This is not from any fault on his part because he is not accustomed to make any distinction of nationality, but whoever is best disposed to serve him, that person he has preferred, whether he be Aragonese, Catalan or Valencian, or even a foreigner. But they themselves have avoided his service, and he doesn’t know why.’ Let them come forward and they would find favour and employment.40 The complaint somewhat misrepresented the facts—several members of the court and royal bureaucracy, including the powerful chief secretary, Arnau Fonolleda, were sons of Barcelona—but Valencians did hold posts disproportionate to their number.41 More significantly, it voiced a feeling of alienation among the upper urban class of Catalonia which saw advancement heaped upon its Valencian rivals. The remaining years of Alfonso’s reign saw growing strain between the crown and its Catalan subjects. In 1442 he instructed his treasurer, Matteu Pujades, to ensure that the Catalans did not use rumours of a French invasion to lay hands on the funds of the Generalitat ‘in order to distribute them in the city of Barcelona and make things better there’.42 Barcelona’s counsellors, so the king complained to the city’s envoy in 1443, ‘had never given him anything but trouble’.43 Undeterred, the city continued to solicit his return, dispatching two leading citizens to Naples in 1444 for that purpose. They soon perceived that, despite fair words, he had no intention of quitting Italy, and that, whatever praises he might lavish on Barcelona in public, privately he regarded its citizens as obstructive skinflints. ‘He marvelled much at that city which, however great his need was seen to be, had never been willing to come to his aid with a penny, or even a halfpenny, but had always wanted to bargain and haggle with him.’44 40 ‘. . . en aquella ciudat se diria que no amava los de barchinona, e demostrasse por esto que en su casa no han havido lugar, officios ni favour los ciudadanos de aquella . . . aquesto no ha sido culpa suya, por quanto no ha acostumbrado fazer specialidat de naciones mas quien millor se ha dispuesto a servirlo, aquell ha avançado asi de aragoneses, cathalanes como valencianos, e encara estrangeros. Mas que ellos mesmos se son lunyados de su servicio, e no sabe porque.’ ACA 2695, 118 (22 Dec. 1437). 41 For an analysis of the personnel of the royal court and administration see Ryder, Kingdom of Naples. Also E. and J. M. Cruselles, ‘Valencianos en la corte napolitana de Alfonso el Magnánimo’, XVI CHCA (Naples: Comune di Napoli, 2000), i. 875–98. 42 ‘. . . per donar occasion de distribuir aquelles en la ciutat de Barcelona e per ferne millor la condicio de aquella . . .’ ACA 2652 (13 Sept. 1442). 43 ‘. . . clamantse al acustumat dels honorables consellers de aquexa ciutat, que nuncha li fan sino enuigs’. Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 229 (15 May 1443). 44 ‘E que’s meravella molt de aquexa ciutat, qui nunque per gran necessitate en que l’haie vist lo havie volgut soccorrer de un diner, ne de malla, ans tostemps havie volgut mercadeiar e primeiar ab ell.’ Ibid. 261 (11 June 1444).

A Widowed Land

29

Joan Margarit, bishop of Elna, a cleric noted for his loyalty to the crown, eloquently voiced the Catalan point of view when he addressed the Corts in Barcelona on 6 October 1454: This is Catalonia, that once fortunate, glorious and most faithful nation which in the past was feared by land and by sea; that which with its loyal and valiant sword has spread the empire and lordship of the house of Aragon; that conqueror of the Balearic isles, of the kingdoms of Mallorca and Valencia, expelling the enemies of the Christian faith; that Catalonia which has conquered those great Italian islands, Sicily and Sardinia . . . that Catalonia which has put to flight and brought to total perdition diverse neighbouring kings of France, Spain and others . . . Now it is seen totally ruined and lost through the absence of its glorious prince and lord, the lord king. Behold it bereft of all strength, honour and ecclesiastical jurisdiction; powerful barons and knights are ruined; cities and towns, corrupting the commonweal, are torn apart; knights’ steeds have become mules; widows, orphans and children seek vainly for consolation; corsairs and pirates plunder the ports and roam through all the seas. Thus the Catalan nation lies as if she were a widow, and with the prophet Jeremiah weeps for her desolation and awaits someone to console her.45

After much deliberation this same Corts offered Alfonso an enormous sum— 400,000 florins—collectable only after the errant monarch had once again set foot on Catalan soil. Time and again he contrived to extend the deadline attached to this offer, always holding out the promise that he would soon embark. In December 1457, only six months before his death, Barcelona’s envoy in Naples could still report, ‘without question it is believed the king will be there [sc. in Catalonia] this coming spring. Pray God it may be so.’46 45

R. Albert and J. Gassiot (eds.), Parlaments a les Corts Catalanes (Barcelona: Editorial Barcino, 1928), 209–10. These words were directed to the king’s brother, Juan, acting as his locumtenens at the opening session of the Corts which had been summoned to grant an aid to finance the king’s return. 46 ‘. . . se creu indubitadament lo senyor rey serà aquesta primavera aqui. Placie a Déus que axi sia.’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 612 (12 Dec. 1457). The writer, Pere Boquet, did, however, make it clear that all depended on a successful outcome of the king’s campaign to install a friendly regime in Genoa. To others Alfonso was at the same time proclaiming his intention to lead a crusade against the Turks.

4 A Clamorous Peasantry The dominant class in town and country had agitated for Alfonso’s return in order that they might reassert their influence over the crown; the lower orders had anticipated the appearance of a champion in their struggles with that same dominant class. Prominent among the latter was a peasantry chafing under the irksome burdens imposed by lay and clerical landlords. Most resented were the mals usos borne by peasants known as remensas. Although not subject to personal servitude, these remensa peasants who numbered between 15,000 and 20,000 and who were found mainly in northern Catalonia, were tied to the land and subjected by their lords to a host of exactions, restrictions, and obligations known as the mals usos which had been introduced by the Catalan Corts in 1283 to check a flight into the towns.1 The freer, and more prosperous, majority of peasants were seeking personal freedom—the right to move when and where they chose—and an end to a seigneurial drive to reclaim abandoned farms (masos morts) and turn the peasants living there into short-term tenants. In poorer areas remensas had raised a demand for possession of the land, and hence the abolition of their annual rents (cens). All found cause for grievance in the judicial powers that a cash-strapped monarchy had alienated to landlords over a long period, and which effectively denied them access to royal justice. Any amelioration of their lot must come, they were convinced, not from the institutions of Catalonia, entirely dominated by their adversaries, but from a crown which found itself often at odds with those same institutions. An alliance between crown and remensas had first become apparent in 1402 when the queen of Aragon wrote letters to Pope Benedict XIII in which she described the peasant plight as ‘the worst, most oppressive and mean state and condition suffered in this world by men oppressed by the yoke of servitude’ and ‘a disgrace

1

Freedman, Origins of Peasant Servitude, chs. 4 and 5, and p. 199 for a discussion of the mals usos and attitudes to them in the 15th cent.

A Clamorous Peasantry

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to the Catalan nation’.2 Because a majority of remensas lived on ecclesiastical estates, she hoped, with papal backing, to persuade the clergy to commute the mals usos into a fixed rent; lay proprietors would then necessarily have to follow suit. In return each remensa household would offer the crown four florins—some 60,000–80,000 florins in total. (Any privilege granted by the crown came, it must be remembered, with a price-tag attached.) However, the clergy proving recalcitrant, the project progressed no further. Forty years later the peasant question was brought back to life as the result of a government drive to boost its revenue by recovering alienated estates and jurisdiction.3 Lacking the funds needed for that purpose, the crown had to rely upon the readiness of those living in such places to pay the price of redemption, a burden that most were willing to bear in order to escape feudal lordship. Their masters proved unsurprisingly hostile and endeavoured to forbid or obstruct moves to organize collective action towards that end. In response, royal officials in Catalonia received an instruction that those living in places sold or pledged by the crown were to be permitted to hold meetings for the purpose of restoring their royal desmesne status on condition that such gatherings numbered no more than ten persons.4 Thus came into being a new phenomenon of peasant syndicates which gave formal and permanent status to their assemblies. There followed swiftly, in January 1445, a declaration that jurisdiction over the persons and property of all knights and gentlemen belonged to the king who therefore claimed cognizance of any action brought against them by any party:5 this in order to forestall the claim that the crown had no standing in a dispute between lords and peasants. Most lords persisted nonetheless in maintaining that claim, among them Ramon de Sanminato who, in November 1446, was charged with trying to force the population of Santiga to abandon the syndicate formed to defend their rights. Such behaviour, together with other acts of oppression, was construed as a usurpation of royal jurisdiction and hence an offence of high treason.6 The abbot of Montserrat in 1449 adopted a more conciliatory approach by asking the queen 2 ‘. . . el estado y condición peores, más opresivos y viles que sufren en el mundo hombres oprimidos por el yugo de la servidumbre . . . infamia de la nación catalana’. J. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas (en el siglo xv), new edn. (Barcelona: Ediciones Vicens-Vives, 1978), 46–7. 3 The crown had evinced some sympathy for remensa aspirations during the 1420s. For this and Queen Maria’s part in the subsequent controversy over redemption see T. Earenfight, ‘The political dynamic between the Aragonese monarchy and the Consell de Cent of Barcelona during the lieutenancy of Maria of Castile (1440–1458)’, XVII CHCA (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2003), iii. 245–64. 4 5 6 ACA 3193, 12 (23 Dec. 1444). Ibid. 25. ACA 3197, 45 (16 Nov. 1446).

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The Coming Storm

to arbitrate between him and his vassals in Olesa. It was however thought necessary to give him a warning: ‘take care not to mistreat the people for you will thereby gain nothing but reproach’.7 Bolstered by encouragement from on high, the movement for redemption swiftly gained momentum.8 In February 1447 the Generalitat noted a widespread gathering of remensa syndicates in Empordà, a region dominated by the see of Girona whose bishop ranked among the most obdurate enemies of the remensa cause.9 That same year appeared in their midst Pere de Besalú, Conservator of the Royal Patrimony, charged by Alfonso with verifying all titles to possession of royal desmesne and arranging their redemption.10 His earlier activities in the kingdom of Valencia had given the landowners of Catalonia ample warning of what to expect. Without delay the Corts, acting as their mouthpiece, dispatched an envoy to Naples bearing a denunciation of this ‘outrageous man, a great inciter of unrest, a detestable scoundrel’,11 together with demands for his replacement by someone who would act in accordance with the ‘laws of the land’ (that is to say, in their interest), and the revocation of the permission granted for meetings of their underlings. They protested too against ‘abuses’ by the sagramentals, armed companies of peasants and artisans created by the monarchy in the previous century to counter the violence of nobles; companies which occasionally allowed the lower classes to vent their feelings in attacks on the property of nobles and bourgeoisie. To all of these concerns Alfonso returned non-committal answers, concerns rendered still more ineffectual by his decision in May 1448 to dissolve the Corts which had voiced them. Meanwhile the formation of syndicates had so far advanced that on 2 June 1448 four representatives, speaking for all communities seeking redemption, were able to offer Queen Maria 64,000 florins in return for royal backing for their cause. Alfonso’s attitude in these matters was governed partly by antipathy towards the Catalan Corts, partly by a need for money to finance his Italian ambitions, 7 ‘guardauvos de maltractar lu gent car vos noy guanyarieu res sino carrech’. ACA 3201, 133 (20 Feb. 1449). 8 Sobrequés i Vidal (La guerra civil, i. 42) gives a random list of nineteen places in northern Catalonia which between 1445 and 1453 lodged formal demands for redemption. 9 Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 50. 10 For the office of Conservator General and de Besalu see Ryder, Kingdom of Naples, 206–10, and C. Batlle, ‘Colaboradores catalanes de Alfonso el Magnánimo en Nápoles’, IX CHCA (Naples: Società Napoletana di Storia Patria, 1978), ii. 73. 11 ‘home scandalós, gran inventor de novitats, scelerat, detestable . . .’ S. Sobreques i Vidal, ‘Política remensa de Alfonso el Magnánimo en los últimos años de su reinado (1447–1458)’, Anales del Instituto de Estudios Gerundenses (1960), 8.

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and perhaps above all by the advice received from two trusted servants, Besalú and Galceran de Requesens. The latter had already embarked on a career which was to have a profound influence in the stormy course of Catalan history. The Requesens, a noble family from Tarragona, began their spectacular ascent in royal service when Galceran’s father ranged himself with the Trastámar faction during the interregnum and was subsequently rewarded with the office of governor-general in Catalonia.12 Galceran followed him at an early age, first as batlle general of the principality, a post which swiftly brought him into conflict with the counsellors of Barcelona over their respective jurisdictions. That first contest culminated with the city authorities throwing him into prison, and thus sealing an antagonism which was to breed untold calamities. With the crown, on the contrary, his credit remained unshaken, as evidenced by his subsequent appointment as governor of Minorca where he curbed the power of municipal factions by introducing a system of election by lot. At the same time he and his brother Bernat advanced further in Alfonso’s favour by serving him with their galleys in the Neapolitan campaign.13 On its conclusion, Galceran returned in triumph to Catalonia as its governor-general. The enemies of this ‘malefactor’ strove mightily to curb his authority, and with some success on the part of Barcelona, for its envoys obtained in 1444 from a cash-strapped king a privilege which allowed its counsellors to summon the governor-general to the city and send him packing at their pleasure. Over the next few years they made full use of this power to harass and humiliate Requesens. On the other hand, Requesens succeeded in persuading the king to revoke an earlier privilege that subjected any exercise of the governor-general’s civil and criminal jurisdiction within the city and its vicariate to the participation and approval of the counsellors. Also, hostility to the royal official was far from universal: large numbers of inhabitants, probably a majority outside the ranks of the ‘honoured citizens’, looked to Requesens as an ally in their struggle to break the monopoly of power exercised by that small oligarchy in the government of Barcelona. Besalú had returned to Italy from Spain in the summer of 1447 well-briefed on the attitudes of the parties involved in the campaign to recover alienated crown prerogatives. Requesens sailed from Barcelona to join the king in March 1448, in time to gain further royal favour by playing a prominent part in an abortive siege of Piombino, and further hardened in his antagonism to the 12 For the Requesens family, see Sobrequés i Vidal, ‘Entorn del llinatge dels Requesens’, in idem, Societat i estructura política de la Girona medieval (Barcelona: Curial, 1975). 13 Galceran was one of the few to escape capture in the disaster at Ponza.

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The Coming Storm

Barcelona oligarchy by its last-minute attempt to prohibit his departure.14 There can be little doubt that he had much to do with the royal decision to dissolve the Corts, and with the directive, issued on 1 July 1448, which authorized gatherings of remensa peasants no more than fifty in number and in the presence of a royal official for the purpose of electing syndics who would collect the sum of 100,000 florins now offered to the crown as the price of redemption from the mals usos. Because Alfonso desperately needed the money to pay for supplies in his war against Florence, the process was to be pushed ahead with all speed.15 ‘Pray see to the speedy dispatch of the affairs of the remensas’, he wrote to Maria in September 1448, ‘so that they may obtain due execution of the provisions and letters which they have obtained from us permitting them to form a syndicate, after the legalisation of which they are to pay Bertran Crexells the above-mentioned sum.’16 On 14 October 1448 Maria replied that the remensas had duly signed an undertaking to pay Crexells 36,000 florins one month after their syndicate had been formed.17 Organized gatherings of peasants began in the autumn in the teeth of opposition and dire warnings from the Diputació del General and the municipal council of Barcelona voiced directly but fruitlessly both to Maria and Alfonso.18 Individuals, such as the bishop of Girona, threatened their tenants with penal consequences. However, by January 1449 organization of the remensas had advanced to the stage where the queen was able to fix the payment due from each household at 3 florins, to be raised by a levy of one-twelfth on annual produce. On 27 February 1449 the king wrote to Jofre d’Ortigues and other jurists engaged in the remensa process to assure them of his support, telling them to press ahead ‘taking no heed of any protests, demands or menaces whatsoever . . . on the part of the diputats of Catalonia’.19 To his wife he maintained that no one could claim to suffer by the 14 Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 283. The reason for his journey was to defend himself against charges, probably trumped up by his enemies, that he had received more than his approved salary and that he had engaged in piracy. ACA 2656, 94 (15 Jan. 1448). For Alfonso’s Tuscan campaign which culminated in an abortive siege of Piombino see Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 278–80. 15 By dissolving the Corts Alfonso had forfeited the 50,000 florins it had promised for the hire of a thousand crossbowmen whom he wanted for his Tuscan campaign. 16 ‘Vullats donar orde e manera e tota expedicio als afers dels dits homens de rehemença que obtinguen la deguda execucio deles provisions e letres que de nos han obtengudes per que puxen fer lo sindicat après la ferma del qual han a pagar al dit bertran crexells la dessusdita quantitat.’ ACA 2657, 75 (7 Sept. 1448). The sum in question (25,495 ducats) was owed to Crexells, a merchant of Perpignan. 17 ACA 3203, 11 (14 Oct. 1448). 18 Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 20. The ultimate goal of the peasants, they predicted, was to take control of the Corts on the grounds that they constituted the majority of the population. 19 ‘. . . no curant de qualsevol protestes o requestes ne menaces per part dels diputats de Cathalunya’. ACA 2655, 53 (27 Feb. 1449).

A Clamorous Peasantry

35

administration of justice to the remensas. ‘This attempt by the diputats to block this business comes from nothing but the private interest of some of them who have held and still hold peasants in the servitude of the mals usos.’20 Further trouble over the issue might be expected from the Catalan Corts which the queen-regent had reconvoked in January 1449: let it be held in abeyance, he instructed, until the remensas had delivered at least 36,000 florins, the sum needed to meet Crexells’s bill of exchange.21 A letter addressed at the same time to the counsellors of Barcelona declared that kingship and lordship existed to administer justice, ‘so that the poor may be treated equally with the rich, the lowly with the great’.22 Thus far had Alfonso held firm in the face of a storm of protest and warnings that his policy towards the remensas would unleash a revolutionary spirit among the Catalan peasantry, even a ‘diabolical’ plot to betray the principality to the French. He proved a little less steadfast against another tactic deployed by the diputats: the suggestion of a financial deal. When first it was put to him, in February 1449, he had indignantly rejected the idea as one which went clean against ‘our interest and honour’, adding however the qualification ‘unless it becomes plainly apparent that the peasants are guilty of a grave default’.23 Queen Maria likewise indignantly repudiated rumours that she was party to such proposals, rumours put about, she asserted, in order to undermine peasant confidence.24 But financial exigency and social justice did not necessarily go in harness. Nor did every official share the views of Requesens, Besalú and Joan de Montbui, who was acting as governor-general of Catalonia in Requesens’s absence. Perot Mercader, the treasurer-general, whose responsibility it was to gather the remensa monies, displayed far more interest in a tidy transaction that would enable him promptly to discharge Crexells’s bill. After meeting the diputats in Perpignan, Crexells’s home town, he forwarded to the king on 13 March 1449 their offer to furnish 36,000 florins without delay in return for a halt to the remensa process.25 Although complaining of Mercader’s lack of zeal in pursuing the remensa collection, and suspecting that he wanted to strike a 20

‘Et aquesta empresa dels dits diputats de empatxar aquests negocis no es alter que lo propri interes que alguns dells hi han que alguns dels dits pagesos han detenguts e detenen en la dita servitut dels mals usos.’ ACA 2655, 54 (1 Mar. 1449). 21 In the event, the opening was delayed for more than a year, until Mar. 1450. 22 ‘. . . que aixi egualment sie tractat lo pobre com lo rich e lo chich com lo gran’. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 54. 23 ‘Nons par en aço dejau per res condescendre com no se pusca ne deia fer per lo interes e honor nostre . . . sens que constas notoriament los dits pageses esser en gran culpa e defecte.’ To the Treasurer-General, ACA 2719, 88 (25 Feb. 1449). 24 25 ACA 3203, 45 (26 Feb. 1449). ACA 2719, 90 (13 Mar. 1449).

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The Coming Storm

bargain with the diputats, Alfonso did authorize him to treat with them if the peasants failed to produce the funds in time to meet the bill.26 Maria openly denounced Mercader to her husband as one of the fomenters of opposition who ‘have put this principality in so great a confusion and turbulence as was never seen in past generations: may God forgive them’.27 In the event neither threats nor blandishments deterred the champions of reform; the acting governor-general laid an embargo on the estates of his principal antagonists; the queen took similar action against the bishop of Girona, placing his peasantry under royal protection and warning the civic authorities of Girona not to heed his invitation to join with the clergy in opposition to the crown; an investigation was ordered into the archbishop of Tarragona’s claim that there were no remensas in his diocese; the viscount of Illa and Canet saw his jurisdiction sequestered for refusing to obey a royal order to grant safeconducts to vassals who claimed to be remensas.28 Pressure had also to be exerted on the peasants and collectors to fulfil their side of the bargain. With the return of Requesens in April 1449 the tide turned still more strongly against the opponents of reform. He came armed with powers to sequestrate the jurisdiction of anyone who refused to give assurances against maltreatment to the remensas, in effect imposing an interim moratorium on the mals usos. Sequestration was also threatened against those who, having given the assurance, failed to have their peasants pay the 3 florin levy. Finally, the same fate awaited any lord proved to have gone into hiding to avoid the summons.29 With Requesens came ‘letters of fire’ from the king ordering collection of the levy to go ahead ‘with great speed and vigour, notwithstanding any offers whatsoever made to his majesty by diputats or others, but rather, ‘putting them aside, let this matter be pursued with much zeal and devotion as the dearest there is’.30 Before that display of resolution the diputats had already begun to retreat; on 7 May 1449 they had instructed their procurator in the county of Empuries to permit the remensa tax to go ahead in the lands of the Diputació.31 The viscount of Illa and Canet too gave way. But in other quarters the struggle continued: still the counsellors of Barcelona resisted the levy, paid 26

ACA 2719, 89 (10 Apr. 1449). ‘. . . han posat aquest Principat en gran bullicio et turbacio, en que may los antichs ho veren; Deu los ho perdo’ (30 Apr. 1449). Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 53. 28 29 ACA 3203, 37 (8 Feb. 1449). ACA 3203, 63 (16 Apr. 1449). 30 ‘. . . ab gran forç e calor, no obstants qualsevol offertes fets a sa magestat per diputats ne altres, ans aconortantse de aquelles, abraç aquest fet ab tanta gelosia e amor com la pus cara cosa que haia.’ ACA 3203, 97 (7 June 1449). 31 The county had passed into the hands of the Diputació as security for a loan to the crown. 27

A Clamorous Peasantry

37

lawyers handsome sums to defend their cause, and waged a campaign of intimidation against those working for the crown with the remensas; other lords, lay and clerical, obstructed as much as they were able. Some peasants too, the very poor and those with more radical ideas, voiced opposition to paying for abolition of the mals usos; some, like those on the count of Cardona’s estates, disputed their remensa status and hence their obligation to contribute to the levy. To quell that resistance Requesens embarked on a progress through Catalonia supervising collection either in collaboration with the remensa syndics, or on his own initiative when necessary, with the result that by the end of 1449 18,000 remensa households out of an estimated 20,000 had been registered in the syndicate. The next step was for that syndicate to bring a suit in the royal court against those exercising the mals usos on the grounds that they were illegal. This it did in December 1449. Treating the matter as a civil suit, the court on 21 January 1450 summoned the lords of the remensas to answer the plea. Now the lords, like the remensas, had to come together to defend their case. An issue of fundamental concern to them both had brought an oligarchy of landowners into open conflict with a substantial body of peasants. Why had the crown favoured the peasant cause? Alfonso liked to present the issue as one of conscience and justice, but it is hardly possible to disentangle it from his hardened antipathy to the ruling class of Catalonia and the institutions which that class had frequently manipulated to frustrate him. Ensconced in the kingdom of Naples, he could afford to be more robust in his dealings with the Catalan oligarchy; those whom he trusted to advise him on Catalan affairs certainly desired to strengthen the crown and its servants against their declared personal enemies. Bernat Joan de Cabrera, viscount of Cabrera and count of Mòdica, took it upon himself to organize the lords; they adopted a tactic of refusing to acknowledge the existence of the remensa plea, and hence returned no answer to the summons. To bolster their position they denied that the crown had any judicial standing in the question and also demanded that their remensa vassals acknowledge their obligations. Barcelona based its defiance on a declaration (5 February 1450) that the crown’s action violated the Constitutions of Catalonia. The Corts, inaugurated in Perpignan in March 1450, reiterated the objections raised by its predecessor and subsequently by the diputats; it went on to lay the blame for any trouble that might ensue upon the queen’s advisers. In August it sent ambassadors to Naples in an effort to have the remensa process halted; others from Barcelona had preceded them in June to demand inter alia restoration of the city’s control over Terrassa, Sabadell, and Montcada,

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suspended by the governor Requesens in retaliation for its obstruction of the remensa proceedings. Warned in advance by the queen that these delegations were on their way, Alfonso had assured her that he would not budge from his determination to do justice, and that he approved her reply to the protest from the Corts, although, in his opinion, it merited something ‘harsher . . . for a repudiation of our court and judgement by our vassals ought not to be well received’. His council had agreed that the king or his locumtenens was the proper judge in the remensa case; he therefore ordered Maria to issue a declaration in that sense and then proceed to judgement.32 When the Corts’ envoys reached Italy their request for a stay in proceedings met with a blank refusal; Alfonso replied ‘that he would not do it, because it would be an unjust provision and contrary to the interest of one party, for he could not deny justice’.33 Barcelona’s men fared a little better thanks to the influence of the count of Cocentayna and Arnau Fonolleda, the king’s principal secretary and a scion of the Barcelona establishment: it recovered its baronies even though the queen had sent her own secretary to argue against it. That success perhaps encouraged a belief that a decision favourable to the masters could more easily be extracted from the king than from the queen and her advisers, and hence led to redoubled efforts to induce Alfonso to return to Spain. Nervousness among the upper levels of Catalan society intensified that summer when the peasantry of Majorca exploded into violence against landowners and the burgers of the island’s capital.34 ‘You can imagine’, the counsellors of Barcelona wrote to their envoys in Naples, ‘how much these things have perturbed our spirits, for they are a portent of great misfortune, and if proper provision is not made to deal with them, it must be expected that great difficulties will follow because thunder and lightning are the precursors of approaching rain.’35 Their fears were not entirely without foundation; incidents of remensa violence had already occurred on the very doorstep of Barcelona where, at Sant 32 ‘. . . pus aspra . . . car declinar nostre for e iuhi no deu esser be pres en nostres vassalls’. ACA 2655, 74 (3 May 1450). 33 ‘. . . que no u faria, com fos injusta provisió e contraris interessos de part, car no podia denegar justicia’. Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 324 (4 Sept. 1450). 34 G. Morro, Mallorca a mitjan segle xv: el sindicat i l’alçament forà (Palma: Edicions Documenta Balear, 1997). 35 ‘E podets pensar . . . en quanta turbació són estats nostres coratges de aquestes coses com sien senyal de gran infortuni, e si no s’i fa provisió deguda, se n’speren seguir grans inconvenients, car los lamps e trons són primicies de esdevenidora pluya.’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 316 (14 Aug. 1450). They passed on the rumour that the Majorcan insurgents intended to share out the wives, daughters, and goods of their enemies.

A Clamorous Peasantry

39

Andreu, the veguer of the city had fought with an angry crowd of peasants.36 But had the unrest assumed serious dimensions it would assuredly have formed a major plank in their campaign to halt the redemption process. Their own behaviour, on the contrary, continued in an intemperate vein. In August 1450 the queen had to act against those who ‘from their private prejudice, or at the instigation of others who are aggrieved by the remensa business, speak and spread abroad words which are exceedingly rash and derogatory to the honour of the king and ourselves, and a confusion to that business’.37 Royal officials were ambushed and otherwise intimidated. The most unrestrained behaviour of all was exhibited by Arnau Roger, count of Pallars. Against his vassals, who had formed syndicates to redeem alienated jurisdiction, he unleashed a wave of violence. A notary went around coercing them into signing declarations against redemption. Those who refused could expect to share the fate of the Vall de Cardos where some fifty armed retainers of the count descended by night to shouts of ‘Death’ and ‘Fire’, drove out the terrified inhabitants naked and half-dressed, and carried off animals, property, and prisoners to the count’s castle. Having established in a general assembly that the men of the county were in favour of redemption (‘they cried with one voice that we want redemption’),38 and having failed to persuade Arnau Roger to appear to answer the charges against him, the court ordered Requesens in August 1450 to take possession of the county. Thus had a large element of the Catalan peasantry become locked in bitter conflict with the powers, spiritual and temporal, which exercised lordship over them, while the latter saw its absent monarch as an avowed antagonist. 36

Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 58. ‘. . . alguns homens per passio propia o induccio daltres qui han enuig del negoci deles remences . . . parlarien e publicarien algunes paraules assats temeraries e derogatories al honor del senyor rey e nostra e perturbatants del negoci’. ACA 3199, 90 (14 Aug. 1450). 38 ‘. . . cridat una veu que volem la luycio’. ACA 3203, 180 (3 Aug. 1450). 37

5 Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga By this time another thread of tension had been woven into Catalan unrest. It was spun in Barcelona when a conflict of interest between groups of citizens grew into a contest for control of the city. Despite Barcelona’s fundamentally mercantile character, its government had for two centuries been dominated by a restricted class of ‘honoured citizens’ (ciutadans honrats), numbering some two hundred families. All had abandoned trade to live on their investments; often they made marriage alliances with the lesser aristocracy or put their offspring into key ecclesiastical offices. One half continued to live in the city; the rest had bought rural estates nearby, in the process transferring capital from trade into agriculture.1 A minority of merchant families, motivated by ambition, rivalries, and alliances, joined with them to form the seemingly impregnable Biga faction which held Barcelona in thrall. It wielded its power by manipulating membership of the two bodies which ran the city: the five-man executive council (the Consell), and the deliberative Council of a Hundred (Consell de Cent Jurats) which, save in exceptional circumstances, delegated its authority to a smaller committee known as the Council of Thirty (Consell de Trenta). The Biga used its grip upon the municipality to combat inimical change or reform on the pretext that they were thereby defending the Constitutions of Catalonia, and, thanks to Barcelona’s pre-eminence in the principality, it also wielded great influence in the Corts and Diputació, as well as exercising a leadership role among other towns and cities in the principality. Inevitably the Biga mentality and interest found themselves at odds with the Trastámar spirit, impatient to remodel institutions in order to further its own aggrandizement. On most occasions, as we have already seen, the Biga had hitherto played a prominent part in Catalan confrontations with the crown. Now it was to find itself, for the first time, faced with a direct, domestic challenge to its authority. 1

Aurell, Els mercaders catalans al quatre-cents. C. Batlle, La crisis social y económica de Barcelona a mediados del siglo xv, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1973).

Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga

41

Those excluded from the charmed circle had, of course, long nursed resentment, and increasingly so as entry for a favoured few became ever more restricted. Most aggrieved were the majority of merchants whose sense of injury grew as the Biga’s stance on matters of commerce and finance clashed with their own desires; and ranged behind the merchants stood a large population of artisans, craftsmen, and journeymen whose livelihood hung upon the mercantile prosperity of the city. More surprisingly, within the ranks of ‘outsiders’ stood a very significant number of ‘honoured citizens’ divided from class, and even family, by complex issues of tradition, interest, and conviction.2 Out of this broad coalition grew the Busca faction seeking a voice in city government commensurate with its social and economic importance. Claude Carrère has demonstrated in great detail how the ‘crisis’ of the fifteenth century sharpened hostility by breeding demands for change which merchants believed to be vital, but which the Biga condemned as subversive.3 Without subscribing in full to the crisis scenario, we may still accept that the century saw developments in economic structures which demanded a response from a great commercial centre such as Barcelona, and an effective response would, almost inevitably, entail royal intervention whether through legislation or through reform of the political system. One major issue that set the citizen body of Barcelona bitterly at odds was reform of the currency.4 When compared with neighbouring states, silver was much overvalued in the Crown of Aragon: the gold/silver ratio stood at 1:8.7 in Barcelona against 1:9.5 in Castile; in war-ravaged France the coinage suffered repeated rounds of debasement. Gresham’s Law duly operated to the detriment of ‘good’ Catalan money, and in particular of the silver croat which was coined in Barcelona. Once efforts to check the inflow of ‘bad’ French silver by physical controls had proved ineffective, attention turned to an alternative solution, devaluation of the croat. Merchants and producers favoured it as a seemingly straightforward response to the difficulties they were experiencing in foreign markets; the crown, keen to exploit its monopoly of gold coinage and to boost its revenue from customs, took a similar view. The rentier oligarchy, on the other hand, fought against a measure that would substantially reduce its income, fixed in terms of the silver coin. And its resolution stiffened further 2 Carmen Batlle’s analysis of the groups in the 1450s reveals that 86 merchants and 55 citizens adhered to the Busca while the Biga commanded the allegiance of 16 merchants and 61 citizens. Any interpretation of the urban conflict in simple class terms is palpably wide of the mark. Aurell, Els mercaders catalans, 321–2. 3 4 Carrère, Barcelona, ii, ch. 9. Ibid. 332–42, ‘El problema monetari’.

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The Coming Storm

following two blows to its fortunes in the mid-1420s: in 1425 Majorca proclaimed a moratorium on its public debt, so withholding no less than 32,000 libras of silver a year from creditors in Barcelona; in 1426 the king decreed a 33 per cent reduction in the croat’s value from 18 to 12 dineros in the money of account.5 But nothing, including a ferocious campaign against coiners, sufficed to stem the influx of debased French coin, or the exodus of Catalan silver and a consequent scarcity of good money in the principality; and because there supervened an acute phase in Barcelona’s commercial woes,6 further devaluation became, in Busca eyes, a necessary measure. Some tension and conflict are natural conditions of any society, so too much significance may not attach to a ban which the city authorities imposed in 1419 on association among tailor apprentices; disputes at this level divided the artisan class. Demonstrations against oppression of the common people in 1427, however, reached a pitch where the king had to intervene in person. And in 1433 cracks in the social fabric at a still higher level were revealed when Miquel Ros, the merchant Consol del Mar,7 led a symbolic protest against Biga domination. Refusing to take his place behind the ciutadans honrats in the great civic procession on St John’s day, he and most of his fellow merchants rode in their own cavalcade through the city to great popular acclamation. The Biga retaliated by excluding Ros and his principal supporters from the council for ten years and forbidding them from holding any municipal bonds. While those sanctions were lifted two years later, following an apology, the Biga took care thereafter to summon the Consell de Cent and Consell de Trenta, the representative and theoretically supreme bodies, as seldom as possible and keep all important business within the small executive council which they controlled. At the same time they did endeavour with many measures, short of monetary reform, to placate the merchant class and meet its concerns,8 but the fundamental issue—whether an outdated oligarchy could retain its monopoly of power—remained unresolved. It perhaps needed the eruption of a peasant challenge to the same entrenched class of privilege to embolden the urban malcontents in pursuit of their own liberation. 5 Del Treppo, I mercanti catalani, 194. The Catalan money of account was reckoned in pounds (libras), shillings (sous), and pence (diners). 6 Carrère, Barcelona, ii, ch. 9, ‘Desencadenament de la crisi (1425–1450)’. Alfonso’s Italian wars were in significant measure responsible for this downturn in Barcelona’s fortunes. 7 Founded in 1257, the Consolat del Mar (Consulate of the Sea) was a body which administered maritime law. Its two consuls and a judge were elected by the Council of a Hundred, one from the honoured citizens, the other from the merchants. 8 Carrère, Barcelona, ii. 238. Among their initiatives were the construction of a new harbour and the introduction of English wool to improve the quality of cloth manufactured in Barcelona.

Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga

43

A common antipathy to the Biga might by itself have forged an alliance between the Busca and a monarch who had from the beginning of his reign sought to remodel municipal government so that closed cliques were replaced by a broader spectrum of interests. What seems to have precipitated it was Alfonso’s need of assistance from Catalan merchants (principally from Barcelona and Perpignan) in pursuit of his Italian ambitions; the credit they furnished played a vital part in keeping his armies in the field, and their interests consequently became for him matters of prime concern.9 The Biga, by contrast, continued to uphold the Corts’ policy of tying any aid to the king’s departure from Italy, prompting an outburst: ‘Let the Catalans keep their money to spend on other things’.10 Empire could not be built on such a foundation. Alfonso struck first at Perpignan through a decree ( July 1449) which replaced the ruling consols with a new regime which, so the queen informed him, showed great zeal.11 Those who dominated Barcelona had good cause to feel uneasy. In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that Requesens found himself at odds with the Biga and aligned with the Busca, just as he had become the champion of the remensas. On his return from Italy in 1449 merchants, artisans, and journeymen approached him seeking his support for a syndicate (another echo of the remensa struggle) through which to defend their interests. Thanks to him they were able to send an envoy to plead their cause with the king while other spokesmen petitioned the queen. A sympathetic hearing unaccompanied by any royal action did not deter either them or their champion, and when the Biga used its power to eject Requesens from the city, they continued their campaign from nearby towns. As he left Barcelona in February 1450 the governor addressed a few words to the large crowd gathered at the gate: ‘Bear witness that I was in this city on the king’s business and to do justice. The counsellors don’t wish me to remain, but it won’t be long before there is trouble.’12 To the king he submitted a denunciation of the city authorities, accusing them of abusing their privilege and ‘playing with him as though he 9

A. Ryder, ‘Cloth and Credit: Aragonese War Finance in the Mid Fifteenth Century’, War and Society, 2/1 (1984). 10 ACA 2940, 23 (11 Dec. 1446). 11 ACA 3201, 189 (16 June 1449). The ousted consols had barricaded themselves all night in the council house; after emerging in the morning wearing their robes of office, they had taken refuge in private houses. They feared, according to the queen, discovery of their malpractice in the management of the public finances. 12 ‘Fets-me testimony que jo era en aquesta ciutat per affers del senyor rey e per fer justicia, e los consellers no volen que hic atur, mas no tardaran molts dies s’ich seguiran escàndols.’ C. Batlle, Barcelona a mediados del siglo xv (Barcelona: El Albir, 1976), 21.

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The Coming Storm

were on a string’.13 Once again Alfonso demonstrated his confidence in his governor by ordering the revocation of the offending privilege and by conferring on him the lordship of Molins de Rei which, to add insult to injury, was taken from Barcelona. How quickly and closely the interests of Busca and remensas had become intertwined was demonstrated when the remensa syndics offered, in July 1451, to furnish 5,000 florins towards the 10,000 needed to redeem the privilege.14 Requesens lost little time in pursuing his advantage. In August 1451 he sailed again for Italy, taking with him two Busca spokesmen, a merchant and a weaver. Hard on their heels went an emissary of the Biga, the notary Antoni Vinyes, charged with obtaining Requesens’s dismissal and discrediting the Busca. In Naples both parties encountered a monarch following an agenda very different from their own: Italy had become for Alfonso the focus to which all other issues must relate. The remensa cause, as we have seen, had come to his attention as an answer to a financial difficulty raised by his Tuscan campaign. Further support for it might strengthen royal authority in Catalonia but, at the same time, would certainly alienate powerful segments of society whose backing had contributed much to success in Italy. Moreover the peasants might get out of hand, as was happening in Majorca, and so imperil the state that he would be obliged to abandon Italy and return to Spain. The Busca likewise represented an instrument that might serve to install in Barcelona a regime more amenable to royal wishes, and through its delegates ensure a more cooperative attitude in the Corts. Another important consideration in the king’s mind was an ambitious scheme to build upon the financial and commercial bonds already forged between his Italian and Spanish territories a form of common market: a reciprocal flow of Spanish textiles and Italian grain, carried exclusively in vessels built and owned by his subjects, would support a credit structure on which he could draw with comparative ease. Were the Busca not likely to prove more enthusiastic partners than the Biga for such a project? But, once change had been unleashed, would the moderate Busca elements be able to restrain wilder spirits15 and avoid the disorders that had recently wracked Majorca and Palermo?16 From the Corts of Catalonia Alfonso managed to extract in 1452 a form of insurance which promised him a subsidy of 400,000 13

‘. . . que semblava que’n jugàs a la cordella’. Ibid. ACA 2658, 173 (4 Jan. 1452). Privileges obtained from the crown by payment could only be revoked on repayment of the appropriate sum. 15 Batlle, Barcelona a mediados del siglo XV, 40–1. 16 Morro, Mallorca a mitjan segle XV. Ryder, ‘The Palermo Rising of 1450’, in M. J. Peláez (ed.), Papers in European Legal History: Trabajos de derecho histórico europeo en homenaje a Ferran Valls i Taberner (Barcelona: Promociones Publicaciones Universitarias, 1992), V. 14

Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga

45

florins should he need to return within the next year or so. (The Catalans, of course, saw it as a means of enticing him back.) He hoped also, vainly as it proved, to coax from the Corts and from Barcelona the funds needed to suppress the peasant rising in Majorca. Beyond that he had little expectation of, or use for, the Corts. In particular, it would not, experience had taught him, provide aid in any form to meet the crisis that had erupted on the Aragonese/ Castilian frontier. The source of the trouble lay in Navarre where Juan had held on to his royal title after the death of Queen Blanche in 1441, thereby antagonizing his son Charles, the rightful heir, and providing fertile ground for the intrigues of the Beaumonts and Agramonts, two factions engaged in endless conflict for mastery in the kingdom. Their confrontation sharpened with Juan’s ignominious failure to impose himself on Castile in 1445: Charles and the Beaumonts gravitated towards the triumphant party in Castile; the Agramonts rallied to a king of Navarre bent on revenge and raging against a son whom he considered a traitor. In 1451 confrontation escalated into a civil war given international dimensions by the intervention of Enrique,17 heir to the Castilian throne, on Charles’s side, and by Juan’s position as Alfonso’s locumtenens in the kingdom of Aragon. When hostilities spilt over the Aragonese borders Alfonso became alarmed. Should this conflict grow out of control into full-scale war with Castile, he might well find himself compelled to abandon Naples. ‘We beg you most affectionately, very dear and beloved brother, that as far as possible you set yourself to work for peace and agreement’,18 he wrote to Juan in October 1451, knowing full well that his brother hardly inclined to moderation in matters Castilian. His brightest hope appeared to rest in direct negotiations with the king of Castile who sent ambassadors to Naples for that purpose. Small wonder if, amid this welter of contradictions, the messengers from Catalonia, whatever party they might represent, encountered evasion and stonewalling that drove them to despair. On informal occasions Vinyes, the Biga envoy, found the king amiably relaxed, but when he broached the dismissal of Requesens, Alfonso replied frostily that he was not accustomed to remove anyone from office without good cause. His endeavours to discredit the Busca envoys by claiming that they spoke only for a few poor men ‘who seeing themselves ruined and having no means of living because of their idleness and 17 Enrique was Charles’s brother-in-law, having married his sister Blanca in 1440. For the conflict in Navarre see J. Vicens Vives, Juan II de Aragón (1398–1479): monarquía y revolución en la España del siglo xv, new edn., ed. P. H. Freedman and J. M. Muñoz i Lloret (Pamplona: Urgoiti Editores, 2003). Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámara y los Reyes Católicos. 18 ‘Rogamos vos muy affectuosamente muy caro e muy amado ermano que quanto possible vos sera vos adapteys e prepareys a paç e concordia . . .’ ACA, Reg. 2658, 166 (23 Oct. 1451).

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vices’ had resorted to slanders against the city fathers,19 failed to bar them from access to a royal audience. To add to Vinyes’s discomfort, Alfonso frequently broke out into public complaints against his masters’ behaviour. Even the arrival of two magnificent presents from the city—a silver statue of its patron saint, Eulalia, and a huge bowl—failed to produce the hoped-for softening of the king’s stance. Yet the Busca and their secular patron fared little better: Alfonso refused to sanction a syndicate. We have Vinyes’s record of a significant exchange on this subject that took place between the king and Requesens in his presence in December 1451: Master Valenti Claver, the new vice-chancellor, begged that the king should graciously be willing to give dispatch to the two artisans (menestrals).20 The king replied, ‘What is it they are asking?’. The vice-chancellor answered that they were ill-treated by the authorities, and that it was desirable to take action. They were also asking that the king should give the menestrals leave to meet and form syndicates etc. At this, speaking angrily, the king replied, ‘Who will benefit from such meetings and syndicates?’. Those present, seeing the king so agitated, said that the governor of Catalonia would give him an explanation. So quickly the king summoned the governor, who was in an adjoining room, and said to him, ‘For what purpose is this permission to form a syndicate being requested?’. To which the governor replied that it was in order to give peace to the city and so that they might render the king service and gifts. Then the king replied with some heat that if it resulted in trouble or outrage, neither the governor or even the queen would be capable of settling it; and that nothing would suffice but the presence of the king himself. For that reason he would not grant permission. . . . Turning angrily to the governor he said to him that he and the queen between them had managed these affairs very ill, that he had Majorca as an example before him.21 19 ‘. . . que vehentse perduts e no havent remey de viure per lur pigricia e mals vicis . . .’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 378. 20 Vinyes always employed this disparaging term for the Busca delegation. 21 ‘. . . micer Valenti Claver, vicicanceller novell, instà e soplicà lo dit senyor que fos de sa mercè volgués desemptxar los dos manastrals. E lo dit senyor respós, que ere lo que demanaven. E lo dit vicecanceller respós que ells eren mal tractats per los regidors, e que ere spedient si provehis. Item. Que lo dit senyor donàs licència als manastrals que’s poguessen ajustar e fer sindicats, etc. En açò, lo dit senyor respós a qui aprofitaria tals ajusts e sindicats, dient açò ab còlera. E los instants, vehents lo dit senyor axi somogut, digueren que lo governador de Cathalunya l’in darie rahó. E axi, prestament, lo dit senyor féu cridar lo dit governador, qui ere present en lo dit segon retret, al qual lo dit senyor dix a quina fi se demenave aquesta licència de ajustar e fer sindicat. Al qual, senyors, lo dit governador respós que per reposar la ciutat, e perquè poguessen fer servirs e donatius a sa senyoria. E lavors lo dit senyor ab assats còlera respós que si d’açi surtie inconvenient o scàndol, lo dit governador, ne encare la senyora reyna no serien bestants a reposarho; e que also no y serie ne é bestant, sinó la presència del dit senyor. E per ço ell no atorgaria tal licència . . . E girantse ab còlera al dit governador, li dix que entre la senyora reyna e ell havien prou dolentament menegats aquests affers, e que eximpli tenie al denant de Mallorques.’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 407–8.

Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga

47

Allowing for some bias in the reporting, we may accept this account as a fair reflection of the atmosphere then prevailing in the court. Still glancing through Vinyes’s jaundiced eye, we see Requesens studiously distancing himself in public from his Busca protégés, while ‘night and day this ox of a governor sings in his [sc. Alfonso’s] ear and persuades him to all manner of evil’.22 The line he pursued, seeing that the syndicate was out of season, aimed at a reform of the electoral system in Barcelona to put an end to abuses which had, for example, inflated membership of the Council of a Hundred to 250, and kept among its merchant members many who should properly have sat with the first estate, thus giving the citizen élite undue influence in the annual appointment of counsellors. Here, as Vinyes uneasily recognized, the governor was on sure ground, but all his endeavours failed to discover the content of royal letters directing that Barcelona adhere strictly to the electoral procedure laid down in the privilege of Jaime I (1274), and that appropriate business be not confined to the executive committee of five but brought before the representative councils. By the time those orders arrived in Barcelona on 28 November 1451 elections to the Council of a Hundred were already in progress. Brushing aside both the letters and artisan protests, the authorities went ahead in the customary manner to appoint new counsellors, only one of whom, Jofre Sirvent, belonged to the Busca. They justified their action on the grounds that the king could not act contrary to the privileges of Catalonia which he had sworn to uphold. Here was a challenge not to be ignored by a monarch of Alfonso’s stamp. For their part the Busca claimed that the elections were invalid, and that all municipal officials subsequently appointed held office illegally. All now depended on the king. The Biga’s failure to shake his confidence in Requesens became clear when he provided the funds needed to complete the business of restoring the governor’s free access to Barcelona. Yet Requesens did not immediately resume his office in Catalonia because Alfonso judged it more urgent that he join an embassy charged with the delicate task of calming relations with Castile. Since, according to Vinyes, Requesens had heartily solicited the assignment, it may be that he wished to distance himself from Catalan affairs until such time as his superiors had come to a resolution on the great questions that lay before them. It was autumn before he reappeared in Barcelona, free now to come and go as he pleased.

22

‘. . . aquest bou de governador nit e die li canta a la orella e l’indueix a tot mal’. Ibid. 397.

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During his absence hostility between the factions had grown apace. Through ceaseless petitioning the guilds mounted pressure on the queen to grant the syndicate and devaluation. Although alarmed at the vehemence of these demands, she could not act without instructions from her husband from whom she begged a swift response, ‘for much is at stake, so great is the insolence of the people nowadays’.23 So far did that ‘insolence’ grow that in June 1452, without waiting for a reply from Naples, she verbally authorized separate guild meetings on condition that they discussed only monetary reform. Within days they had met, formulated a policy, and mandated Pere Rubió, a sword-maker, to seek the king’s approval. His departure attracted the sarcastic attention of the notary Çafont who kept the Diputació’s diary: Thursday 29 June, sailed from the sea-shore of Barcelona the ship of Rafael Julià, bound for Naples, where is the king. With the ship went Pere Rubió, sword-maker, messenger so-called, sent to the king by the artisans and some other men of the city commonly called the men of the Busca. They are asking for an increase in the value of the coinage, so that, as the croats are now valued at 15 diners, they should be raised to 18 diners. They assert, and believe, that as they now live meagrely, they will then all become rich, and will hardly need to work. It is true that others maintain that the poverty they suffer is not caused by the value of the coinage but comes from the fact that they are nowadays very dissolute in their eating and drinking and other vanities, spending more in one day than they earn in two. So they will always experience poverty however much the value of money is raised.24

The return of Requesens in the autumn of 1452 from his mission to Castile25 mightily boosted the confidence of the Busca leaders who began to meet in his residence and later, under his chairmanship, in the convent of the Dominicans. They further manifested their corporate identity and civic significance in a form familiar to that age—a public building: in the garden of 23 ‘car molt hi va per lo gran atreviment que les gents han vuy’. Batlle, Barcelona a mediados del siglo XV, 33. 24 ‘Dijous a xxviiii Juny se perlonga de la plaia de la mar de Barchinona la nau d’en Julia, qui anava en Napols, on es lo senyor rey, ab la qual s’en ana en Pere Robio, mandrater, missatger, segons se diu, trames al dit senyor per part dels manestrals e alguns altres homens de la dita ciutat vulgarment appellats los homens de la Buscha, los quals demanen que les monedes los sien muntades de for, ço es, que axi com los creuats valen xv diners, que sien muntats a xviii diners; afermants e creents ells que axi com ara viuen flacament, que lavors serien tots richs, e que scassament los calria fer feyna ne jornal. Es veritat que alguns altres afermen que la pobretat que han no’ls ve per lo for de les monedes mes per ço com ells son huy molt dissoluts en manjar e en beure e en altres vanitats, despanent mes en un jorn que no gonyen en dos, a axi tots temps sentirien pobritat per molt que’ls muntassen les monedes.’ Dietari de la Deputació del General de Cathalunya (Barcelona: Diputación Provincial de Barcelona, 1974), i. 201–2. 25 He had failed to settle the matters in dispute between Aragon and Castile, leaving Alfonso still in a quandary from the dangers posed by the upheavals in Navarre.

Turmoil in Barcelona: Busca and Biga

49

the merchants’ Llotja they built their own chapel which they inaugurated with a solemn mass on 19 November 1452. Shortly afterwards there arrived from Naples royal assent to the syndicate, allowing the battle against the municipal oligarchs to begin in earnest. Alfonso had, after long hesitation, decided where his interest lay. As with the remensa syndicate, the Busca’s chosen weapon was a plea before the royal tribunal denouncing the illegalities of its opponents, specifically a violation of royal privileges in the election of the Council of a Hundred in the previous November when the Biga had packed that body and excluded guild nominees. A council wrongly constituted lacked, they argued, the authority to collect taxes or appoint to municipal offices. Like the remensa lords, so the hard-liners among the Biga questioned the propriety of such proceedings and declined to appear before the vice-chancellor to whom the queen had delegated the process. Testimony from the few moderates of that party revealed a glaring ignorance of electoral regulations: the ruling minority had, in effect, over a long period tailored them to suit its own ends. Armed with that evidence, the syndicate obtained from the queen in April 1453 an order prohibiting the Council from proceeding with the annual election of consuls and judge of the Consolat del Mar. The Biga, uncomprehending before this avalanche of popular hatred, could only attribute it to the malevolence of Requesens who had ‘cut through the privileges of Barcelona and other liberties of the land as if they were a piece of white bread’.26 Two messengers left immediately (8 May 1453) for Naples to denounce his iniquities. Hard on their heels went a Busca party led by the merchant Miquel de Manresa. For both Alfonso enacted the customary pantomime of benevolence and procrastination, while behind the scenes a small group of counsellors prepared measures that were to shake Barcelona to its foundations. What furnished him the opportunity to break the deadlock between Biga and Busca was the fall of Álvaro de Luna, constable of Castile and inveterate foe of the Antequeras.27 It opened the way to peace between Aragon and Castile, towards which end the king of Castile invited his sister, Queen Maria of Aragon, to visit him. Anxious as he was to stabilize the affairs of Spain, Alfonso readily approved, and in so doing sanctioned the departure of his locumtenens from Catalonia. In her place he appointed none other than Galceran de Requesens—the clearest possible signal of the line he meant to follow in Catalan conflicts. When the horror-stricken Biga envoys learnt of this early in 26 ‘. . . trencava los privileges de Barchinona e altres libertats de la terra, axi com si fossen un tros de pa blanch’. Dietari, 206. 27 He was arrested on 5 Apr. 1453 and executed on 5 July. Round, Greatest Man Uncrowned.

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September 1453, probably from the sympathetic secretary Fonolleda, they immediately assailed the king with dire warnings, yet came away once again misinterpreting assurances that he desired nothing more than the good of the city to signify benevolence towards their party. More disillusionment followed in November with the revelation that, because of the Busca allegations of irregularities and intimidation, the council elections were to be suspended. Biga protests notwithstanding, the blows duly fell. On 1 October the queen sent her vice-chancellor to dissolve the Corts; on the 9th she left Barcelona for Castile ‘without any other leave-taking of the principality, which had so loved, obeyed and venerated her, as if the Catalans were disobedient or unworthy’.28 Worse still, on 19 October, Requesens accompanied by the vice-chancellor, the count of Cardona, the viscount of Illa, some sympathetic municipal delegates from the Corts, and a crowd of Busca supporters, made his way to the cathedral, had his appointment as locumtenens read from the high altar, and took the oath of office, ignoring protests from the deputies of the Generalitat and the city counsellors. Over the ensuing month leading to the November elections tension grew, dividing the city into irreconcilable factions whose temper may be judged by the belief of his opponents that Requesens had sold himself to the devil. Their recourse to the prayers of the most notable religious houses of Catalonia availed nothing, however, against the decision already taken in Naples to suspend the elections because of the Busca’s allegation of illegalities. By proclamation on the eve of election day, 29 November, Requesens forbade the existing counsellors and council members to meet or proceed with elections on the feast of St Andrew. Instead, in the presence of a large Busca gathering in his own residence, he nominated five counsellors of his own choosing, all of them drawn from patrician ranks, but all partisans of moderate reform allied to the Busca. The routed Biga stood aghast; its stoutest champion, Franci Carbó, fled to Naples disguised as a courier; some members of the former administration found themselves in prison, others came under judicial scrutiny; none could reconcile themselves to loss of power, or to betrayal at the hands of an absent monarch who had made the upstart Requesens (‘a mere knight’) arbiter of Catalonia’s destiny. 28 ‘. . . sens altre comiat del Principat, qui tant la ha amada, obeïda e venerada, com si los cathalans fossen inhobedients’. Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 484.

6 A Peasantry Expectant It has already been remarked that the remensa syndicate appreciated how much its fortunes were bound to those of Requesens when it offered financial help in freeing him from the shackles Barcelona had imposed on his freedom of movement. Queen Maria did not immediately take up the offer because, as she informed her husband in a letter of 30 July 1451, it had given rise to differences between the syndics and their principals. However, the remensa envoys, present with Requesens in Naples, denied any rift, so Alfonso ordered, in January 1452, that the proffered 5,000 florins be collected. Further, in March 1452, he instructed the queen to protect the remensas from harassment and ensure that they freely pursued their plea.1 Like that of the Busca, the cause of the remensas had to contend in the Neapolitan court with the influence of its enemies. Prominent among these were the deputies dispatched there by the Catalan Corts in December 1451. Pleading the Constitutions of Catalonia, they argued for an annulment or at least suspension of the remensa action. They won some concessions: a delegate at court to ensure that no provision or action violated the Catalan Constitutions or the Usatges of Barcelona;2 the appointment to the queen regent’s council of three counsellors from each order so that there, too, they might safeguard Catalan laws and privileges. On the remensa issue Alfonso at the same time gave instructions which he believed ‘would satisfy the justice owed to our vassals and the recovery of our rights’.3 What those instructions were we do not know but may reasonably suppose that they put the question into abeyance until the king should think it politic to give judgement on the points of law raised by both parties. That tactic left the queen vacillating in the mean time between pressures and protests from both sides. At first she tried to restore the status quo by revoking the order that forbade lords to demand acknowledgement of the mals usos 1

2 ACA 2660, 33 (17 Mar. 1452). ACA 2660, 26 (8 May 1452). ‘. . . creem sera satisfet al deute dela Justicia de nostres vassals e ala reintegracio e recuperacio de nostres drets’. ACA 2659, 91 (24 May 1452). 3

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from their peasants. Consequent representations from the remensa syndics led her on 30 March 1453 to reimpose the prohibition. Immediately the lords responded with ‘a great clamour’ that, contrary to the Constitutions of Catalonia, they had been deprived of their rights without due legal process. Their complaint gained weight from the backing of the Corts, then meeting in Barcelona; still more when two ambassadors from the king appeared before it on 9 July to ask for a year’s extension on the aid promised against his return. Those same ambassadors almost certainly brought orders for Maria who, on 15 July 1453, accordingly changed tack and once again restored seigneurial authority. With the aid in the balance, Alfonso wished to mollify the Corts. Still the remensa leaders doggedly pursued their legal course, financed from April 1454 by an annual cash levy.4 Requesens, now regent in Catalonia, ordered royal officials to support the remensa syndics in collecting it. Hostility to Requesens among the Catalan oligarchy knew no bounds; to his malevolence they attributed all the ills and unrest that beset them, and to his downfall they devoted all their energy. In appearance they moved a step in that direction when, on 31 May 1454, Alfonso appointed Juan of Navarre locumtenens in Catalonia in his stead. But from the day Juan assumed office (on 1 August 1454), Requesens took up his former duties as governor and continued to champion reform with undiminished zeal. An effort to deliver the coup de grâce to this detested figure by means of a grievance (greuge de Requesens) presented in a new session of the Corts (October 1454) proved unavailing. Equally fruitless was another grievance directed against the remensas (Super hominibus de redimentia) which called for the annulment of their bargain with the crown, and of all provisions and legal proceedings arising from it.5 Well might the unease have grown still more acute when, in June 1455, the governor left Barcelona, summoned for yet another consultation on Catalan affairs with his master in Naples. How much hung upon his presence a messenger from Barcelona conveyed in a letter to the counsellors: ‘We are all waiting on his coming, and no one is stirring until he has arrived.’6 And how greatly Alfonso esteemed him was manifested in the extraordinary warmth of the entertainment lavished upon him.7 There can be little doubt that Requesens’s 4 The levy was equivalent in value to one-third of the twelfth imposed on produce in 1449 in order to pay Crexells and meet the expenses of the syndicate. This payment in kind had subsequently been replaced by a cash payment of equivalent value. ACA 3319, 70 (27 Apr. 1454). 5 Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Aragón y de Valencia y principado de Cataluña, xxii. 234. 6 ‘Tots stam sperants la dita venguda, e negú no sich mou, fins ell sia vengut.’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 500. This letter was written by the notary Pere Boquet on 28 May 1455. A confidant of Requesens, he had been sent to Naples by the Council of a Hundred in Oct. 1454. 7 Ibid. 503.

A Peasantry Expectant

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counsel persuaded the king to deliver, on 5 October, a provisional sentence in the remensa plea which had been hanging fire for five years: all those exactions denounced by the peasants were suspended until such time as the lords might purge their contempt by acknowledging royal jurisdiction in the matter. Requesens himself may indeed have carried the momentous document when he returned to Catalonia in November 1455. Juan of Navarre duly promulgated the sentence and in January 1456 reaffirmed the legality of the remensa gatherings, first created in 1449, so that they might collect some 60,000 florins still outstanding from the sum offered for their redemption. The opposition, congregated still in Barcelona in a sterile Corts, fought back; that same month its emissary, the jurist Pere Dusay, left to argue its case on this and other points in Naples. Despite the assertion of the Biga agent that the king was standing firm,8 he appeared to beat a retreat when he issued an order suspending the interlocutory sentence of October 1455 ‘at the instance of members of his household and for certain good reasons’.9 What these reasons were he left unexplained. Spanish historians are inclined to attribute the tergiversation to the king’s desire to secure another prolongation of the aid promised by the Corts against his return to Spain, and he certainly took pains to assure all parties that he hoped to be there within the year. When Dusay left for home in June 1457 he carried a letter telling the diputats that Alfonso had been unable to deal with the matters of his mission, ‘but that, God willing, he would soon return to those kingdoms and principality, and he would then see to everything’.10 As an insurance policy against an Iberian crisis the offer could not be lightly discarded while the bitter quarrel between Juan and his son Charles of Viana still threatened the peace with Castile and the internal stability of the Aragonese state.11 On the other hand, Alfonso had always insisted that the offer must be unconditional, and in that form the Corts 8

Ibid. 513. ‘. . . dictado a instancias de sus familiares y por ciertos buenos respectos’. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 59. 10 ‘. . . más que Déus volent sa anada serà presta en aquexos regnes e principat, o que hi provehirà lavors en tot . . .’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 586. 11 Hostility between the Navarrese factions had erupted into open battle in Oct. 1451, an encounter which left Charles and the Beaumont leader, Jean de Beaumont, prisoners in the hands of Juan. Under pressure from Alfonso and the Aragonese, exasperated by the incursions of Charles’s Castilian allies into their territory, Juan came to an agreement with Charles in May 1453: each would exercise authority over their respective spheres of influence in Navarre, but sovereignty remained with Juan. The accord soon proved hollow; incited by his partisans, Charles began acting as de facto sovereign and challenging the fragile balance of power within the kingdom. An exasperated Juan retaliated by disinheriting his son in favour of his daughter Leonor and her husband, Gaston de Foix (3 Oct. 1455). The following May, Charles fled from Spain, seeking support first in France and then from his uncle Alfonso in Naples. Vicens Vives, Juan II de Aragón, ch. 5. 9

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had grudgingly given it. What decided his attitude to the remensas was, rather, the balance of opinion in his council: with Requesens in Naples, it markedly favoured them; without him, the legalistic arguments of their enemies carried more weight. Thus, once Dusay and pressure from the Corts had been removed, there was a shift back to a position with which the king was fundamentally in sympathy. ‘No longer able to bear the continual distress and outcries of the remensa peasants’,12 he decreed on 9 September 1457 the reimposition of his interlocutory sentence of 1455 suspending the mals usos. Juan duly promulgated the decree on 14 January 1458. Time allowed Alfonso no further change of course nor the opportunity to deliver a final sentence in the remensa cause, for he died in Naples on 27 June 1458, leaving his brother to confront the turmoil that now affected wide areas of Catalonia. 12 ‘No pudiendose más tolerar las continuas congojas y clamores de los dichos pageses de remensa y mals usos.’ S. Sobrequés i Vidal, ‘Política remensa de Alfonso el Magnánimo en los últimos años de su reinado (1447–1458)’, Anales del instituto de estudios gerundenses (1960), 34.

7 Busca in Triumph and Disillusion The fissure opened in the social structure by the implacable forces of remensa struggle and landlord resistance in large measure precipitated the civil war which engulfed Catalonia four years after Alfonso’s death. But that catastrophe could not have occurred had the fabric not been simultaneously weakened by other rents and stresses. Foremost among these other strains figured the battle between Busca and Biga parties for control of the Catalan capital, a battle which saw Busca and remensa drawn together in the face of common enemies. The Biga moreover accepted defeat no more readily than did the remensa landlords, and in its struggle to overthrow the new municipal regime won unstinted backing from oligarchic forces entrenched in the Corts and Diputació. Though portrayed by his opponents as a fanatic partisan of the Busca, Requesens had demonstrated in his choice of counsellors a desire to encourage a spirit of moderation which had manifested itself among a few in both camps; and to enhance their authority he put into their hands the appointment of members of the Council of a Hundred. Radical change resulted in that body when, in face of a Biga boycott, lawyers and physicians were chosen to fill many of the twenty-two seats allocated to ciutadans honrats. Another upheaval saw cloth-retailers and ship-masters admitted to the benches (fifty seats) hitherto reserved to the estate of merchants. More radical still was the allocation of a majority of seats (104) to artisans and journeymen, most of whom served also on the syndicate of guilds which Alfonso, overcoming his initial misgivings, authorized in November 1453. Possibly the intention was to harness the popular force of the syndicate (the key element in Requesens’s Busca strategy) in support of the new administration or, perhaps, to neutralize its radicalism. Yet, despite the changes, the Busca-dominated municipal administration often found itself at odds with these champions of the masses entrenched in the Council and syndicate, a situation which obliged Requesens to act as the arbiter of their disputes and increased still further his sway in the affairs of Barcelona.

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Initially the syndicate concentrated its fire on the misdeeds of the former administration which became the subject of a judicial investigation. There followed a thorough purge in the ranks of municipal employees to the advantage of Busca candidates; then came the measure that had justified the syndicate’s creation, currency reform. Rubió had returned from Naples bearing royal approval which Requesens had proclaimed on 4 January 1454 amid wild popular rejoicing.1 But no joy was manifest among rentiers and creditors throughout Catalonia; all faced a substantial loss on their loans and investments. Their outrage found a voice in the deputies of the General who declared the royal provision a violation of the Catalan constitutions and, failing to move Alfonso, took the issue as a grievance to the Corts. Opponents of reform employed another, and more immediately effective, means of counterattack when they insisted on payment in current small coin (menuts) which they then hoarded; as a result the city found itself starved of the currency needed for everyday commercial transactions and domestic purchases until a further royal decree, promulgated in February 1457, fixed the value of the gold florin at 13 sous and made obligatory its acceptance in the settlement of contracts. Amid the confusion, currency speculation flourished, the inflow of debased coinage continued unchecked, and the cost of living edged upwards. Grossly deceived in their admittedly exaggerated expectations, the common people through their syndicate threw much of the blame upon the Busca leadership.2 Bitter disillusionment was also to follow upon the implementation of another reform cherished by the Busca: protection of the ailing textile industry on whose fortunes hung the well-being of perhaps a third of the city’s population. Like currency reform it became a battle-cry on both sides of the political divide, a focus of passions that paid small heed to realities. In that febrile atmosphere imaginations fastened upon a constitution of the Corts (Havents a cor) promulgated in 1422, a measure which had banned the import of all foreign textiles into Catalonia. Within four years it had become inoperative thanks to Biga power in Barcelona which saw protection threatening its investment in the business of imported draperies. Time had not sufficed to demonstrate whether native production could satisfy the market, but its ability to do so became a Busca article of faith and restoring protection a key plank in its programme. Their moment came in 1456 in the wake of another major victory for the syndicate, the entry of guild members into the ranks of counsellors. 1 2

The croat was revalued from its current rate of 15 diners to 18 diners. Carrère, Barcelona, ii. 369–79.

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Requesens’s nomination of the five in 1453 had been a stop-gap pending Alfonso’s decision on the Busca charge of Biga illegalities in earlier elections. That verdict, arriving on the very eve of elections in November 1454, found clearly for the Busca but left the future mode of election clouded in uncertainty. Radical members of the Council of a Hundred seized the moment to demand a change in the composition of the electoral body so that each of the four estates should appoint three of its twelve members. Moderate Busca opinion wanted to keep the existing distribution which gave four seats each to the estates of citizens and merchants, two to the guilds and two to the artisans. So intransigent were both parties over so fundamental a shift in the balance of power that Requesens had to postpone the elections, first to January and then to March 1455, in the hope that the king would resolve the question. He did so in a manner that left the choice effectively in the hands of the Council of a Hundred which, when assembled on 1 March 1455, comprised ninety-six artistas3 and artisans against fifty-two representatives of the first two orders. Furious and prolonged argument having brought deadlock in that body, it fell to Requesens (in Juan’s absence) to break it, which he did by ordering that the question be decided by a majority vote—a decision which inevitably gave victory to his syndicate allies. The outcome was an election which, for the first time, gave the two lower orders seats on the governing council (a notary and a silversmith); a citizen and two merchants filled the other posts. Reform on the same principle of equality between the four estates produced a general council of 128 and a ‘Council of Thirty’ numbering thirty-two. The ‘little men’ of Barcelona had at last reached that goal of equality with the ‘great ones’ to which they had aspired for more than a century. Later that year the syndicate’s triumph was sealed by a royal privilege (7 October 1455) which made the new electoral procedures permanent. Requesens had gone to Naples in June to champion the reform and returned with the privilege in time to ensure that the elections of November 1455 followed its precepts. In addition, Alfonso had sanctioned the entry of lawyers and physicians into the ranks of citizens, and of cloth-retailers and ship-owners to the estate of merchants. The democratic base was still further broadened by making employees eligible for election to the city’s governing bodies, and by giving some powers of initiative to the representative councils. If anything marred Busca joy in this revolution, it was the price Alfonso demanded: 3 The ‘artistas’ comprised the professions of notary, grocer, spicer, apothecary, wax-chandler, barber, and advocate. The artisans or ‘menestrales’ included harness-makers, tailors, skinners, shoemakers, silversmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, leather-workers, wool-weavers, and tanners.

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restoration to the crown of the county of Empuries held in pawn by Barcelona, and a gift of 5,500 libras to Requesens for his services to the city. But it was well recognized that every favour had its price; even the bishop of Urgell wrote caustically to the city fathers reminding them that he expected something for the assistance he had rendered the Busca cause in Naples. Once entrenched in the seats of power, the syndicate moved swiftly to revive the 1422 system of protection for the cloth industry. They directed their appeal first to the Diputació, because the measure in question was a constitution of the Corts applicable to the whole of Catalonia. They soon understood that that institution stood four-square with the Biga against anything they might propose. (‘Might as well put in goats as men of low condition’, the Diputació’s secretary had commented a propos of Barcelona’s new masters.4) Losing patience after six months of stonewalling, they persuaded the city administration in July 1456 to proclaim the 1422 constitution on its own authority, omitting that part which referred to silks and cloth of gold. Immediately the Diputació and its allies joined battle, accusing Barcelona of usurping power and of altering the constitution to gratify a Busca counsellor who sold silks. Tension rose dangerously within the city where an excited mass confronted its Biga foes, a hostile Diputació and an equally hostile Corts meeting in its midst at a time when both locumtenens and governor were occupied elsewhere. Caught between these fires, showered with contradictory orders, the royal officials responsible for law and order in Barcelona, the veguer and batlle,5 fell apart: the batlle Massanet, allied to a rich draper father-in-law, approved the Diputació’s design to revoke the constitution; the veguer Saplana opposed it. Matters came to a climax on 11 August. Çafont, the Diputació’s acerbic notary, flanked by trumpeters, emerged from its seat in the square of Sant Jaume and began reading the revocation; out of the town hall opposite came the veguer, a counsellor and a band of cloth workers who, having seized Çafont and his assistants, imprisoned them in chains. In response the deputies invoked royal authority to declare Saplana dismissed from office with the revolutionary claim that, in order to defend the rights of the General of Catalonia, they were entitled to exercise the full powers of royal jurisdiction. Next day the sub-veguer, at the deputies’ command, tried again to read the proclamation, only to find himself likewise beset and thrown into prison. 4

‘. . . tant se valria metre’y bochs com homens de vil condicio’. Dietari, 218. For these offices see J. Lalinde Abadía, La jurisdicción real inferior en Cataluña (Barcelona: Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, 1966). In general terms the veguer exercised delegated royal authority in matters relating to crime and public order, while the batlle was charged with safeguarding the royal patrimony and the crown’s material interests. 5

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With the return of Juan to Barcelona on 16 August the conflict shifted its focus to the arena of the Corts.6 The immediate crisis Juan tranquillized by releasing the prisoners (at night to avoid a riot) and replacing the veguer, but with a man related to Requesens. Despite his absence during these events, the figure of the governor still haunted the enemies of the Busca who were convinced that his downfall would bring about the new regime’s destruction. They accordingly drafted in the Corts a constitution that would give the Diputació powers to proceed against any royal official, from vice-chancellor and governor to veguer, who violated the privileges of Catalonia. Only desperation can have persuaded them that Alfonso would consent to so drastic a curtailment of his authority. On the other side of the argument, Barcelona had some success in enlisting the support of other centres of textile production, among them Lleida, Vic, Girona, and Perpignan. Both parties then turned to the vital task of convincing a king who, as usual, made his distance a pretext for prevarication: a decision must await his return to Spain; in the mean time the protection measure should remain in force, although his brother might wink at infringements. For the Busca it was a famous victory; the Biga offensive, directed through the Corts and Diputació, had failed to regain control of Barcelona, and a large market now lay open to cloth made in the city. But there remained the problem of expanding production of quality cloth to meet the demand when producers lacked the capital to buy English wool, the essential raw material. On that rock the project foundered. The guilds, having failed to gain financial support from a cash-strapped municipality, saw their opportunity slip away; within two years imports of foreign cloth had risen to their former level.7 Deceived in their expectations over both monetary reform and protection for textile manufacture, Busca supporters inevitably lost confidence. They also looked for scapegoats, which they found ready to hand in the Biga and its allies within the Diputació and Corts; and some share of blame they heaped upon those elected to govern in their interest. The peace of the city was becoming ever more fragile. The ills suffered by man, whether of the Busca or Biga persuasion, found in contemporary eyes dire reflection in natural portents and calamities. Çafont noted in his diary on 22 June 1455 how the earth shook at the very hour Requesens boarded his galley for Naples. In June 1456 he reported the appearance of a bright comet seen over the city for many nights; he trusted it might be 6 7

The Corts could only meet in the presence of the king or his locumtenens. Carrère, Barcelona, ii. 392–404.

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a divine signal that Barcelona would suffer no greater disasters at Busca hands. But worse was to come: an outbreak of plague that lasted from May until December 1457 killed thousands including, Çafont noted with grim satisfaction, two of the Busca counsellors. A whale the size of a galley washed ashore in the following June portended to many the death of a great prince; soon afterwards came news that Alfonso had died in Naples on 27 June. An atmosphere of doom and frustration pervaded the Busca era. It says much for the authority of the Busca leadership, Requesens above all, that it was able to hold in check the violence so often predicted by its enemies.

8 The Violence of an Urban and Rural Aristocracy Barcelona’s size, combined with political and economic prominence, gave it a pre-eminent place among Catalan cities, but the upheavals that threw it into crisis in the mid-fifteenth century were not unique; their clamour resonated in most other much smaller urban centres and lent crucial weight to the forces that were tearing Catalonia apart. Girona, which was to figure so prominently in the events of the civil war, well illustrates the condition of these lesser towns and cities. With a population of around 4,500 and an economy dominated by the woollen industry, Girona lived in a state of violent social unrest orchestrated by factions (bandols) for whom control of the municipality represented both an object and an instrument of their rivalry.1 Although heads of households were categorized for electoral purposes into three stratified orders based upon wealth (upper, middle, and lower), they had long divided vertically behind leaders in the urban aristocracy. Like their Barcelona counterparts, these patricians were rentiers and landed proprietors leavened by a few members of the learned professions, jurists and physicians. Merchants, well-to-do masters of trades, and notaries accounted for the middle order. Lesser tradesmen, artisans and craftsmen, by far the largest number, filled the lower rank. A group of clerics attached to the cathedral, and families of the military estate (cavallers and donzells) domiciled in the city, although barred from direct participation in its government, meddled incessantly, and to ill effect, in its politics. Many of them were related to, and descended from, urban families, and hence readily plunged into the latter’s quarrels even when their own concerns were not directly at stake.2 1 The classic study of faction in Girona is J. de Chia, Bandos y bandoleros en Gerona, 3 vols. (Girona, 1888–90). Such urban conflict was, of course, common throughout Western Europe. In Catalonia, as in Castile, civil war gave it a new and dangerous dimension. 2 Sobrequés i Vidal, Societat i estructura política de la Girona medieval.

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Protests against blatant manipulation of the electoral system led Queen Maria in 1445 to impose reforms which, while ensuring a fairer distribution of power in the first and second orders, had an opposite effect on the third: of the several hundred in its ranks, the number eligible for election was cut from fiftytwo to thirty-six. Moreover, the elimination of vote-rigging did not entail an end to factional strife, it may indeed have exacerbated it; there were, besides, plenty of other bones over which to contend. A quarrel between the abbot of Sant Pere de Galligants, a monastery within the city, and a canon of the cathedral escalated into violence involving the former’s brother, Joan Cavalleria (a citizen) and the canon’s relative Narcís de Santdionis (cavaller). Santdionís ambushed the abbot on the highway, then attacked his house in Girona; their armed bravos constantly clashed in the streets.3 Another patrician family, the Terrades, found itself simultaneously at grips with the Boxols brothers (donzels) over an inheritance and with their fellow-citizen Narcís Pere over his exclusion from the council.4 In so closed a community such feuds inevitably became intertwined through ties of family and loyalties, with the result that most inhabitants found themselves drawn into one or another of the loose alliances which divided the city. Truces and treaties made in particular feuds therefore often proved ineffectual when the protagonists could re-engage in a different cause. Mostly the antagonists satisfied themselves with ritual acts of defiance and aggression, but occasionally these spilt over into violence and bloodshed. That happened on 13 April 1453. A brawl between hostile groups in front of the council chamber left Joan Cavalleria, chief figure on one side of the feuding divide, stabbed to death and nine of his party wounded. Two ringleaders, the physician Martí Pere and Bernat Miquel, were tried and condemned to death, only to have that penalty commuted to a fine by Juan of Navarre who well knew that fault lay on both sides, and that severe punishment might only generate deeper hatred and greater disorder.5 He strove, instead, by personal intervention in September 1456 and January 1458, to impose a truce cemented by marriage alliances between the principal warring families. Open defiance of those measures brought swift retribution. Thanks to such vigilance from on high, the excesses of a few hotheads apart, an uneasy peace prevailed until the outbreak of civil war in 1462 again tore the city asunder. Juan’s endeavours to dampen the feuding spirit in the higher ranks of Girona society ran in tandem with a surge of antagonism towards those same elements 3 4 5

ACA 3193, 175 (11 Apr. 1447). ACA 3204, 1 (2 Apr. 1448) and 3203, 85 (19 May 1449). Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 71 n. 121.

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among the mass of the population. Outraged by their loss of political clout in the 1445 reform and encouraged by Busca success in Barcelona, the common people found a powerful weapon in the city militia (sagramental) which the monarchy had authorized in 1431 as a counterweight to feudal forces. In 1453 they turned it against the powerful Margarit family in retaliation for an assault on one of its members, a woolworker, by Bernat Margarit, nephew of the bishop of Girona. The militia destroyed the family’s house and gardens as well as a mill owned by a dependant.6 In February 1455 a similar incident, an attack on a militia captain in his own house, brought out not only the militia but a large crowd all seeking vengeance on the assailants, servants of the patrician Francesc Sampsó. After failing to dislodge their quarry from refuge in the Sant Pere de Galligants monastery, the pursuers vented their fury on a house belonging to Sampsó’s daughter, first sacking then burning it. A magistrate who attempted to intervene had to flee for his life, leaving the city in a state of insurrection for two successive days; and the turmoil threatened to spread further through the surrounding region of Empordà as the populace rose against hated individuals in the military and ecclesiastical orders.7 In government eyes these events bore more of a likeness to outright rebellion in Majorca than to the Busca campaign controlled by Requesens. Accordingly, the royal council treated the rising as an act of treason, brought the ringleaders to Barcelona, and hanged the militia captain (Nicolau Devesa, a draper) whose injury had sparked the trouble. Three other militia officers escaped with fines. Sampsó, meanwhile, had brought an action for damages which led to an award of 30,000 sols against more than a hundred of those involved in the sack of his daughter’s house.8 Encouraged by that judgement, the Margarit family then claimed the grossly inflated sum of 10,000 florins in compensation for the destruction of their property in 1453. Another stratum of conflict and outrage had become manifest, not within the social ranks but between them. Thus far the government had acted with severity against the humbler perpetrators of disorder, but it viewed with profound irritation the endemic feuding of the higher social orders and had no wish to undermine the militias which had been designed to bolster royal authority. Following this other line of concern, Juan, when visiting Girona in February 1456, insisted that the city assume responsibility for collecting and paying the fine imposed for the riot of 6 Ibid. 72. The author cites other actions of the militia against the persons and property of the privileged classes in town and country. 7 ACA 3319, 95 (14 Aug. 1455). 8 Sobrequés i Vidal, Societat i estructura política de la Girona medieval, 95.

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the previous year on the grounds that the militia was a civic institution. He also authorized the artisans of Girona to hold meetings and elect delegates whose task it would be to organize collection of the money.9 He cannot have been unaware that he had conjured up before the city’s aristocracy the spectre of remensa and Busca syndicates. From those artisan gatherings duly emerged petitions for a greater share in municipal affairs. The knights and clerics of Empordà fared worse: to them he awarded token compensation of one egg per household against those responsible for the rural riots. On his next visit to Girona (September 1456) Juan tackled the issue of electoral reform by persuading the municipal council to accept a system of election by lot, similar to that already operating in Zaragoza and the Majorcan capital.10 Significant numbers from all three orders lined up both for and against the proposal, so demonstrating how deeply vertical divisions still fractured the city and made impossible a form of government on the lines of that introduced in Barcelona. A different system, promulgated in 1457, achieved instead a wider participation by including all eligible members of the upper and middle orders in the lottery, and by increasing the number of participants from the lower order to one hundred. This still left hundreds (c.650) more excluded from the electoral process, a majority who in 1459 voiced what the city fathers termed ‘their wild desires’ before their new king, Juan II.11 The old dominant cliques, deprived of the means of fixing elections, manifested their hostility by boycotting the new procedures. In Girona, as in Barcelona, municipal reform had not paved the way to urban peace.12 Although only about half the size of Girona, the neighbouring city of Vic was still more prone to discord because part belonged to the royal domain and part to the count of Foix, while its bishop exercised authority over a substantial clerical element of the population.13 Tempers easily flared in so small, closepacked, and interconnected a community which in the eyes of the crown ‘by its temperament was more inclined to do evil than good’.14 Typical of these violent spirits was the de Malla family: Pons, a knight, aided by his brothers 9

Sobrequés i Vidal, Societat i estructura politica de la Girona medieval, 96. The system first appeared in Zaragoza in 1414 and was subjected to several refinements before assuming its final form in 1446. M. I. Falcón Pérez, Organizacion municipal de Zaragoza en el siglo xv (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico’, 1978), ch. 1. Also in 1446 it was imposed in Majorca. 11 ‘. . . lurs desordenats appetits’. Sobrequés i Vidal, Societat i estructura política de la Girona medieval, 111. 12 Despite oligarchic and popular displeasure the electoral regime was to survive in Girona almost unchanged for 300 years. 13 E. Junyent, La ciutat de Vic i la seva història (Barcelona: Curial, 1976). 14 ‘. . . los quals per lur inclinacio son pus prests a fer mal que be’. ACA 3205, 44 (5 Sept. 1449). 10

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Guillem and Francesc, the latter a canon of Vic, killed Pere March, batlle of the count of Foix, on the city streets in June 1426.15 Retaliation duly followed with the firing of Guillem’s house and the murder of Roger de Malla, knight, and his squire.16 Ten years later the de Malla brothers were locked in a feud with an equally rough character, Pere Mir. Queen Maria intervened in person to patch up a truce,17 but this failed to stop Mir from instigating a horrific attack on the de Mallas in August 1448. A mob first fired the house of a priest where Francesc de Malla was living, then pursued its occupants to Guillem de Malla’s house which they also set alight; seven persons perished in the flames; Guillem’s wife escaped half-naked from her bed with a new-born child.18 Having concluded that divided power contributed greatly to crime and malpractice, the king resolved in 1448 to buy the rights belonging to the count of Foix.19 A successful conclusion to the negotiations entailed a reorganization of municipal government, an opportunity which the crown seized to institute in 1450 the system of election by lot. If, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we may conclude that this reform brought some peace in the electoral field, the embattled factions of Vic pursued their feuds in other terrain, despite efforts by Queen Maria to pacify them. Her failure arose in great part from the fact that most of the leading trouble-makers belonged not to the citizen body but to the military estate, all possessed of lands in the vicinity, all surrounded by numerous kinsmen and retainers, and all prepared to spill their endless wrangles over rights and wrongs into the streets of Vic.20 Attempts to prohibit their entry and to ban the carrying of weapons proved generally fruitless. And how perilous recourse to legal action against them could be was demonstrated by the fate of Salvador de Serradebaix, procurator fiscal to the crown court of Vic. Travelling to Barcelona in May 1451 to pursue a case against some assailants, he was set upon and killed by a gang in the pay of the Cruïlles clan.21 Cruïlles and Altariba, who had fought a battle on the Vic–Granollers highway (March 1451) and thereby put themselves at the crown’s mercy, meanwhile ignored repeated summonses to appear before the queen-regent, brushed off orders for 15

16 ACA 2647, 31 (17 Aug. 1426). ACA 2647, 137 (16 Apr. 1429). ACA 3182, 183 (19 Oct. 1443). 18 ACA 3204, 57 (5 Aug. 1448). Mir was eventually outlawed after unsuccessfully claiming clerical status and ignoring a summons to appear before the royal court. 19 ACA 2657, 139 (15 May 1448). 20 The clergy, too, were a turbulent element. In Jan. 1450 the canons of Vic attacked their bishop in the cathedral chapel with arrows. When he took refuge in the cloister, they besieged his palace, threatening to burn it and wounding his servants. ACA 3199, 27. 21 ACA 3209, 70 (8 June 1451). 17

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arrest and sequestration of property, and mustered their forces for another trial of strength. Fearing violence when a truce between them expired at the end of January 1452, the queen ordered the acting governor to intervene in person, but too late to prevent a brawl in which Jofre Gilabert de Cruïlles, lord of Peratallada, was killed.22 Investigations and proceedings foundered in predictable procedural sands, while attempts to hold the factions apart by forbidding outsiders to enter Vic and confining their partisans inside the walls to their own quarters met with only limited success. They did not prevent Joan Gilabert de Cruïlles (a Hospitaller), Jacme Alamany, and Gabriel Colomer from killing Joan Muntaner inside Vic cathedral in November 1453.23 Even in the face of such an outrage the veguer declined a call by the victim’s brother to arrest the killers, on the grounds that he had earlier given them safeconducts. Bernat Guillem d’Altariba, chief of the other faction, proved equally recalcitrant: in March 1454, openly defying the veguer, he rode into Vic accompanied by several men outlawed for their part in the Cruïlles murder. The royal council found itself powerless to act because d’Altariba had in his pocket a safeconduct secured from the king which covered everyone incriminated in that affair. Juan, as regent of Catalonia, extended that protection; as king he went further by making d’Altariba veguer and batlle of Vic (1458–1461) against the wishes of a city which understandably feared that such an appointment would exacerbate discord. Civil war saw d’Altariba fighting for Juan, the Cruïlles clan in the opposing ranks. Noble disorder and violence, whether in town or countryside, sprang, in part, from a compulsion to support clients or kinsmen in a society as prone to feuding as it was to litigation. In the truces and safeconducts, endlessly applied by the crown as sticking-plaster upon the feuds of the military caste, appear long lists of adherents covered by the provisions. Embracing often dozens of individuals from baron to simple gentleman, they reveal how far the webs of dependence extended and entwined. With good reason the government feared that violence among the great might ignite whole provinces (‘almost the greater part of the barons and knights of the principality preparing for battle against each other and throwing the principality into tumult’24 Maria warned in 1449), yet seldom could it lay hands on or punish a violator of the peace when a magnate could call on lesser men, often with some footing in the clerical estate and hence partially immune to secular justice, to execute his designs. The right of all, from the greatest aristocrat to the meanest ‘gentleman’, to wage 22

23 ACA 3209, 179 (6 Feb. 1452). ACA 3319, 18 (30 Dec. 1453). ‘. . . quasi es la maior part dels barons e cavallers del principat preparantse a batalla una contra altres metents bullicio en lo principat’. ACA 3203, 66 (22 Apr. 1449). 24

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‘private war’ gave them free rein to indulge their passions wherever they pleased, with the result that the rural population suffered still more than the towns from their depredations. That freedom was, it is true, in some degree circumscribed by the crown’s ability to impose a truce upon individuals or to decree a general peace.25 But when royal authority did attempt, however falteringly, to impose its will upon such unbridled spirits, it inevitably encountered resistance, sometimes open defiance, which in turn led to penal sanctions and, in the last resort, outlawry. Thus was created a network of hostilities holding in its toils both monarch and large numbers of his powerful subjects. In the normal course of events, society contained the resulting friction; should it fail, general conflict threatened. Noble violence may also in part be attributed to a critical deterioration in the economic conditions of the upper echelons of society manifested especially in a growing burden of indebtedness and a dogged resistance to any move, such as peasant emancipation, that appeared to threaten further impoverishment. Demographic catastrophes in the fourteenth century had undoubtedly undermined the old economic order in the countryside, while a growth in urban money-markets had encouraged landowners to borrow and mortgage in order to sustain their incomes and status. Their inability, or plain reluctance, to satisfy their creditors did sometimes end in a resort to arms. But common as dispute and conflict between indebted landlords and their creditors may have been, the archival evidence reveals very few cases where they led to sustained violence. More often immoderate borrowing by the landowning classes opened their ranks to the aspiring bourgeoisie through marriage or the purchase of estates, and hence to the forging of a united front between rural and urban aristocracies against the pretensions of those lower in the social scale.26 An adverse economic climate might also be invoked to explain noble aggression against kinsmen and fellow fief holders, yet one must be wary of too straightforward a connection because the cost incurred often far exceeded any prospective gain. Personal and family pride and honour, a web of sworn obligations to others, the burden of vendetta, any grievance real or imagined, all could drive this military caste into private war, feud, duel, assassination, and murder. Even the more restrained, even high servants of the crown, could not wholly cast off a mentality and conventions that had always met challenge with violence. Only a more absolute royal authority and a stronger state apparatus 25 A truce valid for a maximum period of eleven months could be imposed on the contending parties in a feud. A general peace could be proclaimed in three cases: war with a foreign power, a session of the Corts, and the absence of the monarch or his locumtenens. 26 Aurell, Els mercaders Catalans, ch. 5.

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would eventually restrain them, and these were patently not yet in place. Private vendetta, not ideological conviction, often determined which side these men fought on in the civil war. Any of the greater or lesser noble families of Catalonia would serve to illustrate the unruly behaviour characteristic of this class; none better than the Counts of Pallars whose lawlessness, extended over generations, made them pre-eminent enemies of the Antequera dynasty during the civil war. The campaign of coercion against his remensa peasants waged by Arnau Roger, count of Pallars, has been discussed earlier.27 This was only the last phase in a turbulent career of violence against family, neighbours, vassals, and royal authority. What fuelled that aggression was an arrogant temper fired partly by descent from the old ruling dynasty, partly by the isolation of his domains in the frontier fastnesses of the Pyrenees,28 and partly by a chronic lack of money. Born around 1400, Arnau Roger succeeded his father as count of Pallars in 1424; four years later, following family tradition, he took a bride from the powerful Cardona clan despite the hostility that festered between the two houses, and despite the cost which drove him deeper into debt with his Barcelona creditors. He reacted by disputing the title of his brother-in-law, Jaume de Bellera, to lands carved from the Pallars patrimony as dowries for two kinswomen, one Bellera’s mother, the other his wife. Ignoring legal process and a royal edict against private wars during the conflict with Castile, the count appeared early one morning with an armed following before the little town of Rialp, one of the places in dispute. Having tricked the inhabitants into opening the gates, he attacked the house of Aldonsa de Bellera, Jaume’s mother, killed some of her servants who resisted, then carried her off to a mountain stronghold. The king reacted vigorously in February 1430, outlawing Arnau Roger and ordering the governor of Catalonia to retake Rialp, free Aldonsa, and seize the count, calling out the host if necessary. But events soon compelled Alfonso to follow a very different path. Faced with the refusal of the Catalan Corts to vote money for the war with Castile, he had to solicit aid from individual nobles, prominent among them this same count of Pallars. The royal council, accordingly, received orders to suspend proceedings against Arnau Roger. Once the Castilian crisis had passed, and before departing to Italy, Alfonso did in 1432 give judgement in the dowry suit in favour of de Bellera’s wife, Blanquina (the count’s sister). Again to no effect because Arnau Roger resisted every attempt by the vicegerent, Queen Maria, to enforce it. 27

S. Sobrequés i Vidal, Els barons de Catalunya, rev. edn. (Barcelona: Editorial Vicens-Vives, 1980), 187–99. 28 They covered an area of 1300 sq. km to the west of Andorra.

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Pursuing his family feuds, the count next despoiled his mother, Beatriu de Cardona, of all her dowry lands and when, accompanied by a royal bailiff, she attempted to reclaim them his henchmen stripped the bailiff of staff and surcoat before driving both away. Outraged at this affront, and unconvinced by the count’s expressions of regret, the council wanted to set the host of Catalonia upon him, but was overruled by the queen who feared it might provoke him into ‘greater faults’. Yet at the same time she confessed to her husband that the count’s behaviour set a bad example to other great men and blamed the current violence among them on a failure to deal firmly with him! She knew, perhaps, that Alfonso hesitated to sanction any action against a powerful noble lest it lead to serious unrest in Catalonia and hence jeopardize his Italian projects. Emboldened still further, Arnau Roger proceeded in 1434 to have his kinsman Artal with a force of Gascons carry off yet another relative, this time his grandmother, so that he might lay hands on her revenues. Once again royal authority displayed its habitual lack of resolution until a gathering of the Corts in December 1435 furnished the injured parties with another forum in which to present their grievances; Barcelona, concerned for its financial stake in the county, added its voice to their pleas for action. As a result, the governor of Catalonia was ordered to seize the count’s lands and absolve his vassals from their allegiance. Had not his French neighbour, the count of Foix, grasped the opportunity to mount a simultaneous invasion of Pallars in support of his de Bellera relatives, one may doubt whether Arnau Roger would have been brought to any account. As it was, he retained possession of his lands and, at the king’s express command, suffered no personal penalties, on the understanding that he submitted the dowry disputes to royal judgement. That he had no intention of doing so, he demonstrated immediately by grabbing three more of his sister’s dowry estates, and by mustering his allies and Gascon mercenaries to resist any further coercion. Again the count of Foix backed by a thousand men waded into the dispute; the result was a veritable war on the frontier and great devastation in the lands of all those involved. It must be suspected that Maria and her advisers were counting upon Gaston of Foix to subdue Pallars, for they did little themselves, even when it became evident that the count was more than holding his own in the rugged terrain of the Pyrenees. Their dilemma grew still more acute when in 1438 the king of France prepared to invade Aragon in support of his kinsman, René of Anjou, who was fighting Alfonso for possession of the kingdom of Naples. Because the anticipated invasion route, the Vall d’Aran, bordered the county of Pallars, they feared that Arnau Roger might in desperation be persuaded to throw in his lot with the French and so escalate a frontier war into an international conflict. As before, the count

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seized his opportunity, offered his services in defence of the realm, and so escaped all retribution for his offences against state, family, and neighbours, even though the French attack never came. The following decade saw Arnau Roger defiantly defending his patrimony, no longer from kith and kin, but from a crown championing peasant aspirations to greater freedom. When a royal commissioner arrived to supervise the formation of syndicates his reaction went far beyond the vehement protests of his fellow barons: he provisioned his castles, recruited Gascon mercenaries, and was rumoured to be plotting with the duke of Anjou. Anxious as ever to avoid a crisis on the French frontier and, if at all possible, ‘the ruin of so great a noble’,29 the royal council hatched a plan to give custody of his lands and teenage son to his trustworthy uncle, also named Arnau Roger de Pallars, who was both bishop of Urgell and chancellor. It succeeded only partially: by the end of 1448 he had acquiesced so far as to permit the bishop to act for the crown within the county, and in April 1449 he took an oath to surrender Pallars into the king’s hands on demand. Here the council judged it prudent to push no further, only to discover that he remained as obdurate as ever in his hostility to judicial reform. While he accused officials of plotting to kill him, and of inciting vassals not to pay dues, they reported numerous acts of violence against peasants favouring redemption. To save the whole reform programme, Maria and her advisers had at last to grasp the nettle; in August 1450 Requesens took possession of all his lands without resistance from an ailing, debt-ridden Arnau Roger. The fire had suddenly been quenched, and within a year he died leaving a son and heir who found in the civil war ample room to pursue paternal feuds and grudges.30 29

‘. . . com sia gran tala la perdicio de hun tal baro’. ACA 3203, 11 (14 Oct. 1448). This account of Arnau Roger’s career is based upon the following ACA registers. Their number bears witness to the anxiety caused by his behaviour: 3171, 11 (25 Feb. 1430); 18 (4 Mar. 1430); 33 (24 Apr. 1430); 39 (24 May 1430); 45 (17 June 1430); 48 (21 June 1430); 90 (17 Dec. 1432); 98 (7 Nov. 1432); 2686, 102 (11 June 1430); 2648, 24 (15 May 1431); 2793, 139 (15 June 1433); 3173, 7 (15 Dec. 1432); 14 (12 Nov. 1432); 15 (10 Nov. 1432); 17 (26 Nov. 1432); 18 (27 Dec. 1432); 20 (18 Apr. 1433); 29 (20 Dec. 1433); 30 (31 Dec. 1433); 38 (30 May 1434); 40 (20 Sept. 1434); 51 (21 June 1432); 74 (11 Sept. 1432); 118 (5 Feb. 1433); 164 (21 Nov. 1433); 165 (3 Dec. 1433); 227 (18 Sept. 1434); 228 (18 Sept. 1434); 229 (20 Sept. 1434); 230 (25 Sept. 1434); 3175, 4 (Oct. 1434); 9 (18 Oct. 1434); 11 (21 Oct. 1434); 12 (20 Oct. 1434); 43 (9 Aug. 1436); 3176, 100 (22 Dec. 1435); 3184, 174 (12 May 1443); 3188, 40 (22 Feb. 1444); 3189, 80 (15 June 1443); 3193, 46 (20 April 1445); 3194, 174 (23 Nov. 1447); 176 (29 Nov. 1447); 3200, 48 (11 July 1450); 49 (11 July 1450); 3201, 166 (2 May 1449); 3203, 11 (14 Oct. 1448); 15 (23 Oct. 1448); 20 (3 Nov. 1448); 41 (18 Feb. 1449); 75 (2 May 1449); 157 (31 Mar. 1450); 159 (15 Apr. 1450); 175 (11 July 1450); 176 (14 July 1450); 178 (28 July 1450); 180 (3 Aug. 1450); 180 (5 Aug. 1450); 183 (19 Aug. 1450); 185 (20 Aug. 1450); 187 (24 Aug. 1450); 188 (1 Sept. 1450). 30

Violence of Urban and Rural Aristocracy

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Why did the state adopt so supine an attitude in the face of such flagrant defiance? Partly from concern for the security of the northern frontier; partly because all the nobles of Catalonia, high and low, friends as well as enemies of the dynasty, held tenaciously to their privilege of waging private war in defence of honour and estate. Significantly, it was Galceran de Requesens, a social upstart and avowed adversary of that class, who seized the county of Pallars in August 1450 while the queen and her council were still dithering.

9 Catalonia Defiant Over two centuries the Corts of Catalonia had gathered confidence and power: their control over legislation and extraordinary taxation had forced monarchs to treat them as partners, and sometimes as rivals, in government.1 Their assertion in 1410 that their authority derived from God put them, in their own estimation at least, on an equal footing with the throne. In the Diputació del General de Catalunya, the permanent delegation that watched over their interests between sessions, the Corts possessed an executive instrument that rivalled any belonging to the crown. No wonder, then, that they chose to represent the choice of Fernando as monarch as an election which bound the ruler in a form of contract with his people embodied in the Corts; only by mutual consent might that contract be modified; violation of it absolved the people from their allegiance. Relations between Corts and crown had never run smoothly under the old Catalan dynasty, so it was hardly to be expected that the Castilian line would fare better. In the forthright opinion of a modern Catalan historian, Fernando ‘was humiliated in a completely gratuitous and unnecessary manner’ by the Corts of 1413 which ‘displayed all the vices of intransigence, often needless aggression, egoism, disunity and political stupidity that characterised most of the country’s privileged orders’.2 Alfonso, the second of the line, learnt in time how to live with the prickly body by mixing resolution and compromise; but he never accepted its rigid adherence to established law and custom. ‘You should not greatly concern yourselves with ancient or past practices’, he told the Corts in 1431, ‘for experience has shown that not all past practices have

1

J. Sobrequés i Callicó, El pactisme a Catalunya (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1982). ‘. . . fou humiliada d’una manera absolutament gratuïta i innecessària . . . palesaren, en efecte, tots els vicis de la instransigència, l’agressivitat, sovint gratuïta, l’egoisme, la insolidaritat i l’estupidesa política que caracteritzaven la major part dels estaments privilegiats del país’. Sobrequés i Callicó, Les Corts a Catalunya, 79. 2

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been laudable or brought about good.’3 For their part, the privileged orders, as we have seen, harboured grievances on two main counts: first, that the wider ambitions of the royal family were marginalizing Catalonia; secondly, that within the principality Alfonso was working to undermine their position and interests. As, during the last decade of the reign, Naples increasingly assumed the role of an imperial capital and Catalonia felt the impact of reform, so their fears and uneasiness grew. All that concern found a platform for expression in the Corts whose sessions extended over the final years of Alfonso’s reign: inaugurated in the cathedral of Barcelona in October 1454, they ended in March 1458.4 Alfonso’s purpose in having his brother convoke the Corts had been to secure an extension of the deadline attached to the aid granted against his return. Subsequent requests for further extensions dragged out proceedings and thereby gave malcontents ample scope for the airing of grievances. Let it be remembered, however, that the crown had its protagonists among the ranks of nobles, knights, clerics, and townsmen, most notably in the five syndics representing the Busca administration of Barcelona and in those of the smaller towns summoned for the first time to the Corts. The higher ranks of nobles and clergy, close partners of the crown in its domestic administration and international ambitions, kept at a discreet distance from the Corts, rarely attending sessions which threatened any direct confrontation with the sovereign power. Replying on behalf of the whole Corts to Juan’s opening address, Joan Margarit, bishop of Elna, eloquently voiced the underlying concern of his countrymen: Catalonia, once the heart of the Aragonese monarchy and the source of that valour and power which had conquered far and wide, now found itself ‘totally ruined and lost through the absence of its glorious prince and lord’, a nation ‘almost widowed’. His remedies: the king’s return and the preservation of Catalonia’s privileges and liberties.5 This appeal to ‘liberties’ was no mere rhetorical flourish for custom demanded that the formulation and redress of grievances must precede any concession to royal demands. Immediately the syndics of Perpignan, Lleida, Girona, Tortosa, Vic, Vilafranca del Penedès, and Vilafranca de Conflent raised the grievance of greatest moment to urban oligarchies everywhere: the ousting of their Biga confrères from control of Barcelona. The Busca syndics, they maintained, were in effect royal appointees 3 ‘. . . car experiència ha mostrat que totes les pràctiques passades no són estades lloables ne són vengudes a bona fi’. Albert and Gassiot, Parlaments, 161. 4 Sobrequés i Vidal, ‘La crisi política a les Corts de 1454–1458’, in La guerra civil, 1. 5 Albert and Gassiot, Parlaments, 208–12.

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and could not, therefore, participate in Corts business because it would be tantamount to the king negotiating with himself. In reply the Busca representatives denied that they were creatures of the crown and accused their adversaries of raising the issue in order to delay a reply to the king’s request over the aid. The dispute did indeed paralyse the Corts until May 1455 when regular elections in Barcelona enabled Juan to rule in favour of the city’s syndics.6 Getting down at last to formulating grievances, the Corts proceeded in its usual dilatory manner, to the great exasperation of both king and regent. The delay might have lasted longer still had not a hard core of those most aggrieved by royal policies seized an opportunity presented to them in the days before Christmas 1455. Wearied by months of delay and expense, large numbers had already left the Corts, many more went home for the holidays. The way was then left open for a small but determined group to hijack procedures and rush through its chosen schedule of grievances. Most of the items presented at long last to Juan on 23 December 1455 involved relatively minor complaints touching individuals or communities, but tucked among them lay some of explosive intent. One of these, known as the ‘greuge de Requesens’, demanded nothing less than the annulment of every measure enacted while Requesens had held the office of locumtenens in Catalonia, on the grounds that the appointment of anyone other than a member of the royal family violated the constitutions, and so rendered all his actions illegal. By such means the Biga sought to undo reform in Barcelona. Requesens’s unpopularity in the upper reaches of society guaranteed some support from the clergy and military, but in the third estate the grievance passed only by a piece of late-night gerrymandering. Other major items in the schedule of grievances called for an end to proceedings favouring the remensas, revocation of the coinage revaluation, and the disbanding of urban militias, all stigmatized as flagrant violations of usages and constitutions, all silently interpreted as part and parcel of an alien and autocratic dynasty’s intention to humble the Catalan ruling classes. The fact that twenty-eight of the sixty-eight members of the military order left in Barcelona subsequently voted against inclusion of the ‘greuge de Requesens’ did not signify that they did not share their fellows’ alarm at the onward march of royal authority, but at this juncture they were mainly concerned with factional struggles within the order.7 Similar considerations swayed the clergy which sanctioned the whole schedule 6 The proceedings of this Corts are published in Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Aragón y de Valencia y Principado de Cataluña, i. Cataluña (Madrid, 1896–1922), vols. 22 and 23. They are discussed by Sobrequés i Vidal, ‘La crisi política a les Corts de 1454–1458’, in La guerra civil, i. 7 The military order had long been at odds with itself over the demand by its lower ranks that they be accorded the status of a separate order as was the case in the kingdom of Aragon.

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by a majority of ten to three. But in the commons, where Barcelona mustered fourteen votes against eight in protest at the conduct of the Corts, majority sentiment genuinely favoured reform as well as the king’s return, seen as a guarantee that the gains so far achieved would not be undone and might be carried further. Barcelona’s influence and voice was magnified, it is true, by the practice whereby many smaller municipalities, in order to save expense, appointed fellow-citizens resident in Barcelona to represent them in the Corts. Despite their protestations to the contrary, the other two orders viewed the prospect of Alfonso’s return in an ambiguous light: while desiring to reclaim the sovereign and seat of government from Italy, they shared the commons’ belief that the consequence, at least in the short term, would be to reinforce the campaign being waged against many of their cherished privileges. Procedural wrangles which kept the Corts at a standstill therefore caused them no undue distress. Not until 9 April 1456 did the whole body assent to a compromise brokered by the bishop of Elna: it gave the king until the end of the year to make his promised return and four months thereafter to redress grievances; only then would he receive the aid. In the legislative field they were able to agree on constitutions establishing the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the celebration of St George’s day, a closed season for fowling, and a hygienic measure to ban clothing that touched the ground. But on the great constitutional issues they remained deadlocked. Juan’s manifest frustration with these proceedings arose not solely from delay over the aid issue; he badly needed to get away from Catalonia to confront problems in Aragon and, above all, in Navarre. An upsurge of noble feuding in the former kingdom had led to widespread disorder and consequent appeals for Juan’s personal intervention to save the land ‘from fire and flame’.8 But if duty summoned him to Aragon, passion called him to Navarre where he meant, whatever the cost, to take revenge on his son, the prince of Viana, for the part he had played in bringing Juan to a humiliating peace with Castile in 1455. That settlement had cost the king of Navarre all his Castilian estates and his bastard son, Alfonso, the mastership of Calatrava.9 Retribution took shape 8 ‘. . . este regno va a fuego e flama’. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 100 n. 220. For the endemic conflicts in Aragon see Sarasa Sánchez, Sociedad y conflictos sociales en Aragón. 9 During the course of the struggle with his father in Navarre, Charles had sought, and received, aid from the Infante Enrique who succeeded Juan II as king of Castile on 21 July 1454. When, on the initiative of King Alfonso, peace between Aragon and Castile was concluded in Sept. 1454 Juan had no choice but to ratify it, which he did in Feb. 1455, despite the humiliations heaped upon him. He never forgave Charles for what he regarded, with some reason, as blackest treachery. Vicens Vives, Juan II de Aragón, 164–8. His son Alfonso had been imposed on the Order against its will in 1443 when Juan was at the height of his power in Castile.

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in a pact between Juan and his son-in-law, Gaston of Foix: Charles of Viana and his sister Blanche10 were to be disinherited, Gaston and his wife Leonor (another of Juan’s daughters) proclaimed heirs to Navarre, and a military operation, jointly mounted by Juan and Gaston, was to drive the disgraced prince from that kingdom. The operation was planned for June 1456. Charles and Blanche were duly stripped of their rights to the crown of Navarre in December 1455, and Gaston himself arrived in Barcelona in April to confirm that his overlord, the king of France, had sanctioned the deal, and press Juan to institute the process of disinheritance. Destined to become as potent an icon of Catalan nationalism as Jaume of Urgell, Charles of Viana at this moment cast over the principality a brief shadow doomed to deepen into the darkness of civil war. Because he had to keep the Corts in session or lose the aid, Juan needed its permission to absent himself. To gain that permission he must convince it that grave perils threatened in Aragon and Navarre. Over Aragon there were few serious objections, but the situation in Navarre aroused grave concern which led Barcelona and the clergy separately to put forward the idea of sending an embassy to Charles in the hope of reconciling him with his father. Catalan interest in their quarrel extended far beyond the immediate issue of Juan’s absence. No longer could anyone expect that Queen Maria would produce an heir, even should Alfonso return from Italy. In the event of his death (by the standards of the age and the Trastámar family he was already an old man), the crown would pass to Juan, himself verging on 60, with Charles his heir. Were Charles to be disinherited, the succession fell to Juan’s only other legitimate son, Fernando, then no more than 4 years old and a thoroughbred Castilian. On this occasion, however, no one wanted to press the point too far, so, with some haggling over details, the Corts gave Juan leave to absent himself for two months. The prince of Viana meanwhile had decided not to wait for the axe to fall. Instead he took his cause in person to the French court, asking Charles VII to judge between himself and his father.11 Further obstruction to Juan’s Navarrese scheme came from none other than his brother, the king of Aragon, who expressed his disquiet over behaviour that might shatter the peace newly made

10 Following her divorce from Enrique, prince of Asturias, in 1453, Blanche had returned to Navarre where she became a stout supporter of her brother in his differences with their father. 11 The only substantial study of Charles of Viana is still G. Desdevises du Dézert, Don Carlos d’Aragon, prince de Viane, étude sur l’Espagne du Nord au XVe siècle, (Paris: Colin, 1889).

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with Castile.12 Alfonso became still more uneasy when he learnt of his nephew’s flight to France, his implacable antagonist on the Italian scene. Juan returned to Barcelona, as promised, on 16 August 1456 to find the Corts and Diputació locked in combat with Barcelona over the city’s proclamation banning the import of foreign woollens. A vociferous, Biga-friendly minority, taking control of proceedings in the Corts, presented the affair as an issue of life and death for the liberties of Catalonia but could not get the consent needed from a Barcelona-led majority in the third estate to declare this a grievance. Consequently, all proceedings in the Corts remained deadlocked. To make life still more difficult for Juan, his brother was asking for yet another extension of the aid, this time until May 1457, while his own plans for Navarre were hamstrung by the difficulty of getting away from Catalonia. Convinced that the Corts would agree on nothing, the aid included, he resolved in October 1456 to prorogue it for three months and concentrate instead on Navarre. Arriving there in January 1457, he renewed his pact with Gaston of Foix and fixed their joint military operation against those still defending the cause of the absent Charles for the following May. None of this pleased Alfonso. He still attached great psychological importance to the aid, tied to the prospect of his return, for his relationship with his Spanish subjects, even though he had by this time determined to put the subjugation of Genoa at the top of his agenda.13 Misinformed about the true nature of difficulties in the Corts, he saw the prorogation as a dereliction of duty on Juan’s part, made more reprehensible by a stubborn pursuit of the feud against Charles of Viana. To lure that prince away from his dangerous flirtation with France, Alfonso invited him to Naples with a promise to negotiate a reconciliation with his father. In January 1457, just as Juan and Gaston were concerting their plans against him, the prince arrived in the Neapolitan court to a most cordial reception. Whereas Juan had little taste or time for the arts in any form, Charles’s avowed interest in them struck a welcome chord with his cultured uncle. Juan loyally resumed his tussle with the Corts in February 1457, as yet unaware of this faraway setback to his schemes. The line-up of forces within the estates he found unchanged, but when confronted with his request for yet another adjournment of the aid the constitutionalist block adopted a new tactic based upon the not unreasonable assumption that the king had no intention 12 Charles’s old ally, now King Enrique IV of Castile, was concerned to keep his finger in the affairs of Navarre by supporting the Beaumont faction against Juan and the Agramonts. 13 Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 400–4.

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of leaving Italy. He should have his extension to the end of September, and indefinitely beyond; in return he must approve ad beneplacitum an ordinance, drawn up by a commission of the Corts, for the reform of justice in Catalonia. That ordinance would come into force should he not return in September and, as opponents of the proposal foresaw, would undoubtedly decide the great issues of the day in favour of the entrenched oligarchies. Such conditions Alfonso rejected out of hand—the snare was plain to see; the offer, he insisted, must be unconditional. By now, it should be noted, expense, other business, and boredom had driven most members of the Corts away from Barcelona, leaving behind a committed few resolved to fight the constitutional battles with little thought of truce or compromise. Already a sombre counterpoint had established itself between the crises in Catalonia and Navarre as Juan, frustrated on both fronts, hurried back and forth. The linking motif, the fate of Charles of Viana, has already been discussed; around it Juan was developing another, the future of his infant son Fernando as heir to the throne of Aragon. Turning his back once again on the stalemated Corts at the end of March 1457, he took himself to his Pyrenean kingdom to prepare for a meeting with his old adversary Enrique, now king of Castile, whom he hoped to wean away from the cause of Viana. The alternative, Fernando, he ‘cunningly’14 introduced to the Castilian court in order to gain both sympathy and support for his cause. All in vain, for a few days after the meeting, late in May, he had to confess to an envoy from the count of Foix that Enrique was resolved to support Charles against any attack. Worse still, he had lately received a demand from Alfonso that he submit his dispute with Charles to the king’s judgement, a demand backed by the threat that, should he refuse, Alfonso would strip him of the office of regent and do all in his power to aid the prince of Viana against him and Gaston. No choice remained but to placate Gaston with vain assurances and resume the ever more ungrateful office of regent in Catalonia. Reaching Barcelona on 30 June 1457, Juan found a Corts still more denuded in numbers. An epidemic had driven so many away that neither his request for an adjournment to another town nor his subsequent decision to prorogue the session until Christmas evoked any response. Free again, by default, from Catalonian concerns, he was thus able to spend the next six months in Navarre locked in argument with Alfonso’s emissaries over the fate of that kingdom and his son. During that time, as in his previous absences, effective control of Catalonia 14

‘disimuladamente’: Zurita, Anales, xvi, p. xlii.

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passed into the hands of Requesens—the embodiment in oligarch eyes of royal hostility to the principality’s liberties and traditions. Populist policies championed by that ‘monster’, his embattled opponents cried, were destroying not only the constitutional foundations but also security of life and limb. The abbot of Sant Benet de Bages carried their woes to the Neapolitan court which he filled with laments for the state of Catalonia ‘full of feuds and evils where no man lives or moves in safety’.15 All to no purpose; Alfonso continued to proclaim confidence in his governor and in the thrust of reform; in November he promulgated the edict against the mals usos. Nor did he, on this occasion, raise any objection to Juan’s neglect of the Corts and Catalonia, preferring that he devote his energies to a settlement in Navarre. Knowing that his sceptre must sooner rather than later pass to Juan’s line, Alfonso strove in the final year of his life to settle the succession by resolving the conflict between father and son. A solution appeared to be in sight when, in March 1458, Alfonso’s ambassador in Navarre was able to establish a truce between the warring parties there, Juan having previously been cajoled into withdrawing all legal processes against the prince of Viana. At this point both parties stood bound to accept Alfonso’s final judgement on all matters in dispute. Had not death intervened, that judgement would probably have favoured Charles. The Catalan aid Alfonso tacitly let fall into oblivion and with it the recalcitrant Corts. Juan met the rump for a few, fruitless days in December 1457 and again in March 1458; he then prorogued it to September, by which time the crown rested on his own head. So inconsequential an ending to four turbulent years belies their significance. They had hardened Catalan suspicion that the ruling dynasty had relegated their land to a subordinate place in its grand designs: Alfonso’s scheme for hegemony over Italy and the western Mediterranean; Juan’s obsessive resolve to restore Antequera fortunes in Castile. Catalonia would have to fight to regain the primacy on which it had always prided itself and avoid relegation to the status of a province permanently ruled over by an obedient royal agent. Those same years had, however, seen the bulwark of Catalan constitutionalism fractured by the repercussions of Busca triumph in Barcelona, and social divisions deepened and embittered by peasant militancy against subjection to a feudal hierarchy. At every level society found itself riven by feud and faction. Would such a divided people ever unite in defence of a common cause? 15

‘. . . plena de bandors e mals, e no anar ni estar segur negú’. Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 594.

10 Juan II, a Monarch Beset News of Alfonso’s death reached Barcelona on 12 July 1458. It took three days more to travel to the Navarrese town of Tudela where Juan was keeping close watch on a fragile truce and pushing forward his Castilian schemes with a proposal to marry his infant son and daughter, Fernando and Leonor,1 to the brother and sister (Alfonso and Isabel) of the childless Enrique IV;2 thus would he ensure that one or other of his offspring sat one day on the Castilian throne. Immediately, however, he had to attend to the throne of Aragon which he had now inherited. The kingdom of Naples, acquired with so much Spanish blood and treasure, passed, as Alfonso had so long patently intended, to his illegitimate son Ferrante. To that division of the inheritance Juan made no objection, for he had no desire to become entangled in Italian adventures which, in his eyes, had for too long distracted his family from its true Iberian destiny. He nevertheless at once made it plain that he would back his Neapolitan nephew against restless barons, a hostile pope, and a Genoese republic dominated by France; dynastic pride and his subjects’ maritime interests demanded no less.3 Regret at the demise of their royal bugbear did not, understandably, plague the Catalan old guard. Çafont had noted in his diary, with patent satisfaction, that a religious procession of dignitaries held in Barcelona on 23 June to intercede for the king’s recovery attracted a following of no more than twenty ‘ordinary’ citizens. The sermon preached by a Franciscan at the solemn memorial service on 28 July he denounced as full of ‘falsehoods; may God forgive him’, presumably because it cast too glowing a light on the late king.4 Those on the other side of the fence viewed events very differently; Boquet, the Busca envoy 1

Both were children of the marriage to his second wife, the Castilian Juana Enriquez. Following his divorce from Blanche, Enrique had in 1455 married Juana, a Portuguese princess, in an endeavour to produce an heir. Rumours of his impotence were common currency in Castile. See J. Martín, Enrique IV (Hondarribia: Nerea, 2003), 61–7. 3 J. Vicens Vives, La política mediterranea i italiana de Joan II d’Aragò entre 1452 i 1462, in Obra dispersa (Barcelona: Editorial Vicens-Vives, 1967). 4 ‘. . . lo qual dix moltes falcies en la trona; Deu lo’y perdo’. Dietari, 250 and 252. 2

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in Naples, voiced their trepidation when he wrote on 15 May: ‘All should humbly beg and pray (for Alfonso’s recovery) for his health is the peace, repose and safety of all’.5 In the event, the expectations of one party and the fears of the other proved for a time unfounded because Juan held firmly to his brother’s course amid the troubles of Catalonia. Requesens remained governor and was probably instrumental in securing a proclamation confirming suspension of the mals usos. Juan, on his first appearance as sovereign in Catalonia, dispelled all doubt as to his stance in the peasant issue. ‘Take care’, he admonished the vicar-general of the Girona diocese, ‘not to meddle in such matters, as you prize our love, and concern yourself solely with what belongs to your office, leaving to us, as rightful judge, the consideration and despatch of this business.’6 The radicals in Barcelona, too, found continuing favour with king as well as governor; in November 1459 leave to hold assemblies, granted by Alfonso to the guilds’ syndicate for two years in 1457, was confirmed for a further period of six years. ‘With this provision’, lamented Çafont, ‘all people, good and bad alike, understood very well that the king was endeavouring to keep his vassals divided.’7 Once confirmed in their long-held suspicion that Juan was no better disposed towards them than his brother had been, the reactionary forces in Catalonia began to seek ways of imposing their will upon him. The instrument that had proved most effective in the past—the Corts—was not available; the assembly convoked in Alfonso’s name in 1454 had lapsed on his death and Juan, in no urgent need of funds, showed no inclination to submit himself to another round of vexation when he wanted his hands free to grapple with Navarre and the Castilian marriages. The Diputació, that other stronghold of conservatism, could do little unaided, but it was strategically located in Barcelona where reaction’s prospects began to look brighter. In the Catalan capital the mood of popular solidarity and enthusiasm which had sustained the Busca rise to power had not survived an inevitable disillusionment with the fruits of that triumph. Increasingly the guilds’ syndicate was behaving as an adversary rather than an ally of the city’s administration and councils. Also,

5 ‘E tots l’en deuen homilment soplicar e pregar, car la sua salut és pau, repòs e salut de tots.’ Madurell Marimón, Mensajeros, 620. 6 ‘. . . guardau vos de innovar ne enantar en dits affers, per quant haveu cara nostra amor, e haiau cura solament a aço ques sguarda a vostre offici, remetent a nos la cognicio e execucio del dit negoci’. ACA 3361, 84 (15 Dec. 1458). Cited in Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 62 n. 2. 7 ‘E ab aquesta provisió tots los pobles bons e mals hagueren plena conaxença que lo senyor rey s’estudiava en tenir en divís sos vassalls.’ Batlle, Barcelona a mediados del siglo XV, 153.

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trust between Requesens and the Busca was beginning to fray, as were the loose bonds that had formerly held the Busca itself together. Biga stalwarts assiduously fostered these divisions. Thus the summer months of 1459 witnessed demonstrations whipped up against the governor on rumours that men had forcibly been put to the oars in his galley; at the same time leaders of the Busca council were inveigled into amicable gatherings, social and ceremonial, with the chief officers of the Biga Diputació. Meanwhile Biga influence grew within the city councils as its adherents abandoned the policy of boycott. The elections of November 1459 saw two Biga supporters (Romeu and Massanet) become counsellors, and a subsequent return to the illegal practice of taking decisions, which properly belonged to the Council of Thirty, in meetings of a caucus. Reform suffered further attrition through tinkering with appointment to the Council of a Hundred in order to admit Biga sympathizers. Vain protests from the syndicate served only to widen the breach between guilds and government. Given time, moderate elements among the Busca and Biga might have evolved a modus vivendi within the reformed municipality, but diehard enemies of reform were determined to overthrow it, knowing at the same time that, however much they might advance by stealth, the king would use his authority against them. To many it seemed reasonable to hope and expect that they might not have to deal long with Juan; at 60 he had already lived much longer than most of his Trastámar forebears and relatives. In their eyes, accordingly, everything hung upon the succession which belonged still by right to Charles of Viana (living in Sicily since Alfonso’s death) but which Juan manifestly desired to settle upon his favourite, Fernando. Although old by contemporary standards, Juan in fact enjoyed rude health in mind and body, marred only by cataracts which severely restricted his vision; the iron obstinacy which had sustained him through so many setbacks to his Castilian dreams was to serve him still through another decade of tragedy and triumph. An opportunity to challenge Juan over the succession first presented itself in October 1459 when he attempted to have himself and the queen crowned in Zaragoza; jointly with Aragon and Valencia, the Catalans protested that the ceremony could not proceed in the absence of the prince of Viana who must simultaneously be sworn as primogenitus, a title which recognized his status as heir to the throne. Tension grew to a dangerous pitch when the prince, in the following spring, set foot in Barcelona. Extricating himself from a half-baked plot to put him on the Neapolitan throne when Alfonso died, he had settled for a time in Sicily, only to find himself again the target of that island’s separatist

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ambitions.8 Those he had resisted, but an implicit threat of secession gave an edge to bargaining for a settlement with his father which he conducted from Sicily. Much more dastardly, in Juan’s eyes, was Charles’s continued scheming with Castile, above all his proposal for a marriage with the Princess Isabel which struck at the heart of his father’s ambitions. No marriage would in truth have met with Juan’s wholehearted approval because he would have preferred that Charles had no legitimate son with a claim to the Aragonese throne outweighing Fernando’s, but in order to steer the prince towards an acceptable bride he set in train negotiations for a match with the Portuguese Princess Catalina. Charles appeared to acquiesce.9 If he wished to play for high stakes, Charles would have been well advised to continue the game from his Sicilian haven; instead he allowed himself to be lured back to a precarious refuge in Majorca with specious assurances of paternal goodwill. From that Balearic island, where he arrived in August 1459, he picked up the tortuous thread of dialogue with his father while simultaneously nurturing a host of precautionary contacts with other parties. Once again he was outwitted.10 In January 1460 he agreed to surrender all the Navarrese territory held by his allies against a pardon for himself, his sister, and his followers; he was also given permission to choose a place of residence anywhere in his father’s realms, Navarre and Sicily excepted. Having settled all this, Juan hurried off to supervise the surrender in Navarre only to learn that Charles, in a characteristically impulsive show of initiative, had left Majorca and, on 28 March, landed at Barcelona. He could not have chosen a more contentious spot. ‘God willed that the prince should have come so opportunely’, wrote Çafont.11 While the agreement said nothing about the crucial succession question, both parties in Barcelona, hoping to win him to their cause, treated the prince as de facto heir to the Aragonese crown. Wisely he turned down the city’s proposal for a ceremonial entry in the form customarily offered to the heir apparent, but he did attend a reception in his honour given in the town hall on 17 April. Furious at this turn of events, Juan ordered the governor Requesens and other officials to ensure that neither Barcelona nor any other Catalan city treated Charles as primogenitus, a title which the prince nevertheless 8 The Sicilian parliament asked Juan to appoint Charles regent in that kingdom. J. Vicens Vives, Trajectòria mediterrànea del Princep de Viana (Barcelona: Dalmau, 1961). 9 He had earlier married Ana of Cleves, in 1439; she died childless in 1448. 10 Vicens Vives ( Juan II, 220–3) represents the bargain between Juan and Charles as more evenly balanced. 11 ‘Dios quiera que el Principe haya entrado en buena hora.’ Vicens Vives, Juan II, 224.

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continued to employ in his correspondence. An encounter with this detested offspring that the king would gladly have avoided had now become inevitable. Queen Juana prepared the ground by meeting the prince beyond Igualada on the highway from Barcelona. All seemed well; Charles dismounted, kissed her hand, she responded with a kiss on the mouth, and they rode back amicably into Igualada. On the following day, 17 May 1460, father and son met, for the first time in seven years, at the same spot. Kissing the king’s hand, Charles said, ‘My lord, forgive me; I wish to amend my ways and be an obedient son.’ To which Juan replied, ‘If you behave to me as a son, I will be to you a good father.’12 Sunday 18 May saw the king, queen, and prince enter Barcelona amid scenes of great jubilation at this apparent healing of their enmity. But behind the emotional words and gestures of reconciliation all three persevered in the ways that doomed all hope of understanding: Juan and Juana in their resolve that Fernando should inherit the Aragonese throne, Charles in his rash flirtations with Castile which he resumed in August. Any expectation that Juan might have changed his stance vanished when in the Cortes of Aragon, meeting at Fraga in September 1460, he insisted on having the oath of allegiance sworn to himself alone, rejecting all pleas to permit the customary oath to the first-born as heir.13 Charles, waiting expectantly in the monastery of Monserrat for a call to Fraga, finally understood that the breach with his father was irreparable. Still more did flattering proposals from agents of the Castilian court seem to offer his only hope of salvation: marriage to Isabel and flight to sanctuary in Castile. Whilst spies in Charles’s entourage kept Juan informed as the prince fell ever deeper into treasonable intrigue, others around the king laboured to precipitate a crisis.14 Their moment came at the end of November 1460 when Charles tardily obeyed a summons to join the king in Lleida, the city to which Juan had summoned the Catalan Corts. The very choice of that city for his first encounter, as king, with the Corts infuriated Barcelona which held it as an ancient privilege that it should always be the seat 12

‘Senyor, perdonaume, que yom vul esmenar e esser fill obedient.’ ‘Si tum fas fetes de fill, yot fare fets de bon pare.’ Such is the version of these exchanges recorded in the Dietari del capella d’Alfons V el Magnanim, 239, a 15th-cent. chronicle attributed to Melchor Miralles. For this attribution see J. Sanchis i Sivera, (ed.), Dietari del capellá d’Anfos el Magnànim (Valencia, 1932), pp. xiii–xviii. 13 A distinction was made between the natural and official primogenitus. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 225. 14 Among these was the archbishop of Toledo, Alonso Carrillo, who arrived in Fraga with the ratification of a pact which Juan had concluded with dissident Castilian nobles earlier in the year. It was to counter this threat that Enrique sought to stir up trouble in Aragon, using Charles as his agent. Vicens Vives, Historia crítica de la vida y reinado de Fernando II de Aragón (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico, 1962), 54. Martín, Enrique IV, 115.

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of such gatherings. Much worse was to follow. Messages from Juan’s father-inlaw, the admiral of Castile, warned that Charles’s marriage to Isabel was concluded, and that he was about to flee to join the king of Castile in a campaign to seize the throne of Aragon.15 Still Juan hesitated until late at night on 1 December the queen threw herself weeping at his feet imploring him to heed her father’s warnings, and thrusting before his clouded eyes letters, supposedly in Charles’s own hand, confirming the treason—a fittingly histrionic gesture which decided him on a fateful step.16 The following morning, having summoned the prince and greeted him in the accustomed fashion, Juan gave orders for his arrest. Nine years earlier in similar manner he had hoped, but in vain, to quell civil war in Navarre. Now, unwittingly, he had ignited a train that would blow Catalonia to ashes. Prime responsibility for this miscalculation must rest with the queen and that powerful faction in the court committed to ensuring Fernando’s succession; at all costs they had to keep Charles from the Aragonese throne and a Castilian marriage. Juan remained, as always, mesmerized by dim yet alluring visions of a return to Castilian glory. Wholly preoccupied by those ends, they all ignored rumblings of discontent and danger beneath their feet. Ominous signs had appeared in Barcelona during the summer following the call to elect delegates to the forthcoming Corts. The popular syndicate, standing on the privileges granted by Alfonso, insisted that they should be chosen equally from the four estates, not solely, as had happened before 1455, from the ranks of citizens. Against them the Biga maintained that the privileges in question made no mention of such elections which ought, therefore, to be conducted in accordance with the precedents that had governed the appointment of syndics in 1454. There ensued an impasse which it was left to Requesens to resolve when Juan took his court to Lleida in August. Unhappily for the peace of the city, the governor’s popularity and influence had, as we have seen, waned in step with the disintegration of Busca solidarity. Two months of mediation came to nothing, with the result that on 5 November one-third of the Consell de Cent elected four syndics representing each of the four estates, while the majority proceeded to choose a rival body of syndics, all of them citizens. An explosion of popular outrage greeted the news. Guided by Requesens, who had hastened to Lleida, Juan reprimanded the city authorities for permitting such a 15 The admiral was another of those involved with Juan in the alliance against the king of Castile. The accusations against Charles were set out in detail in the instructions given to an ambassador whom Juan dispatched to justify his conduct to the king of France. 16 Twelve years later Juan told Fernando that he had learnt the letters were forgeries. In the fevered atmosphere of the moment the queen may well have believed them to be genuine.

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schism and refused to admit either delegation to the Corts. On 25 November the governor returned to Barcelona with a letter ordering new elections in the form demanded by the three lower estates. But far from cowing the resurgent spirit of the Biga, this royal intervention served only to generate a reaction in its favour when, a few days later, the Consell proceeded to the annual election of the executive council; three of the five posts went to the Biga, the others to moderates disinclined to challenge their colleagues. Once back in the saddle, the oligarchy made no secret of its readiness for a showdown with the king and his agents. Categorically it refused to obey Juan and Requesens over the election of syndics, and within a few hours the detention of Charles presented an opportunity to call into question the very foundations of royal authority. In the margin of a document entitled Discordia syndicorum civitatis Barchinone a chancery clerk later wrote, ‘Hic est principium commocionum in Principatu Cathalonie’. Biga interest in the prince of Viana arose not from altruistic sympathy for his plight, but partly from the affront to constitutional sensibilities represented by the arrest of one they held to be the true primogenitus—Juan was presuming to ignore the laws he had sworn to uphold—and, above all, from longnurtured hostility to his father. The summer months Charles spent in Barcelona had allowed the king’s enemies ample time to assess his malleable character and forge links with him; the urban oligarchy realized that it had to hand an ideal weapon to employ against the king, and, in the Corts, a field where it could be used to maximum effect. Fully aware of the potential of the Corts to cause trouble in such circumstances, Juan hastened to prorogue it, but too late to prevent riots in the streets of Lleida, riots encouraged by delegates to the Corts and Charles’s entourage. Calls on the neighbouring population to rise in support threatened still greater chaos. Nor did the Corts meekly disperse; on 4 December 1460 they charged their standing commission, the Diputació, with the task of taking measures to deal with the situation and made a general appeal for the support of all Catalonia. Significantly, Barcelona was given a key advisory role, amounting to a veto, in the Diputació’s deliberations. Acting together, the city authorities and Diputació assembled in the capital a parliament of the three estates,17 a 17 A Catalan parliament was a body similar in composition to the Corts but summoned on an ad hoc basis and lacking the power to legislate. J. Lalinde Abadia, ‘Los parlamentos y demas instituciones representatives’, CHCA IX, 143–51. For the dominant role of Barcelona in the Council see Sobrequés i Callicó, ‘Extraterritorialitat del poder polític del Consell de Cent durant la guerra civil catalana del segle xv’, CHCA XVII, iii. 923–36.

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body which later assumed the title of Consell Representant lo Principat de Cathalunya (Council representing the principality of Catalonia). Endowing itself with extraordinary powers, this parliament proceeded to appoint an eight-man delegation, backed by an advisory group twenty-seven strong, to confront the king. Thoroughly alarmed by these displays of violent discontent, Juan dispatched Charles in custody of the queen to Fraga; hard on their heels came those charged by Catalonia with seeking Charles’s release. There followed a strange game of make-believe between these envoys and a seemingly sympathetic queen who gave them access to the prince and appeared ready to intercede with the king. This was doubtless a ploy to gain time. Juan following ignominiously in their wake, found the Aragonese Cortes, still gathered in Fraga, unsympathetic so, with their prisoner in tow, the royal pair pushed on to the shelter of their palace in Zaragoza.18 So universal was the sympathy for Charles, a seemingly penitent son harshly used by a vengeful father, that the guild syndics of Barcelona hardly dared raise a voice against the triumphant Biga who profited from the occasion to consolidate their grip on the city’s institutions. Nor could any utter a word in defence of a king on whose favour and protection hung the fate of the popular cause; rather was the mass of the population swept into the hysteria surrounding a virtual martyr. A beleaguered Requesens was driven to propose punishing the more outrageous abuse of his sovereign by the common folk, only to be told by the Biga authorities that Catalans had always had ‘a freehold of tongue in talking of their kings and lords, and had been accustomed to speak ill of them’.19 The campaign to free Charles was pursued by sending to Zaragoza a distinguished deputation representing the three Catalan estates, at its head the senior cleric, the archbishop of Tarragona. Jointly with a number of sympathetic Aragonese barons, they presented their demands and were given access to the prisoner in a manner which seemed to indicate some yielding on the king’s part, although care was taken to present the queen as the one open to persuasion.20 But beyond allowing his captive more creature comforts Juan would not go, and the delegation returned to Barcelona empty-handed. Their report of the rebuff, delivered to the parliament on 8 January 1461 stiffened Catalan 18

Zurita, Anales, xvii, pp. ii and iii. Batlle, Barcelona, ch. 5. Vicens Vives, Juan II, ch. 8. ‘. . . havien haüda la lenga en francha alou de parlar de lurs reys e senyors e havien acustumat mal dir de aquells’. Batlle, Barcelona, 167. 20 They held meetings with her on 24, 25, and 31 Dec. On the last occasion they visited Charles in her company. N. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, 2 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1953). i. 91. 19

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resolve. Ignoring Juan’s warning that it should not meet and that it had displayed ‘arrogance and excessive insolence’,21 the parliament went on to formulate accusations that he had violated the constitutions and privileges of Catalonia, the Usatges of Barcelona and the law of succession. Clergy, nobles, and towns were now united with the nucleus of Biga forces in a common determination to bring their monarch to heel. For several weeks their quarry failed to appreciate the danger, insisting, to all who approached him, on the one hand that the prince was guilty of treason, on the other that he was exercising no more than the common right of a father to punish an errant son. Such was the message conveyed to Barcelona by an emissary who was also to insist that the king was obliged to account for his actions to none but God. Reassured by exaggerated reports of dissension in the Consell de Cent, he concluded that he could still count upon substantial support in Barcelona as well as from those other Catalans who had reason to look to the crown for the betterment of their condition. To that belief he continued to cling when, on 20 January 1461, he left Zaragoza to resume the contest in the dissident stronghold of Lleida. There he was confronted by forty-five emissaries from the Catalan parliament armed with an ultimatum: release Charles and acknowledge him as heir or face rebellion. The crisis came to a head on 6 February 1461. Juan refused to give the Catalans audience, dismissively saying that he had more important business on hand, and then prepared to leave the city. Finding the gates closed, he ordered them to be opened, only to be answered, ‘My lord, you shall not leave Lleida until you have heard the messengers or delivered the prince to us.’ ‘So Lleida, you would hold me prisoner’,22 he retorted and turned about, in a great rage, to meet the embassy. An account of their encounter recorded by the diarist Miralles, has Juan declaring in roundly authoritarian terms, ‘Ambassadors, you shall have no prince other than my son, don Fernando’; to a fanfare of trumpets, a herald then proclaimed Fernando’s titles, among them ‘prince of Aragon’. To which the Catalans responded with the cry, ‘Don Carles, by the grace of God, prince of Aragon and governor of the principality of Catalonia’.23 A graphic relation 21 ‘arrogancia y excesivo atrevimiento’: Vicens Vives, Juan II, 234. At the same time he offered to settle the dispute peacefully rather than by the means which by right he might exercise. 22 ‘Senyor, la vostra merce, vos no hexireu de Leyda fins que hagau hoit los missatges, hons derie lo senyor princep.’ ‘Donchs, Leyda me tendra pres.’ Dietari del capella, 244. It is possible that the author of the Dietari witnessed these events. 23 ‘Embaxados, alter princep no aureu sino mon fill don Ferrando.’ ‘Don Ferrando, princep de Arago.’ ‘Don Carles, per la gracia de Deu, princep de Arago e governador del Principat de Cathalunya.’ Dietari, 244.

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of what followed is contained in a document seemingly originating from the Neapolitan chancery and now in the Milanese archives.24 In it the Catalan noble Guerau Alemany de Cervelló figures as the spokesman who presented the demand that the king release Charles, ‘our governor and future king’, and his ally de Beaumont,25 that he respect the liberties of Catalonia, and that he dismiss ‘foreign’ officials from his court. When Juan returned no answer, de Cervelló tore open the mourning habit he was wearing, revealing himself clad in full armour. Hand on sword, ‘in token of rebellion’, he then turned to his companions to ask whether they wished him to proceed; on their assent he three times repeated his demands. Still the king remained silent; whereupon the baron, unsheathing his sword, declared, ‘Catalonia intends no longer to obey you in anything.’ To that defiance Juan retorted, ‘You Catalans, who were ever traitors to the crown, get out of my sight, lest you provoke me to greater anger.’26 They thereupon again demanded Charles’s release and, at the king’s refusal, delivered the parliament’s message of defiance. Force had patently become the arbiter of this quarrel. Juan immediately summoned his son Alfonso27 to his aid from Fraga with two hundred horse. They managed to enter Lleida, only to have their horse harness seized by the city authorities. Before worse could befall, the king retired with them that same night to Fraga, leaving behind a city torn by riot. His attempt to suppress Barcelona fared no better. On that same fateful day his envoys, the viceroy of Sicily and the master of Montesa, arrived in the Catalan capital bearing assurances of his readiness to deal with any legitimate grievances. They found themselves powerless in the face of the Council of Catalonia which on the following day proclaimed Charles primogenitus and heir in the principality. In still more revolutionary mood, it sent out a call to arms by land and sea in defence of the principality against an enemy who could be none other than the king.28 Within 24

Vicens Vives, Fernando el Católico, 106. Ibid.: ‘gubernator noster est et rex futurus’. Jean de Beaumont, Grand Prior of the Order of Jerusalem, had been the leader of Charles’s party in Navarre from the very beginning of the civil war and became his principal adviser when the prince returned to Spain in 1460. He had been arrested with Charles in Dec. 26 ‘Tota Cathelonia . . . advocat juramentum quod tibi prestitit, nec intendit tibi ultra in aliquot obedire postquam quod te iurasti non servas.’ ‘Vos, cathelani, qui semper fuistis proditores corone, evestigio recedatis a conspectus nostro, nec me ultra ad iram provocetis.’ Vicens Vives, Fernando el Católico, 106–7. 27 The illegitimate son whom Juan had imposed as master of the Order of Calatrava; he was to prove an outstanding military leader in the civil wars of both Catalonia and Castile. 28 Among the measures was a decision to construct twenty-four galleys—a formidable force were it ever to materialize. 25

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days an army over three thousand strong had assembled and, under the command of Bernat Joan de Cabrera, count of Mòdica and the greatest landowner in Catalonia, began marching towards Fraga. Requesens, fearing for his life, fled the city only to be forcibly apprehended on his estate at Molins de Reis on 10 February and brought back a prisoner. Those voices on whom Juan had counted fell silent in fear; any dissenter risked denunciation as a public enemy.29 Within days Biga determination, buoyed by a wave of popular sentimentality, had swept away the whole apparatus of royal authority.30 Its confident elation knew no bounds as it moved from a defence of the status quo to an assertion that ‘the good of the republic must take precedence over the interest of the prince’. Others among Charles’s self-interested partisans acted with equal dispatch and to like effect. In Navarre they rose en masse and drove their lowland enemies before them; Enrique IV gathered Castilian armies on the frontier. A wave of genuine enthusiasm swept through the towns of Catalonia, mobilizing their militia, and on into the neighbouring kingdoms, where it raised serious disturbances in Zaragoza and calls for action in Valencia.31 Now little better than a refugee in Fraga, Juan had to hear messenger after messenger bearing news of fresh calamities: a Catalan army advancing on him from Lleida, Castilians threatening Navarre, Aragon unwilling to pledge its support. Soon Fraga itself became untenable. On 9 February the royal family, with its prisoners, left in haste for Zaragoza. Despite an initial display of resolve to defy the storm—he had Charles and de Beaumont carried off to secure prisons in Morela and Xativa—Juan had very soon to recognize that there remained no way of escape but to negotiate with the triumphant Catalans, not face to face—that humiliation he would not accept—but through the queen, even though many saw her as the evil stepmother in the whole sorry saga. On 14 February at Aljafarin, on the road to Zaragoza, Juana Enriquez met the three notables deputed by the Diputació to press its demands: the abbot of Poblet and the prior of Tortosa supported by no other than Beatriz Pimentel, widow of Juan’s brother Enrique. With them the queen deployed the diplomatic acuity that was to serve her husband so well through a decade of war; she 29 If the measures taken were greeted by cries of ‘Long live the king and Don Carles; death to the traitors who give the king evil counsel’ (Dietari, 246), this hardly signified true enthusiasm for the monarch. However, a proclamation issued in Barcelona on 20 Feb. forbidding all public discussion of the crisis suggests that the authorities were aware of an undercurrent of dissent. 30 The final step was taken on 19 Feb. when the Diputació arrogated to itself supreme power in the principality and ordered all royal officials to obey it. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 237. 31 Zurita, Anales, vii, p. viii. Sarasa Sánchez, Sociedad y conflictos, 91. Dietari, 249–50.

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nevertheless had to report to Juan, waiting in Zaragoza, that the insurgents would accept nothing less than Charles’s liberation and his return to Catalonia in her company. On 25 February, barely three weeks after the crisis had erupted, the king capitulated behind the saving fiction that he had yielded to the entreaties of his queen and the representations of Aragon and Zaragoza; no word of Catalan menaces. Juana Enriquez left in haste to free Charles from the castle of Morella which she reached on 1 March. That same afternoon Charles wrote to the Catalan army, by now encamped in Fraga, giving news of his release. In Zaragoza, meanwhile, Juan prepared himself for a bitter struggle over the future shape of government in Catalonia. From Tortosa through Tarragona Charles progressed triumphantly with a great armed escort and the queen, little better than a hostage, in his train. The climax came on 12 March with his entry into Barcelona as a conquering hero. A week of festivities followed to celebrate this Catalan victory, driven home by the humiliation of his travelling companion, the queen, who had been ordered to wait outside the city at Vilafranca del Penedes. By the beginning of April the Catalans were ready to present her with demands that reflected huge confidence in their advantage and the king’s helplessness.32 The principal points were confirmation of all extraordinary measures taken since December; release of Jean de Beaumont and others seized with the prince; recognition of Charles as heir apparent with the powers of governor-general throughout the Aragonese states; the irrevocable transfer of full royal authority within Catalonia to the prince so that the king should never again enter the province (with the proviso that this authority should pass to Fernando in the event of Charles dying without heirs); dismissal of all those who had counselled Juan during the period of Charles’s imprisonment; the removal of Gaston de Foix from Navarre and delivery of that kingdom’s fortresses to trusted castellans. Nor was it any secret that Charles had lost no time in taking up with renewed vigour his projected marriage with Isabel of Castile. At the end of April Juana Enriquez delivered this cup of gall and wormwood to the king in the Navarrese town of Sanguesa where he and his son Alfonso were endeavouring to rally their allies, the demoralized Agramont party, against a Castilian invasion. Devoid of all present hope and means of coercing the Catalans, he could do nothing but accept it. Within three weeks, accompanied by a body of experienced counsellors, the queen had returned to 32

Their terms were delivered to Juana by the abbot of Poblet, Joan Sabastida (a knight), and Tomàs Taquí (merchant of Perpignan), representing the three estates.

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Catalonia bearing a very qualified acceptance of the terms. She found the Catalans in no mood to discuss any compromise or even to allow her into the capital.33 Buoyed up by hopes of a split in the opposing ranks—the archbishop of Tarragona, the count of Prades, and the abbot of Poblet were all showing unease—the royal delegation none the less battled on to win at least some concessions. Possibly it was the archbishop’s change of stance which, at the end of May, led Juana to move to Vilafranca del Penedès, within reach of refuge in Tarragona should the simmering hostility around her erupt into open violence. Three more weeks of wrangling dashed her hopes of winning concessions. In the aptly styled ‘Capitulation’ signed on 22 June 1461, she gained little apart from retaining for the king the right to summon corts, hence some control over legislation, the release of Galceran de Requesens in exchange for Jean de Beaumont,34 and a promise that Catalonia would urge the king of Castile to come to terms over Navarre. Otherwise the oligarchic forces, which had for a century been struggling to subject the government of Catalonia to the organs they controlled, had won a hitherto unimaginably brilliant victory. Behind a purely nominal king and a figurehead deputy stood the effective centres of power: the Diputació which paid and controlled the chief officers of state, the new Consell of Catalonia endowed with authority to enforce the Capitulation, and the Consell of Barcelona, master of the capital and universal Biga watchdog.35 In every corner of the principality fireworks and bonfires burst into a deluded blaze of triumph. Publicly Juan ordered celebrations and illuminations in Zaragoza to mark the accord; privately he nursed a yet deeper hatred of Charles and the Catalans who had brought him to this humiliating pass. Age had not dimmed his fiery energy nor his thirst for revenge against those who thwarted him; he would assuredly not consider himself morally or legally bound by the surrender forced upon him. Years later, when addressing the Cortes of Monzon in 1470, Juan castigated it as: ‘A Capitulation of a kind that left to us no more sovereignty in Catalonia than it pleased them to allow . . . we never ceased to understand how 33 She was made to lodge in the spa town of Caldes de Montbui, a good 20 miles from Barcelona, probably because the Catalan leaders feared that her appearance in the capital might reawaken royalist sympathies in the population at large. 34 For Juana’s part in these negotiations see Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, i. 96–102. A condition attached to Requesens’s release was his banishment from Catalonia. He and his family went to reside in Valencia where he lived until his death in 1465. His continued sole right to summon a Corts Juan exercised to prevent Charles from doing so; because only the Corts could legally recognize the prince as primogenitus, Charles was never able to acquire that status, despite the Capitulations. 35 Vicens Vives, Juan II, 240–1, for an evaluation of the capitulation’s significance.

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disastrous was this Capitulation. . . . we signed it because we sincerely wished to avert greater evils and could see that Barcelona was disposed to the very worst excesses.’36 The objects of Juan’s wrath nursed no illusions about his bad faith. Against it they staked the likelihood that death would soon eliminate him; meanwhile they sought insurance in their own double-dealing with the king of Castile, and in efforts to crush or tame all domestic opponents. Foremost in that opposition figured those long-standing foes of the Catalan oligarchs, the urban reformers in Barcelona and elsewhere, and the remensa peasants. With the former there was to be no truce; reduced to a helpless minority in both councils in the capital, they saw their champion, Galceran de Requesens, brought to trial and sentenced to exile.37 For their allies, the common people, life became harsher as the political crisis brought economic disruption in its wake; early in 1461 the Consell of Barcelona estimated that commercial transactions had fallen by two-thirds.38 The peasantry, numerous and dispersed, presented more of a problem to the new regime; however obnoxious the campaign against servitude might be to feudal landowners, the oligarchy needed peasant support, or at least acquiescence. There ensued, accordingly, a tussle between king and principality to win over the remensa peasants.39 In April 1461 Juan reiterated the ban on the mals usos, and subsequently sent officials around the countryside in order to stimulate payment of the promised 100,000 florins through remensa syndicates. On the other side, the Diputació and Council having arrogated to themselves all authority within Catalonia, declared their intention to act as arbitrators between lord and peasant, a move denounced by the crown as a usurpation of its powers. What they could not, however, disguise was the weight of hostile seigneurial influence in their counsels, and even within the very body charged with settling the remensa question. Small wonder, then, that the majority of peasant syndics soon resolved to persevere with the crown as the most reliable champion of their cause. Yet another player in the game, the prince of Viana as locumtenens in Catalonia, was pursuing a line consonant with that of his father: he gave judgements favourable to individual remensas and, by a provision issued on 36 ‘Capitulación tal, que no quedaría mas senyoria en Cataluña a Nos de quanto a ellos pluviere . . . no dejamos de comprender cuanto esta capitulación era desastrosa . . . la firmamos porque teniamos en el corazón evitar males mayores y veíamos a los barceloneses dispuestos a los peores excesos.’ Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, i. 108. it is significant that the king saw Barcelona as the moving spirit behind the insurrection. 37 Watching him led a prisoner through the city, they are said to have lamented, ‘Look, the rats have caught the cat’. (‘Veus les rates qui han pres lo gat.’) Batlle, Barcelona, 170. 38 39 Ibid. 166. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 62–8.

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28 August 1461, he confirmed the suspension of the mals usos.40 Given time, he might have won most peasants to the cause of Catalan autonomy. By wooing the remensas Juan had taken a small step towards rebuilding his shattered fortunes in Catalonia. He had also achieved some success in stalemating Charles’s efforts to win his Castilian bride, for Isabel’s royal brother had understood that further pursuit of his vendetta against the king of Aragon risked reopening civil war at home. On 26 August 1461 Aragon and Castile temporarily settled their differences.41 Frustrated in that direction, Charles turned to the new king of France, Louis XI, another object of parental odium, in search of sympathy, a bride, and aid in ousting Gaston of Foix from Navarre.42 No one, friend or foe, dreamt that everything was to be so soon and swiftly changed to Juan’s advantage by the hand of death falling not upon the aged king but on the prince of Viana. A very little more patience would assuredly have spared Juan the travails that had led to the humiliation of Vilafranca; the underlying causes of dissension in Catalonia would not, however, have disappeared with the prince of Viana and would have found another occasion to flare into conflict. Charles died in Barcelona on 23 September 1461 after a brief illness which inevitably gave rise to rumours that he had been poisoned by a royal agent, the queen being the prime suspect; in fact, the agent of his demise was a pulmonary infection aggravated by stress. Immediately an unthinking wave of emotion enveloped his person and memory; popular hysteria attributed miracles to the body even as it lay in state; the coffin lid and its satin drapes were hacked to pieces by a multitude of relic-hunters. So was born the myth of ‘St Charles of Catalonia’, a symbol of phantom hopes that divine intervention might somehow save the principality from disaster. A letter the diputats dispatched to their ambassadors with the king only three days after the death vividly demonstrates how quickly and deeply this mania had spread. . . . it has again been a cause of great consolation and joy to ourselves, this city and all Catalans that, through the merits of the lord primogenit, the divine power has worked and still works, by means of his body, many miracles such as curing tumours of the throat and spasms, wiping away skin diseases, and giving sight to the blind; persons who, for two, three and four years have not risen from their beds, when carried to his body, merely by touching it are cured and return on foot to their homes in front of huge crowds. These things have been witnessed by many of ourselves and the honourable counsellors and very great numbers of people of the city; being so plain and 40 42

41 Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 57. Zurita, Anales, xvii, p. xxiii. Louis succeeded his father, Charles VII, as king of France on 22 July 1461.

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manifest as to need no further proof, yet, for the sake of those not here and those still to come, the vicar-general of the lord bishop has, through his notary, drawn up statements by witnesses and made them public.43

Royalist propaganda countered with the charge that poor folk were handsomely bribed to fabricate these miraculous cures.44 However sincere the masters of Barcelona may have been in their sanctification of Charles, they cannot have been unaware that it might serve them well in the storms ahead. Never had they imagined, when triumphantly dictating their terms at Vilafranca, that the clause designating Fernando successor to Charles would so soon come to haunt them. Worse still, because Juan’s favoured son was only 9 years old, his authority would have to be vested in a regent whom Juan insisted must be none other than the child’s mother and guardian, Juana Enriquez, the one widely portrayed as the hand behind the prince of Viana’s death and an active partner in that royal power they were so determined to exclude from the principality. Try as they might, the Catalans could find no way of escaping this unwelcome conclusion other than to request that Fernando should come alone and be subject to a ‘common guardianship’ exercised by the principality’s governing councils. For his part, the king had no wish to provoke another outright conflict, but he kept the Catalan ambassadors on tenterhooks for more than three weeks before announcing his decision: Fernando’s tender age, and the dissension that any form of Catalan guardianship would provoke, made it imperative that he come with his mother. Further argument and delay threatened to paralyse the Catalan administration, so Juan won the day and, as if to drive home his advantage, postponed the queen’s departure some days more on the pretext of Castilian business. In a land so wedded to legality as was fifteenth-century Catalonia, the 43 ‘. . . molt consolacio e alegria a nosaltres e a tota aquesta ciutat e a tots los cathalans novament son procurades per quant, per merits del dit senyor Primogenit, la divinal potencia ha obrats e obra, per mija del seu cors, visiblament davant molts de nosaltres e dels honorables consellers e de altra infinida gent de la dita ciutat, molts miracles, com es guarir de porcellanes, contrets e manchos fer adrets, illuminar sechs, e persones qui dos, tres e quatre anys havia passats no.s levaven del lit, portades al seu cors, per sol tocament, son guarides e tornades per sos peus en lurs cases devant innumerable gent; de les quals coses, ab tot sien tant patents e manifestes que no freturen de prova, emperor, per los absents e per memoria dels sdevenidors, lo vicari general del senyor bisbe, per mija de son notari e scriva, ne ha fets testificar actes e cartes publiques . . .’ Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 241. Sallent, a secretary to the Generalitat, also waxed lyrical in his diary. ‘O, most happy are the souls of those who with good and righteous purpose have served the lord primogenit whose merits and prayers will, as we unquestionably believe, win for those faithful to him grace and divine blessing in this world and perpetual glory in the next.’ Vicens Vives, Juan II, 235. 44 Diego de Valera, Memorial de diversas hazañas, ed. J. Mata Carriazo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1941), 67.

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absence of superior authority was much more dangerous than the risks engendered by the queen’s presence in Barcelona.45 A week of November had passed before queen and prince, accompanied by the Catalan ambassadors and a numerous train, nervously entered the uncertain waters of a mistrustful land. Reassured, even unduly elated, by an unexpectedly cordial reception in Lleida (7 November), they progressed, amid further scenes of popular enthusiasm for the young prince, directly to Barcelona, disregarding Juan’s instruction to enter that city, ‘still not as settled as it should be’,46 only when invited to do so by the Catalan authorities. By nightfall on 13 November they had taken up lodgings in the monastery of Valdonzella outside its walls. Within there was consternation, partly because a protocol-conscious municipality had not settled the particulars for this momentous reception, but more from fear that a spontaneous outburst of rejoicing, such as that witnessed in other towns, might imperil the whole edifice of Vilafranca. Accordingly, the city was placed under strict guard by day and night, and time spun out in laborious discussion of Juana’s titles and functions. At last, on 21 November, she and her son made their ceremonial entry before a subdued crowd. Word from on high may have muted the warmth of their welcome; Barcelona’s hysterical veneration of the departed Charles must certainly have cast a general cloud over the event. Çafont, admittedly an extremely hostile witness, claimed that the guilds mounted only one float, and that ‘ill-fashioned’ (mal fet); another observer, by contrast, describes at least four.47 Çafont also noticed, with satisfaction, two ill-omens: one of the cathedral bell-ropes broke five times and a marble pillar before the high altar fell down. To complete a bleakly negative picture, he went on to remark that, during the customary visit to the cathedral, the royal pair came upon the coffin of ‘sent Karles’. Juana knelt and kissed it—in his eyes a hypocritical gesture. Fernando, equally to blame, ‘cared neither to kiss nor take any other note of it’.48 The queen, by contrast, expressed herself to her husband well satisfied with the reception.49 Above all, she and the primogenitus were now ensconced within the antagonists’ citadel.50 45

Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 81. ‘. . . visto que encara no sta tanto reposada quanto menester seria.’ Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, i. 122. Coll’s study of this phase of the conflict is the most comprehensive available. 47 Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, i. 135 n. 111. 48 ‘E lo dit Senyor no cura de basar ne de fer-hi altre serimonia.’ Ibid. 138. 49 In her words, it had been accompanied by ‘muy gran fiesta, alegría, reposo ó celebritat’. Ibid. 139. 50 The title of primogenitus, so pertinaciously denied to Charles, had been hastily conferred on Fernando before an assembly of the Aragonese Cortes in Calatayud on 11 Oct. To that title were added the customary dignities of duke of Montblanc, count of Ribagorza, and lord of Balaguer. 46

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In other directions, too, the unforeseen turn of events had strengthened Juan’s hand: it had removed a potent rival from Navarre,51 although that land still burned with civil strife, and a major irritant in his relations with Castile. It might have been thought, as Vicens Vives suggests,52 that the demise of Charles would also ease the way to reconciliation between king and Catalans, but it must be remembered that the prince had been little more than an emblem of their differences. His replacement by Juana in the principality’s government made it inevitable that the monarchy and its allies would strive to regain lost ground, while its opponents employed every available means to hold them at bay. Already the latter had not hesitated to rise in arms, so it was to be expected that force might again become the arbiter of their cause. Without delay, or too much subtlety, Juana set to work, perhaps with more zeal than her husband thought wise. Conscious that the hard core of hostility to the king was located in the city’s ruling clique, she concentrated her initial efforts upon the Council of Catalonia and the November election of counsellors in Barcelona. The outcome of the latter gave her some satisfaction in that one of the five elected—Francesc Pallarès—was a professed royalist, a stance which was later to cost him his head. With growing confidence she appeared before the councils of both principality and city on 10 December, Fernando at her side, asking that they request the king to return. In support she adduced reports that the king of France was threatening to invade Navarre—hardly a reason for Juan to hasten to Catalonia. Reports that the king was seeking French aid against the Catalans she vehemently denied. These were muddy waters in which she lost her way. Louis XI was indeed casting predatory eyes on his troubled southern neighbour, and not only in the direction of Navarre.53 On the same day that Juana confronted the Catalan assemblies, a French envoy, Henri de Marle, delivered a letter from his king to the Diputació; individuals in Barcelona received ‘infamous and offensive’ letters from that same source.54 It was also on 10 December that the queen, on instructions from Juan, ordered the defences of Roussillon to be strengthened against a possible French attack. Why did she not raise these fears which would have justified the king’s presence far more than a threat to distant Navarre? It seems probable that she must have 51 But not with an uncontested title to its crown because Charles had bequeathed his rights to his sister Blanche. 52 Els Trastàmares, 175. 53 For French designs on Navarre, the Pyrenean frontier, and beyond, see Vicens Vives, Juan II, 273–4. 54 ‘. . . assats desonestes e males de hoyr’. The words were those of the counsellor, Miquel Dezpla, addressed to the Consell de Trenta. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 270.

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done so in an off-the-record manner because a majority of the Council of Catalonia looked ready to assent to her request, on condition that she first implemented all the provisions of the Capitulation touching the appointment of the judiciary and officials of Fernando’s household. But Barcelona, whose consent was needed for any measure taken by the Council and Diputació, resorted to delaying tactics by insisting that it must consult every city involved in the recent constitutional wrangling and thereby ensured that a decision was deferred sine die.55 Her precipitate initiative in thus bringing into debate one of the cardinal elements of the Vilafranca pact, an action taken against Juan’s advice, had not only failed but deepened divisions and suspicion within the body politic of Catalonia. Thereupon the queen, never endowed with an excess of patience, redirected her attention towards the Busca, the guilds, and remensa peasants in the surrounding countryside, those old allies of the crown who had sustained Galceran de Requesens. After enduring a year of intimidation, they responded with such eagerness that the authorities, fearing violence, asked her to desist from any further meetings with guild officials and to use her influence to calm popular agitation. Should she fail, they threatened to curb violence by closing all but four of the city gates; the coming and going of suspected troublemakers would thus be closely watched. Juana riposted on 4 January 1462 with a proposal to launch a judicial inquiry into the unrest and rumours flying about the city, an inquiry with which, she suggested, the city council should associate itself by nominating members of the commission. If this was intended to provoke a show-down, it succeeded; the council refused her invitation and countered with two demands: that she send away four galleys stationed at Barcelona under command of the king’s veteran admiral, Bernat de Vilamarí; and that she dismiss from her council those non-Catalans held ineligible for office under the terms of the Capitulation. In truth, panic had begun to seize the Biga party. An insurrection orchestrated by the queen among the discontented masses within and without the walls would, it feared, be combined with an assault by Vilamarí’s galleys, which had been hovering for months just outside the harbour. Their uneasiness was not ungrounded; Juana persisted in her dealings with the guilds’ syndicate, hoping for just such a rising among the people. The swearing of Fernando as locumtenens on 6 February, a ceremony to which the queen had insisted on summoning representatives of the Catalan estates, including towns and cities, 55

All the cities consulted affirmed that they would follow the lead of Barcelona in this matter.

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seemed, in Biga eyes, to offer just such an occasion, with country folk pouring into the city to witness the spectacle. But that day passed peacefully, and on 16 February Juana offered some reassurance to nervous spirits with an order to the remensas to disband and desist from any further menacing actions. She then precipitated the crisis, whether by design or accident is uncertain, by announcing her intention of quitting Barcelona and moving with Fernando to Girona, allegedly to deal with remensa unrest in that region. Faced with the disappearance of their champion, a crowd of guildsmen and commoners some thousand strong, the syndicate’s leaders at their head, marched to the royal palace on the morning of 24 February 1462. Çafont, bent on discrediting them, put their number at only fifty or sixty, including many conversos. Had there been so few, they would hardly have aroused panic among the Biga. As they went they shouted, ‘Long live the king, and death to the traitors who say he must not come’,56 and, once in Juana’s presence, they delivered three petitions: that the king return, that the queen and prince remain in Barcelona, and that a royal official be appointed to preside over meetings of the syndicate. Representatives of the remensas voiced their support. Here was that demonstration of mass sympathy for the royalist cause that Juana, this time following her husband’s instructions, had been striving to awaken. Hindsight suggests that had she dared urge on the people and call in the galleys, they might have taken control of the city. Civil war might still have followed, but, without possession of Barcelona, Juan’s opponents could not have sustained a prolonged struggle. Instead she temporized, agitation died down, and those nobles who had promised the king to support an insurrection held their hand. The Catalan authorities, by contrast, reacted instantly and decisively; they clamped the city under secure guard, ordered an investigation into the disturbances, and began a purge of its leaders, expelling them from municipal councils and offices. Fear of counter-revolution simultaneously brought about a sudden, decisive shift of the balance of power within the councils. The archbishop of Tarragona, Pedro Ximénez de Urrea (an Aragonese), saw his moderating influence in the Council of Catalonia overcome by the uncompromising anti-royalism of the count of Pallars who, on 5 March, persuaded the assembly to authorize the raising of an army on the grounds that it would be needed to subdue the remensas should the queen’s measures to bring them under control continue to prove ineffective. He fared no better in the city council which flatly rejected the queen’s nomination of him as chancellor of 56

‘Viva el rey y mueran los traidores, que dicen que el rey no venga.’ Zurita, Anales, xvii, p. xxxiv.

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Catalonia. The result of the upheaval was, thus, to deprive the Busca of any voice in Barcelona, and leave the Biga unchallenged masters of the city. Juana’s attempt to halt the process against the leaders of the February demonstration, on the grounds that it usurped royal jurisdiction, was brushed aside. Fearful for her own safety, dismayed at her failure to raise the city, she and Fernando left Barcelona on 11 March. Seven days later the Diputació and the city raised their standards and began recruiting a force to combat not only remensas but also all those they viewed as enemies of the Capitulation of Vilafranca. Within Barcelona, the queen’s departure had left the Busca wholly at the mercy of enemies who would pay scant regard to the royal safeconducts issued to its leaders. Its attempts to organize meetings only exposed those same men more readily to the vengeance of a now well-armed foe who closed all but two of the gates, cancelled the Holy Week celebrations lest they provide an opportunity for the feared popular rising, and offered rewards to informers. Accusations and arrests followed swiftly. The first to suffer was Jaume Perdigó, a shoemaker. He was accused of inciting to riot and, under torture, named others; so was set in motion a chain of detentions. Carefully planted rumours to the effect that a plot was afoot to steal and burn the prince of Viana’s body were circulated in the hope of diverting the popular mind from the gathering repression. When the veguer, in tardy obedience to the queen’s command, freed three of the prisoners, he was stripped of his office, placed under arrest, and his property declared forfeit.57 One of the fugitive prisoners, Martí Solzina (a merchant and member of the Consell de Cent), had meanwhile been quickly recaptured. Under torture he confessed to a conspiracy involving the most prominent Busca leaders in league with the archbishop of Tarragona, a conspiracy intended, in the paranoid words of Çafont, ‘to cut the throats of the counsellors, the deputies, the honoured citizens and all the people who revered the blessed Saint Charles’.58 Those named by Solzina, many of them belonging to great families and therefore objects of especial hatred to their fellows, were next rounded up and brought to trial on the charge that they had conspired with the archbishop of Tarragona and certain nobles to bring the king into 57 Royal officials in Barcelona found themselves caught between their duties to the crown and the city; the veguer had at first obeyed orders from the city council to proceed against the Busca leaders, even to the torture of Perdigó. Only increasingly peremptory commands from the queen made him change course. His fellow official, the batlle of Barcelona, showed still less regard for the crown, because it was he who, on the council’s orders, arrested the veguer. 58 ‘. . . se devien levar e devien degollar los consellers e los diputats e los ciutadans honrats e tots los pobles, qui fossen devots de beneyt sent Karles’. Batlle, Barcelona, 178. A full account of these events may be found in Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, i. 169–324.

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Barcelona and put to the sword adherents of the Biga regime. Chief among the accused was no less a person than Francesc Pallarès, second counsellor of the city; he was publicly stripped of his robe of office before being led off to prison. Two former first counsellors, Pere Deztorrent and Bertran Torró were also numbered among the prisoners. All were found guilty and, with the exception of two sent into exile, condemned to death. The executions of Pallarès and Deztorrent, garrotted within the prison, took place on 19 May 1462. The victims’ bodies, displayed in grisly state on the Plaça del Rei, warned any others who might try to overthrow a regime which would go to any lengths to preserve itself. Four others were put to death on 21 May. With the bit between its teeth it had also struck out at the queen’s principal advisers; on 8 March the archbishop, with four others, was declared suspect and ineligible to hold office in Catalonia; on 5 May they were proclaimed public enemies throughout the principality. For the monarchy, as well as for the stricken ranks of the Busca, Barcelona had shut fast the gates of compromise. Was there a plot? That something involving the queen, the archbishop, some nobles, Busca sympathizers, and the guilds was afoot seems certain. That it lacked coordination and determined leadership looks equally plain. Its opponents, by contrast, were vigilant and decisive in their response. Remensa unrest around Girona had served Juana as an excuse for removing herself and Fernando from a turbulent scene in Barcelona. She was none the less well aware that widespread agitation among the peasantry had assumed so menacing an aspect that it threatened, as much as the rebellion in Barcelona, to set Catalonia afire.59 As we have seen, the king had scored some success in the contest for remensa sympathies, but, lest he alienate the Catalan landowners en masse, he had taken care to remain within the strict limits of the Alfonsine decrees on the mals usos. For example, he had in October 1461 at the instance of Joan Margarit, the influential royalist bishop of Girona, ordered his officials to compel that ecclesiastic’s recalcitrant remensa peasants to perform homage. However, unrest in that region grew worse during the winter months thanks, according to the aggrieved landowners, to the queen’s failure to enforce royal instructions. On 11 February they wrote to Juana, the Diputació and Barcelona warning of large peasant gatherings in an ugly mood. From the queen came an energetic response: the peasants she ordered to pay all licit dues and abandon violence; the local authorities were commanded to prevent illegal assemblies, but at the same time to ensure that no lord demanded any of the 59

Vicens Vives, ‘El alzamiento de 1462’, História de los remensas, 61–87.

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mals usos suspended by Alfonso. From other bodies came a range of proposals. On 16 February the archbishop of Tarragona proposed in the Council of Catalonia that the queen be asked to go in person to Girona, but this suggestion found favour only with the count of Prades.60 Instead the Council joined with the Diputació and Barcelona in urging Juana to find effective remedies, with a thinly veiled threat that, should she fail, they would impose their own solution—a military operation to crush the peasants. Three days later came the request from Girona that the queen should come to deal with the crisis, for her commands had signally failed to curb the violence. From the king she received only the familiar counsel that she urge remensas to render legitimate dues and lords to forego the mals usos pending his arbitration. In the ferment gripping the land that proved an impossible task. Demoralized royal officials were mostly keeping their heads down; those who dared obey orders often found themselves ignored or, like the veguer of Barcelona, severely punished for their pains. With the mediating power thus paralysed, lord and peasant confronted each other in uncompromising mood. The former saw in the rout of royal authority the opportunity to re-establish the regime of servitude in all its rigour; the latter, likewise finding himself free of restraint, decided that the moment had come to refuse all manner of payments on the grounds that all were mals usos.61 During the early months of 1462 confrontation rapidly degenerated into violence, even banditry, over broad regions of northern Catalonia. Remensa lords seized persons and property to enforce payments; the peasants organized armed bands to resist them. ‘They gather the people together, elect leaders, and have no hesitation in doing or saying anything’, warned one baron.62 Only in the vaguest sense were these peasants motivated by royalist sympathies; like insurrectionaries everywhere they often raised a cry of ‘Long live the king’ when confronted by local oppressors; some, it is true, called for the king to return to Catalonia, but they might equally shout, ‘There is no king; we know no king’, as did some among the seven hundred peasants besieging Castellfollit de la Roca in March 1462.63 Very early in 1462, however, most realized that the governing institutions of Catalonia, controlled by the reactionary forces of 60 This move was probably made with the queen’s approval; only a few days later she announced her intention of going to Girona. 61 The French revolutionaries encountered similar problems in determining where to draw the line when abolishing the ‘feudal system’ in 1789. 62 ‘Convoquen pobles, fan capitanies, no dupten res dir ni executar.’ Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 72. 63 ‘No hay rey ni lo conocemos’. Ibid. 73.

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town and countryside, were implacably hostile to their aspirations. In Girona the clergy and nobility of that diocese had set up a committee to coordinate action against the remensas. At the centre, the council of the principality resolved on 1 February 1462 to establish its own committee charged with giving effect to a petition which called for the revocation of the crown’s proremensa pronouncements. Within days it was mooting the recruitment of an army to stamp out peasant unrest should the queen’s endeavours fail. Impatient to restore order, it waited only until the beginning of March before it gave the signal to arm and, on 10 March 1462 with the queen still in the city, raised the banners of Catalonia and Barcelona in manifest of their determination to crush the remensa risings. The majority in the Council of Catalonia which supported an appeal to arms could claim that it was doing no more than respond to a remensa escalation of violence which, it alleged, the king and queen were fomenting and exploiting in order to destroy the principality. Unrest was certainly rife in many areas, among them the mountainous region of Empuries where, early in March 1462, groups of armed peasants between a hundred and five hundred strong were operating around the town of Besalú. Passing beyond resistance to seigneurial and royal authority alike whenever it attempted to act against them, these well-armed and organized bodies seized the village of Castellfollit de la Roca, attacked Santa Pau, besieged Besalú and seemed determined to consolidate their hold on the area by occupying a number of castles. Thus, from diverse quarters was spreading the plague of war and anarchy. In mounting alarm at the chaos on their doorstep, the authorities of Girona had appealed to the queen who, as we have seen, left Barcelona on 11 March with the avowed intention of subduing remensa unrest. Vicens Vives is undoubtedly correct in holding that such was her purpose, not, as her enemies later maintained, to foment a general peasant rising.64 Her line of conduct, if not her day-to-day tactics, was directed throughout by the king whose ultimate objective remained the full restoration of his authority in Catalonia. There existed, he believed, a great reservoir of support for his cause in all sections of Catalan society if only means could be found to give it voice. To that end, the queen, once free of Barcelona, might gather these men of goodwill and, at their request, summon a Corts, thereby automatically terminating the mandate 64 She would not, assuredly, have abandoned Barcelona so precipitately had her endeavours to revive royalist fortunes in that city been successful. Having failed there, the call from Girona offered a plausible reason for departure. The measures she took to pacify the remensas after leaving Barcelona are detailed in Vicens Vives, Juan II, 268–9.

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given to the rebel council by the Corts of Lleida. Patience in the face of any affront was not, however, in Juan’s character. If the hard core of recalcitrant Catalans could not readily be brought to heel, then they must be crushed before revolt took a deeper hold. To that end he was busily preparing an armed assault on his rebellious subjects and clearing away all obstacles that might stand in his way. First he patched up his disputes with Castile in a treaty concluded in April 1462 and was thereby able to bring a temporary halt to hostilities in Navarre.65 Peace on the western front would not, however, by itself release the forces he would require to confront the Catalans, and there was little prospect that his other realms would furnish the means to wage an intestine war. He turned instead to the new king of France, Louis XI. From the outset of his reign in July 1461 Louis had fixed his eyes on the Catalan crisis, determined to extract advantage from it, but uncertain whether his interests were best served by alliance with Juan or with his opponents. It was at the instigation of Gaston of Foix, who had hitched his fortunes so firmly to those of Juan and married his son to Louis’s sister (February 1462), that he chose the former course.66 With the count of Foix acting as intermediary, the two kings first concluded a general alliance (Olot, 12 April 1462) which promised French aid in the recovery of Navarrese territory seized by Castile in return for Aragonese assistance in driving foreign foes from French soil. No hint yet of the Catalan imbroglio lurking behind this smokescreen! To reward Gaston for his services both parties confirmed the 1455 settlement of the Navarrese succession, which Juan undertook to reinforce by extracting a renunciation of her claims from his hapless eldest daughter, Blanche, and then delivering her into the keeping of the Countess of Foix. So bent was he on punishing the Catalans and his enemies in Navarre that Juan showed no hesitation in sacrificing his child.67 All this was but a smokescreen for a secret deal over Catalonia which was hammered out in a meeting between Louis and Juan held near Sauveterre on the Navarrese frontier on 3 May. The fruit of their encounter was two treaties: one a public document confirming the treaty of Olot which stipulated the 65 After the death of the prince of Viana the Beaumont party in Navarre had found a new rallying point in his sister Blanche, recognized by them as heir to his throne. For the background to the treaty of Apr. 1462 see Vicens Vives, Juan II, 275–6. 66 He was also influenced by a discouraging response to the overtures he had made to Barcelona. 67 In Juan’s eyes her activities in Navarre had tarnished her with the same treasonable brush as her brother. Carried off by force into France she died in captivity, allegedly of poison, but not before reasserting her claims to Navarre and bequeathing them to her ex-husband, Enrique IV of Castile. For a full account of the circumstances surrounding the Treaty of Olot see J. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II et la revolution catalane (1461–1473) (Toulouse: Privat, 1903), ch. 2.

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usual mutual assistance against enemies; the second a secret pact known as the Obligation General and formalized in the treaty of Bayonne (9 May). By its terms Louis was to send an army of 700 lances (4,200 mounted men) and 4,200 foot soldiers under Gaston’s command to aid Juan in subduing Catalonia. In return he demanded the not unreasonable sum of 200,000 écus, payable in two instalments following the subjection of Barcelona. It was also provided that Juan might retain 400 French lances for subsequent operations in the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon—a startling revelation of his fears that he might face rebellion on all sides. In that event the debt would rise by a further 100,000 écus. Louis’s master-stroke was to insist that the debt be secured upon the revenues of Roussillon and Cerdagne and that, following the fall of Barcelona, those two counties pass entirely under his control until the money was paid. As a pledge of good faith, Juan would meanwhile allow French garrisons to occupy the castles of Perpignan and Collioure, so ensuring that Louis became effective master of the territory.68 With this reckless, ill-judged agreement, which was to haunt the rest of his life, Juan had thrown away any remaining hope of a peaceful solution to the troubles of Catalonia. By pawning a notable part of the Catalan patrimony in order to impose his will on the rest, he had, moreover, fanned the flame of Catalan nationalism to still greater heights. To the drumbeat of the Council’s army and the remensa bands he joined that of the foreign invader. All the players in the coming tragedy were now on stage. 68 Juan’s pledge followed logically from the public treaty, whereby both parties undertook to defray in advance the cost of any military assistance they might receive from the other. Louis had drafted these provisions in advance of the meeting, fully aware that Juan would find it impossible to pay for an army large enough to crush Catalonia. See Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 80–1.

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PART II WAR, CIVIL AND FOREIGN

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11 The Drawing of Swords Juana and Fernando reached Girona on 15 March 1462 accompanied only by their counsellors and households;1 both Diputació and the Council, the bodies claiming to represent Catalonia, had refused the queen’s invitation to send one of their number with her. Two mutually hostile seats of power now competed for the principality’s allegiance, and each proclaimed the remensa crisis to be at the forefront of its concerns. From her vantage point in the region most affected, Juana was able to make a great show of her professed determination to suppress disorder in a series of measures directed against remensa violence and rejection of legal obligations; these began on the very day of her entry into Girona.2 Nor were they entirely toothless, for they persuaded the remensas to withdraw from Santa Pau, and convinced the military and clerical estates of the province most affected (the Girona diocese) that she ‘gives every indication that she understands it [sc. the remensa problem] and is dealing with it’.3 Two peasants were hanged for their part in the violence. Her ‘virtuous provision’ and ‘great diligence’ also impressed the jurats of Girona who were convinced that she had calmed rural unrest to such an extent that no further measures were needed. From other quarters came very different views. The chapters of Vic and Girona wrote of peasant hordes terrifying the countryside, kidnapping and waylaying travellers, refusing all dues, and gathering an army to join the king in invading Catalonia. If action were not soon taken, so the Vic chapter predicted, ‘Such a fire will be lighted as will not be extinguished with a little water’.4 A much more sanguine assessment came from Vilamayans, an 1 Their ceremonial entry into Girona accorded equal status to queen and prince whereas Barcelona had taken care to give primacy to the primogenitus. 2 For further details see Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, 295–303, ‘Política remensa de Doña Juana en Gerona’. 3 ‘. . . la dita senyora fa molta demostracio de entendrey e darhi recapte’. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 84. This was written on 8 Apr. 4 ‘. . . lo foch se encendra que pocha aygua nol apagara’. AHB, Consell de Cent X, Lletres comunes, 32, no. 61 (1 May 1462). A letter from Joan Mayans, envoy of Barcelona, reporting on his mission to Vic.

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anti-royalist gentleman of Girona, who assured Barcelona that the remensa forces in the locality were a sorry lot gathered only to demand the release of their fellows; they had no more than fifty ‘good men’ among them. Driven by a storm from their encampment by the river, they had scurried to shelter in a mill, like rabbits into a burrow. Given a hundred men, he could, so he boasted, quickly send them fleeing into the mountains.5 In Barcelona, where it had already been decided to send an army against the remensas, the darker picture was the one accepted because, since Juana’s departure, the real but unavowable target of that army had become, not the insurgent peasants, but the royalist presence in Girona and ‘those acting against the Capitulation’.6 The queen had seen her attempts to protect her Busca allies brushed aside. She was equally unsuccessful in her efforts to stop her opponents arming. Immediately on learning that they had raised their standards, she forbade all royal officials to take any part; on 27 March she commanded the deputies and counsellors to retract their measures; on 26 April she authorized proclamations forbidding enlistment. Finally, on 30 April, she issued a declaration condemning the military preparations in Barcelona as illegal; promptly the Diputació countermanded it and dispatched an emissary to rally towns and cities to its side. On 13 May the first contingents marched out of the capital in the direction of Girona, followed on 29 May by the main body. Ostensibly they went to crush the remensas; their true purpose was to frighten Juana into abandoning Catalonia in order that the self-proclaimed saviours of the principality might assume undivided sovereignty. An unvarnished statement of that intention appears in the instructions given to the count of Pallars on 7 June: he was to inform the queen, ‘humbly and with reverence’ (‘humilment e ab reverencia’), that she had been stripped of her office in Catalonia and was free to depart, taking Fernando with her if she chose.7 But, instead of fleeing, Juana prepared to fight. News that her husband had begun talks with France had reached her on 28 March. Details of the less compromising general alliance (Treaty of Sauveterre) she passed to Barcelona in mid-May in the hope of calming rising apprehension. A letter dispatched to Perpignan on 24 May assured that city in

5 Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, II, 316–17. The bishop of Girona had, according to Vilamayans, said to the queen that in her place he would have hanged the prisoners in front of the peasants and quartered the syndic who was leading them. 6 ‘. . . tratan contra la Capitulación’. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 270. This latter category was added at the instance of Barcelona’s Council of a Hundred. 7 Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 113. Contemporary, and later, assertions that the objective was to kill the royal pair were baseless, part of the propaganda campaign to rally support to the crown.

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Salses

FRANCE

Canet

PERPIGNAN

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Elne Argeles

Collioure

Palau del Vidre Boulou El Artus Coll de Panissars La Jonquera Espolla

CERDAGNE

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St Pere Pescador Navata Camprodon Siurana Pontós Montagut de Fluvià Sant Mori St Joan Les Fonts Besalù Bascara Castellfolit de la Roca St Joan les Abadesses Verges La Tallada d’Empordà Torroella de Olot Santa Pau Banyoles St Jordi Ripoll Mont Grí Cervià de Ter Desvalls Mieres Medinyà Foixà Pals Corça La Bisbal d’Empordà GIRONA r Palafrugell Te R. Calogne Palamós Anglès

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Vic 20 kms.

Height 500 –1000 in Mts.over 1000

Sant Feliu de Guixols Caldes de Malavella

Map 2. Catalonia, the northern sector

the most categorical manner that rumours of a pact which sacrificed the transPyrenean counties were ‘a diabolical illusion’. ‘It may be that the King of France, hearing of the upheaval in this principality, is, for his own honour and without waiting for a request from the king [sc. Juan], preparing to fulfil what he has undertaken in the alliance to do for the king’, but as for the suggestion that Juan would abandon Roussillon and Cerdagne, ‘you may be certain that the king would never consent to such loss and disgrace, because it truly is disgraceful for a prince to alienate the adornments of his crown for all the money

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and riches in the world’.8 If she was speaking from the heart, Juana must have been mortified when later that same day she learnt that the king had perpetrated just such an outrage and that a French army would soon be on the march. Details of the secret deal she understandably kept to herself, realizing how explosive might be its repercussions among the Catalans. Already she knew that Juan was preparing to launch his own invasion of Catalonia. It therefore made sense for her to hamstring any defence of the Catalan frontiers against these coming attacks by rallying loyal forces around her deep within the principality. No record survives of what passed between her and the king at this time, but it may reasonably be surmised that her stand in Girona formed part of Juan’s grand design. Even before the first attackers left Barcelona she had begun to mobilize support. Some measures, such as her appeal to the principal towns, met with no success; all had declared their solidarity with Barcelona. Large numbers of remensas, however, responded with some enthusiasm. Threatened with the fate of the Buscas, their leaders were readily persuaded that their only hope of eventual salvation lay with the king, however hostile he might be to their more radical goals. They had much to offer: a force which had grown from armed bands into a disciplined fighting body (so ineffective had been the measures of repression) recruited by a levy of one man from every three households.9 At its head stood the charismatic figure of Francesc Verntallat, not himself a peasant but a small landowner of very modest means.10 His status as spokesman for the peasants had been established in April when the queen began negotiating with him in her endeavour to calm unrest. Those contacts led her to seek approval from remensa lords for a moratorium on all exactions until August with a guarantee that they should suffer no loss; by the end of April she claimed that the majority of lords, lay and ecclesiastic, had given their assent. In return Verntallat used his influence to hold the remensas in check. In the first days of May he and Juana struck an agreement which gave the stamp of legitimacy to his small army and endowed him with the authority of a royal commander,

8 ‘. . . aquesta tal illusió diabolica . . . poria esser que lo dit rey de França, sentint los movimientos quis fan en aquest Principat, no sperada del dit senyor requesta, per la honor sua, se prepara a fer e complir lo que ab la dicta liga ha offert al dit senyor . . . ho podets haver per cert, ço es que jamés lo dit senyor a tanta derogació e ignominia sua no daria loch, car verdaderament ignominiosa cosa es a rey et princep e senyor que per dinés ne valua del mon volgués alienar los merlets de la sua corona’. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 439–40. 9 Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 87. 10 J. Camps i Arboix, Verntallat, cabdill dels remensas (Barcelona: Aedos, 1955).

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‘capita molt magnifich’, over the irregular bands in the area under his control.11 She was then able, on 10 May, to recall the Girona militia which five days earlier she had dispatched against remensa bands looting crops and animals in the region of Besalú. Within the month she was urging the peasantry to enlist in his ranks, and offering the logistical support associated with more regular forces.12 At the same time, in a move to put a stop to spontaneous violence in the guise of the somaten (a call to arms against an alleged wrong-doer), she commanded the remensas, under pain of death, to obey their syndics and do nothing except on their express instruction; by 26 May the syndics’ power had extended into an authority to compel remensas to serve the crown and to exact a payment of 2 florins from each household to support their forces. Demonstrating her determination to impose discipline, she continued in the months to come to warn against calls for the abolition of legitimate dues, for landowners had to be reassured that their interests had not been jettisoned.13 The consols of Perpignan were not alone in voicing their indignation at the queen’s action in conferring regular military status on the remensa forces; and all this delicate balancing between incompatible pretensions did not, of course, put an immediate end to peasant unrest. But further coercion had to be abandoned in face of the army advancing from Barcelona; remensa arms had to be raised in defence of Juana and her son. Three hundred men under Verntallat marched south to support Bernat Joan de Cabrera, count of Mòdica and grand constable of Aragon, who was holding the town of Hostalric, astride the road from Barcelona to Girona. Another remensa group, some forty strong, mustered in the old fortified quarter of Girona itself, the Força, while in the countryside of Vic other peasants gathered round the royal standard.14 Very soon remensa control had been established over a tract of territory in the wild hill country known as the Montana and western Selva; it conferred a great strategic advantage upon the royalists throughout the war for it enabled them

11 When appointing the count of Pallars captain-general of its army on 28 Apr., the Generalitat made much of a remensa force ‘displaying the royal standard under the command of one named Verntallat’ (‘sots capitania de hun appellat Verntallat, ab bandera reyal stesa’). Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii, 333. 12 On 19 May she instructed town officials to furnish Verntallat and his company (‘El encuadre de las fuerzas remensas en las huestes realistas’) with all necessary victuals and other supplies. Ibid. i. 332–6. 13 On 22 May Verntallat was ordered to stop his men shouting ‘fora tascas e censos’. Ibid. 334. The tasca was a levy on agricultural produce, the cens a quit-rent. See Freedman, Origins of Peasant Servitude, 64. 14 For other military action by the remensas in June 1462 see Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 104.

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to maintain contact with Girona and move forces into the Empordà.15 With a population of some 10,000, overwhelmingly remensa, this area also became a refuge for peasants fleeing from surrounding regions. Over them all Verntallat exercised military command and judicial authority, either directly or through local deputies. From July 1463 that rudimentary structure was strengthened with a council of locals and royal officials charged with the supervision of finances; all taxes and revenues collected within the redoubt were assigned to maintaining Verntallat’s forces, a notable advantage which helps explain their successes over many years in defending their own fastnesses and harrying the enemy in the adjoining lowlands. Remarkable and significant as this rallying of remensas may have been, their ragged bands hardly matched the forces gathering in Barcelona against which Juana badly needed to find substantial reinforcement of a more conventional kind. For that she turned to the feudal nobility of Catalonia who were legally bound to answer a summons to defend their sovereigns. During the first week of May a stream of couriers galloped from Girona bearing letters addressed to each in person, and calling on them to present themselves with horses, arms, and men, a call which she reinforced on 18 May by instructing veguers to issue a public summons to all holding fiefs of the crown. To the population at large she appealed for aid through the municipal authorities, but with little effect, for the vast majority of the latter stood firmly in the opposing camp, and ever more so as news spread that an already suspect king had pawned Roussillon and Cerdagne to France. (Louis XI had taken care that it was bruited through the principality.16) Meanwhile work went on to strengthen the fortifications of Girona’s inner redoubt, the Força Velha, and to bring in cannon from the arsenal and a royal ship lying at Sant Feliu de Guixols. Regal defiance moved in counterpoint with the measures taken by the rival power in Barcelona. It prompted the latter to denounce Juana’s appeal to the nobility; it probably sealed the fate of the Busca leaders; and it led to the tardy dispatch of the main body of troops, some 2,000 strong, against Girona on 29 May. (The first contingents had marched on 13 May, with others following over the next two weeks.) It also produced an attempt to counteract the alarming remensa stampede into the royalist camp by winning over the waverers with 15

For a detailed description of this region see Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 100–3. The emissary sent to Perpignan wrote an alarming report of the consternation aroused there and the consequent reluctance to heed the queen’s call for aid. He pleaded that the king should either abandon the French project or have the army diverted from Roussillon to Puigcerdà. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 347–52. 16

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proposals to settle all matters in dispute between lords and peasants, thus trying to outflank the crown which was still promising no more than judicial arbitration when circumstances allowed.17 Terms for an interim settlement were agreed between remensa syndics, the Council of Catalonia and the Diputació, only for them to founder on opposition from the lords. Demands from remensas in the Vic diocese that lords be compelled to accept the agreement were still being met, in January 1463, by calls to hold their hand until quieter times. Atrocities committed against peasants by the principality’s own army soured the atmosphere still more.18 Those setbacks notwithstanding, the Diputació did find support among a majority of the remensa communities in northeastern Catalonia, explicable perhaps by a greater prosperity, a milder feudal regime, a surge of patriotism, and a flat terrain unsuited to guerrilla tactics.19 Another motive—plain self-interest—may have prompted the peasantry of the county of Empúries to throw in their lot against the royalist cause espoused by their lord Enrique, Juan’s young nephew. By so doing they threw off a great fiscal burden. Many others were similarly motivated in their choice of allegiance. In the rugged hill country to the west, ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, the remensas held fast to the royalist cause. On neither side of the line did landowners dare try to exact their dues, even some legitimate ones, so long as the struggle lasted. In other sectors the march of events and contradictory commands—in Montblanc the orders of the queen and the Diputació regarding the latter’s call to arms were proclaimed within half an hour of each other—caused consternation and confusion. How individuals and communities reacted depended often upon attitudes, loyalties, interests that had little or no bearing on the issue before them. For example, Joan Margarit, newly elected bishop of Girona,20 had a record of proven loyalty to Juan; he also happened to be an archrival of the bishop of Vic, Cosme de Montserrat, who had served Pope Calixtus III, shared that pontiff ’s antipathy to Alfonso, and been duly castigated when Juan banished him from the rich see of Girona to impoverished Vic. In the Council of Catalonia Cosme duly became the king’s implacable foe whereas, like Margarit, most of the higher clergy, creatures of the crown, 17 C. Font Melià, ‘La diputación de Cataluña y los payses de remensa: La Sentencia Arbitral de Barcelona (1463)’, Homenaje a Jaime Vicens Vives (Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1965), i. 431–4. 18 19 Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 88–98. Ibid. 99. 20 Margarit was transferred from the diocese of Elne to Girona on 18 Feb. 1462. R. B. Tate, Joan Margarit i Pau (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1955).

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faithfully supported it. Miquel Delgado, abbot of Poblet, for example, turned staunch royalist in June 1462 after playing a prominent part in earlier actions against Juan. But among the canons and lower clergy he encountered almost uniform hostility. Those of the north, relying on rents and services extracted from remensas, had long fought the crown on that account; they had moreover borne the brunt of the endless demands made by Alfonso upon ecclesiastical revenues to further his Italian ambitions. Similar divisions opened in the ranks of the laity. If the count of Pallars, heir to his family’s bitter feuds with neighbours and the crown, took command of the Catalan armies, those Cardona neighbours would persevere in their loyalty to the dynasty. Perpignan, inclined like Valencia to look at Barcelona with a jealous eye, questioned the wisdom of the course being pursued there. Within Girona the queen received lodging and loyalty from Francesc Sampsó, leader of one of the factions that had over decades fought for control of the city. With him came his clients and friends; his enemies took the other side. Sometimes the pressure to declare for one cause or the other found the fault-lines within families, as happened with the Rocabertí and Cruïlles clans of the Empordà;21 the war gave new scope for the feuding which their numerous branches had long pursued among themselves. And as ideology gave way so often to circumstance, loyalties too were seldom irrevocably fixed; few gave their allegiance unswervingly to one side or the other throughout the decade of civil war. During the last days of May the many currents bearing Catalonia into the abyss of civil war merged together in an irresistible flood. The execution of Busca notables in Barcelona on 19 and 21 May, coupled with the veguer’s arrest and denunciations of the highest royal officials, including the chancellor, the archbishop of Tarragona, signalled open defiance of the crown. On the following day, 22 May, defiance escalated into rebellion22 when the town of Hostalric opened its gates to the Council’s advance guard, and the count of Mòdica, instead of leading a heroic resistance, found himself ignominiously taken prisoner.23 His garrison in the castle did put up a fight which ended bloodily. Confronted by open, armed rebellion, the king hastened his preparations to fight his way into Catalonia and encouraged his wife to defend the Girona 21

Sobrequés i Vidal, ‘L’alta noblesa del Nord de Catalunya’, La guerra civil, ii. Juan first stigmatized the conflict as a rebellion when on 23 May he ordered an economic blockade of the ‘rebels’. 23 During the Viana crisis the count had acted against the king; he led the Catalan army which forced Juan to flee from Fraga and was a signatory to the Capitulation of Vilafranca. The onset of civil war had drawn him back, albeit with muted enthusiasm, into the royalist camp. 22

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redoubt until rescue came. Command of the fortress he entrusted to Lluis Despuig, master of Montesa, a man of vast diplomatic and military experience gained through long service to Alfonso in Italy. Despuig reached Girona on 2 June, only a few days ahead of the enemy. Juana, however, was little reassured; tormented by fears for the safety of herself and her son, she sent anguished pleas for help to Aragon and Valencia: ‘so great is our alarm that we can barely find words . . . we beg you with tears, with unbearable anguish and grief, not as queen and sovereign, wife of your king and lord, but as a sister’.24 On 4 June, the day on which she dispatched those desperate appeals, she retired with her band of loyal followers to the inner citadel. Her adversary, the count of Pallars, rode up to the walls of Girona on 6 June to find them feebly defended.25 Only the loyalist Sampsó and a handful of his stalwarts showed any fight by shouting insults from the walls and firing on the attackers, thereby, the count maintained, initiating hostilities. Pallars quickly battered his way through the gates to be greeted by general acclamations of ‘Sant Jordi’ and ‘Charles’, whose ghostly figure many claimed to have seen fighting for the good cause. By nightfall the entire lower city was his, and he felt confident that his elated troops would carry the Força by storm on the morrow. ‘With a spirit like this we could get to Paris’,26 he boasted. Those besieged in the citadel quickly disabused him; during the night they exchanged brisk fire and put to the torch the buildings clustered against their walls in order to give themselves a clear field of defence. With morning dawned the realization that Juana and Fernando had not fled. To attack the Força would be to attack those still recognized as locumtenens and heir apparent when the ostensible quarry was a handful of ‘evil counsellors’. Pallars needed to seek guidance from Barcelona. It came on the following day: as well as seizing the counsellors, he was to demand that the queen surrender her tutelage and quit Catalonia, taking Fernando with her if she chose. No longer could the great question be avoided. Had a struggle for the ‘liberties’ of Catalonia become a rebellion against its king? Juan himself helped provide an answer. With such forces as he could muster—no more than 250 horse 24 ‘. . . nuestra turbacion es tanta que da impedimento al favlar . . . rogando vos con lagrimas, congoxa e dolor que tenemos intolerables, no como reyna e senyora, muger de voestro rey e senyor, mas como ermana . . .’ Coll Juliá. Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 353–4. 25 This first siege of Girona has been fully studied by Coll Juliá, ibid., ch. 9, and by Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 145–224. 26 ‘E crèch que ab aquesta fúria se poria anar fins a París.’ Ibid. 186. In the same letter he sounded an oddly uncertain note: ‘He vençut perquè els meus enemics s’han deixat vèncer’ (‘I have beaten my enemies because they let themselves be beaten’). Ibid. 185.

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and 500 foot—he had crossed the frontier and seized the town of Balaguer on the day before Pallars reached Girona; on 8 June he pressed on to Tàrrega. By that act he had torn up the Capitulation of Vilafranca, forfeited Catalan allegiance, and given his opponents grounds to proclaim him a public enemy. That irrevocable step into the quagmire they took on 9 June. Inexorably there followed on 11 June a similar act against his accomplice, the queen. Against the heir they still held their hand, hoping to gain control of him in Girona and subsequently deploy him against his father in place of the much-lamented Charles. Pallars’s duty was, therefore, plain: storm the Força without more ado. Capturing a stout-walled fortress defended by almost 400 men, many of them veterans of the Italian and Castilian wars, was no easy task for any commander with barely 2,000 at his disposal, still less for one, like the count of Pallars, wholly lacking military experience.27 His attack, made on Corpus Christi day (17 June), lasted for six hours, but, to judge by the casualties—six dead and around one hundred wounded among the assailants—it was not pressed with great zeal. At the time both the count and the Catalan councils shrugged off this failure, but not so easily a much bloodier reverse about to befall them in the west. Mustering all his available cavalry and infantry, Juan had lured the garrison of Tàrrega into an ambush outside the walls, killing, so he claimed, over a hundred and wounding or capturing many more. This action, which took place on 21 June, spread panic as far afield as Cervera where a mob vented its fury on a familiar and defenceless target, the Jewish quarter. Further demoralization in that sector was only prevented by the appearance, a few days later, of an army composed of units recruited by the Generalitat together with the Bandera or militia of Barcelona numbering in all 2,000 men. They had left the city on 16 June with orders to attack the royal army in Balaguer and so halt Juan’s advance into Catalonia but, having reached Tàrrega and digested the lessons of the recent action there, it was decided to abandon all thoughts of an offensive. In justification the commander, Joan de Marimon of Barcelona, pointed to his inferiority in cavalry (20 against over 600) in open country ‘where ten horse can do more than a hundred foot’,28 and to a lack of spingards, an early form of 27 M. J. Peláez, La actuación político-militar de Hugo Roger III de Pallars durante la guerra civil de 1462–1472 (Barcelona: Gráficas Marina, 1975). 28 AHB, Consell de Cent X, Lletres Comunes 32, no. 155 (Cervera, 29 June 1462). Like the count of Pallars and many others summoned to command insurgent troops, Joan de Marimon lacked military experience; also he displayed from the outset of the campaign a degree of caution bordering on defeatism.

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hand-held firearm. Juan’s withdrawal to Balaguer was none the less portrayed by his opponents as ignominious flight. ‘Unshaven and sad’, they trumpeted, he had scuttled away, looking only for death as an escape from his miseries. Any who believed this propaganda were quickly and cruelly undeceived. Seeing that its militia had gone to reinforce the Catalan army in Tàrrega, Juan launched a devastating raid upon Lleida at the beginning of July, destroying the harvest and driving a terrified populace into an already overcrowded city. The militia, hurrying back to Lleida’s defence, then found itself intercepted and trapped in Castelldasens by a large force of enemy cavalry commanded by the fiery Joan-Ramon Folc de Cardona, count of Prades.29 Troops from Tàrrega did go to the rescue, but arrived too late to prevent Joan Agulló, the militia’s commander, surrendering with all 500 of his men on 9 July. Cries of treachery greeted his hasty capitulation, perhaps with some justification for it was reported that, although the king had hanged four of his captains, Agulló himself had been warmly welcomed. No longer could anyone delude themselves that they faced a mangy, toothless old lion. Pallars, meanwhile, despite the failure of further assaults, continued to insist that victory in Girona was imminent, an insistence that sounded increasingly hollow as he watched his strength whittled away by demands for contingents to aid in the forlorn defence of Roussillon against a mighty French army, 10,000 strong, which Gaston de Foix was gathering at Narbonne. Peasants drafted from the surrounding countryside, doubtless under some compulsion, but also by the lure of having their debts to Jews inside the Força cancelled, proved inadequate replacements. ‘It’s hard’, lamented the count, ‘to get Catalans into some kind of order, especially when they are many and unused to this kind of warfare.’30 In weaponry, too, he was deficient: ‘it is generally held that bombards and cross-bolts win battles’, he declared as he demanded more of these essential arms.31 Even in the core of his army morale sagged and discipline relaxed as the siege dragged on and the two-month period of enlistment neared its end. Twice the council of Girona complained to Barcelona of the thefts and violence perpetrated by Pallars’s men. All he could do was to keep

29 Initially associated with Catalan opposition to Juan, the count turned his back on it in May 1462 to become an outstanding commander of the royalist forces. See Sobrequés i Vidal, Els barons de Catalunya, 176–81. 30 ‘La gent cathalana és dura de metre en orde e majorment multitud e no exercitada en guerra tal.’ Sobreques i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 216. 31 ‘. . . car lo vulgar es bombardes et passadors guanyen batalles’. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 100. Some of the cannon balls he did receive proved to be too large for the cannon.

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siege engines and sappers busy, to some effect, against the citadel’s walls, and remind the Council of Catalonia that Charlemagne had spent six years in besieging that same city. Three weeks into the siege Gaston de Foix had written to Juana urging her to behave ‘like an Amazon’ and promised to relieve her within a fortnight. But his letter was intercepted, so we do not know whether any reassurance reached those inside the Força. Anecdotes relayed by chroniclers portray not so much a warrior queen as one wracked by anxieties as weeks passed and the succour promised by Juan failed to materialize. Letters sent by the king and others in his court to assure Juana of a speedy relief fared little better than Gaston’s missive; most fell into enemy hands. Among these was a notable piece, written in his own hand on 8 June, in which Juan tenderly addresses his wife as ‘mi ninya e mi senyora bella’, briefly describes his military preparations, and signs himself, ‘El que mas que a si te ama’.32 One anecdote paints a particularly dramatic picture of Juana’s fears.33 It happened on 26 June when a large party of attackers broke into the midst of the fortress through a tunnel dug beneath its walls. Firing the house in which the assailants were entrenched finally drove them back, but only after a wave of panic had swept through the Força. Juana, so it is alleged, ran distractedly through the streets looking for her son; on finding him safe, playing in front of the cathedral, she fell senseless to the ground. So shaken was she that the following day an emissary appeared before Pallars to propose that she, with the prince and all her followers, should abandon Girona. The story has an exaggerated, perhaps hostile tang, but an abortive plan, hatched about this time, to flee to Vilamarí’s fleet, now based at Roses, offers additional evidence that she was not resolved to remain in Girona whatever might befall. A youth who escaped from the Força in the early days of July was discovered, on being searched, to have concealed in his foreskin a slip of paper bearing the words, ‘Lord! Help us!’ (‘Senyor! soccorreu-nos!’). If Santiago Sobreques is correct in his surmise that the queen might have written them, it would argue for a degree of desperation, but to whom, through this vehicle, could they have been addressed? Such hope as she still sustained rested solely in Gaston de Foix; let him come with whatever force he could muster and without delay, she wrote, for she could hold out for no more than another week. But effective

32

Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 359. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 120 n. 370. The story is recounted in a 15th-cent. chronicle compiled by Álvar García de Santamaría. For an evaluation of that work see Macdonald, Don Fernando de Antequera, 7–14. 33

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command of the Força, it must be remembered, lay not in Juana’s agitated hands but in the steady grasp of Despuig.34 On the evening of 9 July Gaston de Foix had set in motion his formidable array, some 10,000 strong, to rescue the queen and crush the rebels. To avoid the blistering summer heat he marched at night, fought a brisk engagement at the frontier with a few hundred militia sent from Perpignan, and quickly occupied the fortified town of Salses, ‘the key to Spain’ (‘clau de Spanya’).35 By mid-afternoon of the next day the French were lolling in the shade of the surrounding olive groves. Gaston was then able to march southwards against negligible opposition, for the Council had found it impossible to reinforce Roussillon with anything more than small detachments from its army at Girona and a few hundred local recruits. Although the port of Canet put up a stout but brief resistance, only Perpignan proved an obstacle to his advance, declaring that, ‘We would sooner give ourselves to the Turk than to the king of France’.36 At the same time, among its inhabitants indignation ran high that the Council, seemingly more interested in a single city, Girona, than in the whole of the northern provinces, should have done so little to defend them. ‘If we were foreigners, or Moors from Barbary, and not of this principality, asking you for help, your wonted valour alone would not allow you to let us perish’: so wrote an indignant viscount of Illa-Canet to those distant authorities.37 The viscount together with the otherwise royalist-minded castellan of Perpignan, Carles d’Oms, and his relative, Berenguer d’Oms, had resolved to stand against the invader.38 Rather than lose time besieging the city, as the Catalans had hoped, Gaston pressed on towards the Pyrenees. Panic-stricken, the Council endeavoured to hold him there by summoning together all the militia of the region, men whom their commander, Viscount Jofre de Rocabertí, found lamentably wanting in weaponry and training. Worse still, with only 2,000 men at his command, the viscount was hopelessly outnumbered; and of these he assigned a mere hundred to defend the vital pass at Boulou. They limited their defiance to a show of bare bottoms, then promptly surrendered. The rest

34 Sobreques i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 217. Six others, including a prominent jurist, had fled from the citadel with this boy. For further details of Pallars’s operations, ibid. 214–18. 35 Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 134 n. 3. Ibid. ch. 4/1 for Gaston’s advance on Girona. 36 ‘. . . ans nos donariem al Turch que al rey de França’. Ibid. 137 n. 3. 37 ‘Si erem gents stranges o Moros de Barberia, e no erem de aquest Principat, demanantvos socors, sols per la virtut vostre acostumada nons deguereu perir.’ Ibid. 139. 38 Carles’s son Bernat, seneschal of Beaucaire, was with the French army and another son, also named Carles, was with the queen in the Força. Ibid. 89, n. 1. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 193.

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of Rocabertí’s scratch army did no better in contesting the passage of the Pyrenees. While at Boulou, Gaston had received the queen’s letter begging him to come to her rescue without any delay because resistance was at its last gasp. Similar pleas were coming from the king who realized that he lacked the strength to break through to Girona in time to save his wife and son. Gaston accordingly resolved not to wait until the two counties had been wholly subdued, but to push on across the Pyrenees with 4,500 of his most seasoned and best mounted men, leaving the rest of the army to secure Louis XI’s prizes, Rousillon and Cerdagne. On 21 July the French fought their way through the pass at the Coll de Panissars against a token resistance by Rocabertí’s men; by evening they had debouched into Catalonia. All further opposition melted away as they moved on at a spectacular pace through La Junquera, Figueres, and Bascara towards their goal. On the night of 22 July Gaston pitched camp at Medinya, close enough to Girona for beacon fires to signal to those in the Força that deliverance was at hand. The next morning the count of Foix entered Girona unopposed to be met by a queen so overcome with emotion that minutes passed before she was able to utter a word. Pallars had vanished, leaving behind all the heavy artillery gathered with such pains for a final assault on the Força. Two days earlier he had warned the Generalitat that he could not hold out against an enemy seven or eight thousand strong with ‘a thousand men woefully lacking in heart’.39 It suited both him and Gaston, as it had the queen, to claim that the besieged were on the brink of despair. But if they were, as it appears, reduced to eating only beans and horsemeat, their suffering was but moderate. Nor were they in imminent danger of being stormed; Pallars had seen his forces dwindling through demoralization and lack of pay—money to renew their enlistment arrived from Barcelona only on 21 July—and a last desperate appeal for volunteers from the vegueria had produced not a single man. When he decided on 22 July to abandon Girona, his army had shrunk to 700, and even these, he alleged, thought only of fleeing from the dreaded ‘piteus’, their nickname for the French soldiery. Sorrows came not singly to Barcelona. On the very same day that Gaston de Foix liberated Queen Juana, the king routed the Catalan army on the western front. A royal detachment in the castle of Rubinat, near Cervera, found itself surrounded by the Catalans. Hastening from Balaguer to its relief with an army now much augmented in number by Aragonese and Valencian contingents, 39

‘Je so ab 1m. homes e prou dolents de cor.’ Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 144.

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Juan encountered the main enemy force entrenched on a craggy hill and well equipped with weapons including firearms. Despite the difficulty of the terrain, especially for cavalry, the king’s troops stormed the position at the third attempt, killing more than 300 and taking many prisoners. Among the latter were captains of the Barcelona militia and a number of the gentry who had long opposed the crown in the Corts before taking up arms against it: Huc and Guillem de Cardona and Roger d’Erill were the most prominent of these. Another notable captive was the Aragonese baron Jofre de Castro against whom Juan nursed especial animosity.40 A week later the survivors of the battle were driven from Tàrrega, and Juan began his march towards Barcelona. Only tattered remnants of the army of Urgell gathered in Igualada and Santa Coloma de Queralt stood in his way.41 40 The action at Rubinat is described by Zurita, Anales, xvii, p. xli. The reasons for Juan’s attitude towards de Castro are explained in Sobreques i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 155–6. All these prominent prisoners were tried for treason and executed in Mar. 1463; Juan’s rage against the rebels was still in full flood. 41 In a letter to Marimon (28 July) the Council of Barcelona blamed the defeat on indiscipline and God. ‘Often God permits such reverses to happen; He knows the reason’ (‘moltes voltes deu permet seguirse tals contraries, ell sap per que’). He is told to rally his men with ‘fine words’ and make good use of his weapons and powder, for no more can be sent. AHB, Consell de Cent VI, Lletres Closes 23, fo. 8.

12 Catalonia at Bay: Enter Castile Although within the space of six weeks Barcelona’s cock-a-hoop euphoria had melted away into consternation, the dismay occasioned by a succession of defeats did not deflect the leaders of the rising from their course. They had ventured their own persons too far to expect any better fate than that of the prisoners at Rubinat, but something more positive than an instinct for self-preservation drove them on: an upsurge of patriotic fervour against the French invaders and a king who had betrayed the homeland. In north-eastern Catalonia, at least, the triumphant royalist cause was now identified with foreign oppression and atrocity, that of the beleaguered Council of Catalonia with national salvation. Instead of the anticipated groundswell of support for the liberators of Juana and Fernando, Gaston de Foix’s army encountered fierce hostility which obliged it to keep within fortified towns and venture forth only in large companies. Even in the immediate aftermath of defeat, the insurgent leaders’ resolve was stiffened by pledges of loyalty spontaneously flooding in from communities and individuals in the invaders’ path. Two principal barons of the Empordà, Bernat-Gilabert de Cruïlles and Guerau Alemany de Cervelló, wrote offering their persons and estates to the national cause.1 The town of Peralada gave voice to the common sentiment of defiance: We reply with great grief and sorrow because Catalonia is not used to being lorded over and so maltreated by foreign folk as it now is. May Our Lord grant you that victory which this principality has always been wont to gain in such circumstances. We have resolved to live and die in defence of the liberties of the land, and moreover to do everything in our power to harry the French and drive them from this principality.2 1 Another member of the Cruïlles family, Martí-Guerau, was fighting in the opposing ranks with the queen. 2 ‘Vos responem amb molta congoxa e dolor per quant Cathalunya no és acostumada ésser senyorejada ni axí maltractada per persones extrangeres com ara de present és; Nostre Senyor os do aquella victòria que tot temps e en tals casos aquest Principat ha acostumat obtenir; havem deliberat viure e morir per deffensió de les llibertats de la terra e encara de fer tot aquell sforç que a nosaltres serà possible en damnificar e foragitar de aquest Principat los francesos.’ Sobreques i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 227.

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The queen, by contrast, discovered that those loyal to her met with little or no response when they appealed for support from communities over which they had hitherto exercised influence. Nor did the emissaries of Bishop Joan Margarit fare better in his diocese of Girona. Pere de Rocabertí, entrusted with the mission of bringing rebel towns in the veguerias of Besalú and Empordà to heel, found that even the promise of incorporation in the royal desmesne had no effect. Few indeed fared as badly as Marti-Guerau de Cruïlles who encountered such hostility that he surrendered to his relative on the opposing camp; threatened with summary execution by Pallars, he ended up a prisoner in Barcelona. Only in the mountainous regions west of Girona, dominated by remensa bands, was there a show of support for the crown.3 And even there, to quieten the anxieties of his followers, Verntallat had to spread the word that the French were the queen’s enemies. By contrast, north of the Pyrenees, where the French army had quickly made itself master of Roussillon, nominal allegiance to the crown was soon re-established. The governor, the viscount of Illa, hoisted the royal banner over the castle of Perpignan on 25 July;4 the city, menaced by the castle’s cannon, submitted. But this success proved short-lived; in August, when the main body of French troops left to reinforce the count of Foix, the anti-royalist elements seized their opportunity. The city of Perpignan, but not the castle, reaffirmed its loyalty to the cause of insurrection and, with other like-minded communities, tried to dislodge the French from their strongholds.5 Even within Verntallat territory, the royal veguer found himself hemmed into Camprodon by a rebel force 600 strong.6 Thus stiffened in its resolve to continue the struggle, the Council of Catalonia had to find the means. It began with a general call to arms directed to all men aged 14 and above, a measure customarily adopted in extremis against foreign invaders. Untrained and ill-equipped, such levies could harass an enemy, as they were doing in the Empordà, but they could never be a match for professional soldiers in the field. As for the military class of Catalonia, although large numbers had thrown in their lot with the rebels, at least as many were fighting on the other side. Therefore it had become imperative to seek aid 3 In July 1462 Verntallat’s forces had made important gains in this area, taking the towns of Banyoles, Besalú, Castellfollit dela Roca, Olot, and Camprodon, as well as several castles. 4 According to Calmette (Louis XI, Jean II, 161), the standard hoisted was that of France, in fulfilment of Juan’s undertaking to put that fortress under French control. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 225–30, gives a full account of Juana’s efforts to win over the Empordà. 5 Their attempt to recover Canet ended in failure. 6 The leader of this group was Ramon de Planella, a canon who for many years had led a notoriously violent and disordered life which had put him constantly at odds with the crown.

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or allies further afield. The other states of the Aragonese confederation showed little inclination to commit themselves to either party. In the kingdom of Valencia a refusal to assist the Catalans was matched by a reluctance to enforce an embargo, decreed by Juan on 16 June 1462, on goods owned by citizens of Barcelona, Lleida, and Tortosa. Prompted by the king, Valencia agreed in that same month to send an embassy to Catalonia in order to explore the possibilities of peace. Meetings with the leaders in Barcelona and with Juana in Girona soon convinced them that reconciliation was impossible.7 Aragon too, at the king’s request, sent the bishop of Tarazona and the justiciar on a peace mission in June; like the Valencians, they found Barcelona intransigent, which is doubtless what Juan had desired to demonstrate. An embassy from Juan’s nephew, the king of Naples, also arriving in June, met with a similar rebuff. Majorca’s offer of mediation was contained in a letter sent in July 1462 which expressed sorrow and indignation at Catalonia’s behaviour towards the king and queen.8 Unsurprisingly, that overture was rejected, with the result that the island severed its commercial links with Catalonia and turned its sea-power against Minorca, the only part of Juan’s dominions to demonstrate active sympathy for the Catalans.9 Sicily, recovering from its brief flirtation with Charles of Viana, remained firmly loyal; as early as May 1461 its parliament had rejected a call for support delivered by Catalan envoys.10 Having rejected all compromise with its erstwhile monarch, how was an isolated Catalonia to seek its salvation? Some, confident in its native strength and resources, contemplated a republican form of government on the Italian model: ‘better to suffer privation than elect another king’,11 exhorted one of this mind, the canon Dusay. A large majority, however, saw an opportunity to replace a hostile sovereign with one ready to defend Catalonia and its newfound liberties, but also one able and willing to counter-balance the formidable weight of France in the opposing camp. A committee of five appointed by the Council on 1 August was charged with the task of finding such a saviour. The obvious candidate was Juan’s inveterate foe and Charles of Viana’s good friend, Enrique IV the king of Castile, even though such a choice fitted ill with the

7 Sobrequés i Callicó, ‘Un último intento de concordia en la guerra civil catalana de 1462–1472: La embajada del reino de Valencia’, Anuario de estudios medievales, 3 (1966). Catalan version in La guerra civil, i. 8 9 Text in Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 96 n. 1. Ibid. 97 n. 2. 10 Vicens Vives, Fernando el Catolico, ch. 3, ‘Sicilia durante la guerra de Cataluña (1462–1472)’. 11 ‘. . . primer se deuria passar per privació que per nova elecció de rey’. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 355.

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Solsona Cardona

Hostalric

Vilanova de Aguda

Sant Celoni

Guissona

Manresa Granollers Calaf La Roca del Vallès Els Prats de Rei Montmelò Montserrat Terrassa Cervera Montornès Igualada Sabadell Montcada Tarrega Rubinat St. Cugat dé Vallès Piera Anglesola Badalona Verdú Martorell BARCELONA Sta. Coloma de Queralt Molins de Rei Gelida Guimerà La Liacuna Torregrossa

N

R. S

egre

Castellò de Farfanya Balaguer

O

LLEIDA

Torres de Segre

G

L’Espluga de Francoli

Sarral Barberà de la Conca Montblanc

Vilafranca del Penedès

Santes Creus

A

La Palma d’Ebre

R

Alcover

Flix Ascó

Tamarit TARRAGONA Salou

A

Mora d’Ebre Miravet

R. Ebro

Gandesa

TORTOSA

N Amposta

Height: over 1,000 mtrs 500–1,000 mtrs

VA L E N C I A

Ulldecona Scale:

kms. 10

20

40

Map 3. Catalonia, the southern sector

anti-Castilian rhetoric which had hitherto marked Catalonia’s propaganda against its current Castilian monarch. So strong was that sentiment and so seductive the vision of an independent Catalonia that at first the Council, supported by the Diputació and Barcelona, and on the committee’s recommendation, went no further than asking Enrique for 2,000 horse to be paid by the Catalans for up to four months. Instructions to that effect were drafted on 6 August for an embassy to be led by Joan de Copons, a sworn enemy of the Trastámares.12 But on reflection that same committee returned five days later to propose that Enrique be offered the ‘vacant’ lordship of Catalonia under the 12

While in Barcelona Juana had imprisoned Copons and endeavoured, in vain, to have him tried on many charges, including one of murder in Majorca.

Blanes

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conditions laid down in the Concordat of Vilafranca. In order to create such a vacancy, Fernando was, on the same day, stripped of his rights to the succession. There is good reason to suspect that this design had been taking shape ever since the relief of Girona had dashed hopes of putting the prince on the throne under reliable Catalan tutelage.13 Having first focused attention on Castile as the source of salvation through aid, the committee had quickly concluded that the request might appear far more enticing if accompanied by an offer of sovereignty. As they put it in a letter addressed to Jean de Beaumont: ‘the food we have offered to the king is very delicious and, in the opinion of ourselves and others who have seen it, it ought to be tasted and accepted without delay, and the aid dispatched in great haste’.14 It must also have crossed their minds that they had no better hope than had Juan of paying cash down for the services of a large foreign army. To justify the offer, military necessity apart, they could remind the populace of Enrique’s friendship for Charles of Viana, and legalists of the claims to the succession vested in the senior line of the Trastámar family. It took only a day to convince the councils of Barcelona and the principality. The way was then open to proclaim Enrique of Castile count of Barcelona and lord of Catalonia, the latter title new-minted, probably in order to skirt around the thorny issue of an implied right to the Crown of Aragon which was not in Catalonia’s gift. At this critical moment the rebels preferred not to determine whether they were seceding from that crown or seeking to impose their own choice of king upon it. They had none the less unilaterally severed their constitutional ties with their sister states. Next day, 12 August, letters were dispatched to inform the chosen saviour of this unexpected and unsolicited honour. Copons, making his way through Aragon in disguise, met Enrique at Atienza, formerly part of Juan’s Castilian patrimony.15 His eloquent discourse setting forth the Catalan proposals met with an encouraging response, but Enrique being, as Zurita fairly observed, ‘not very warlike nor covetous of more

13 As early as May 1462 the Council of Barcelona was expressing satisfaction with messages received from Enrique via de Beaumont. Further letters and messages came in Aug. before he was offered the lordship of Catalonia. AHB, Consell de Cent VI, Lletres Closes, 23, fos. 1 and 9. 14 ‘. . . la vianda que al dit senyor rey havem presentada és tant sabrosa e al parer nostre e dels miradors deguere ésser sens dilació degustada e abrassada e lo dit socors ab més precipitació expedit . . .’ Sobreques i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 374. 15 Martín, Enrique IV, 120–1. Copons’s address and Enrique’s reply are recorded by the Castilian chronicler Diego Enríquez del Castillo who was a chaplain to Enrique, Crónica de Enrique IV (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1994), 190–1.

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kingdoms than he had inherited’,16 declared that he must put the matter to his council. Knowing full well what influence Juan’s Castilian allies wielded in that body, the anxious Catalans had to wait a week until it convened in Segovia. Opinions divided along predictably partisan lines which had little to do with Catalonia and everything with the internal feuds of Castile. They swayed towards acceptance thanks largely to Enrique’s desire to spite a detested rival, supplemented by Copons’s unauthorized proffer of additional bait: the right to coin money. The king himself, in wildly unrealistic vein, opined that he was being offered ‘success without trouble, dominion without labour’.17 So it was decided that Jean de Beaumont, Charles of Viana’s closest friend throughout the Navarrese wars and during the last troubled days in Catalonia, should immediately lead 2,500 cavalry to the rescue of Enrique’s new subjects.18 Shadowy hosts should follow: 2,000 to Valencia, an equal number to Navarre, and 8,000, headed by Enrique himself, to Catalonia; a fleet of thirty galleys should sweep the enemy from the seas. In his first flush of enthusiasm Enrique looked bent on driving Juan not only from Catalonia but from every corner of his realms.19 Castile’s formal acceptance of an ambiguous sovereignty reached Barcelona on 12 September, the very day on which the royal army had begun investing the city. The perennial conflict between Juan and the kings of Castile had entered a yet more bitter phase. Juan, who had been kept well informed of what was afoot by his friends in the Castilian court, was meanwhile seeking to forestall Enrique by a decisive victory over the rebels; jointly with the French and those Catalans who had rallied to Juana, he would fall upon Barcelona and with one stroke annihilate his enemies. At the beginning of August the victors of Girona—Juana, her son, Gaston, and Luis Despuig—had taken their army towards the coast, with the intention of securing their flank and, by seizing the ports, their sea communications with France. They met with unexpectedly stiff resistance. It took three days of intense bombardment before Verges surrendered on 9 August. On the following day at Torroella de Montgrí they met Pallars with the pick of

16 ‘. . . no era ni muy guerrero ni codicioso de más reinos de los que había heredado . . .’ Zurita, Anales, xvii, p. xlii. 17 ‘. . . prosperidad syn fatiga, señorio sin trabajo . . .’ Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, 192. 18 Blanche’s cession to Enrique of her title to Navarre had reinforced that prince’s alliance with the Vianist faction led by the de Beaumont family; they now considered themselves Enrique’s subjects. The Catalans had requested that Jean de Beaumont be given command of any Castilian forces sent to the principality. 19 Martín, Enrique IV, 122–4.

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his forces, 1,500 strong.20 They gained the advantage in an encounter watched by the queen and her ‘belles dames’ from the shelter of a tent pitched under a great walnut tree, but failed to press the attack on Torroella and so open their way to the sea. Instead, after five days of inaction, they turned around and marched back to Girona. Although insurgent spirits were much heartened by this apparent blow to the French reputation for invincibility, Gaston’s withdrawal was in fact dictated by an order, dispatched on 14 August, in which Louis instructed him to march directly upon Barcelona, the goal of this costly expeditionary force. Juan, anxious to be reunited with his wife and son, promised to join forces, leaving the line of march and place of rendezvous to the discretion of Gaston and Juana. The queen desired only to rejoin her husband and lay down the crippling responsibilities she had borne for so long. Once reinforced by another 2,000 men from the French reserve in Roussillon, the army began its advance from Girona on 1 September.21 Around the same time a French squadron of eight or ten galleys joined Vilamarí in an effort to secure command of the seas. Pallars, advised now by a war council of experienced captains, shadowed his enemy by following a coastal route. A pitched battle was out of the question, given the vast disparity in numbers, but the count and council hoped to delay their foes with sieges and harassment until hunger destroyed them. Gaston de Foix refused to be drawn into any such war of attrition. Adhering to his earlier tactics, he pushed ahead, bypassing formidable obstacles such as the fortress of Hostalric, but seizing the lightly defended towns of Sant Celoni, Granollers, and Montmeló. By 9 September he stood before the castle of Montcada which had to be stormed because, perched high upon a rock, it commanded the approaches to Barcelona. He ordered an immediate attack, overwhelmed the defence, and went on to pitch his camp at Sant Andreu within sight of the capital’s walls. Juan with some thousand troops reached Montcada on 12 September, and was there reunited with the queen and son from whom he had been separated for twelve tempestuous months. During August his commanders had followed up their success at Rubinat with conquests towards the east, culminating on 28 August in the surrender of Santa Coloma de 20 On 29 July Juana had written to Torroella threatening dire consequences if it persisted in its refusal to submit. 21 Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enríquez, ii, ‘La campaña de 1462’. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 225–38. Pere de Rocabertí remained in Girona as royalist commander of the Empordà. There he conducted a vigorous, inventive campaign through the latter part of 1462, culminating in the relief of Girona from a second siege in Nov.

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Queralt. It was from that town that he marched through crumbling resistance, by way of La Llacuna, skirting Vilafranca del Penedès and Martorell, towards his goal, Barcelona. On the day following his arrival at Montcada, Juan joined his son-in-law, the count of Foix, to review the French army and then begin the siege of Barcelona. Many historians, from Zurita to Sobreques i Vidal, have maintained that this operation was undertaken at the insistence of Gaston supported by the queen, and against the judgement of Juan who considered it ‘a foolish enterprise’.22 If this was indeed the king’s opinion, why had he approved a rendezvous beneath the city walls? And what alternative strategy had he in mind to bring about the quick victory expected by a king of France who was financing the war? One explanation, offered by Zurita, is that he wanted first to subdue the hinterland before attacking Barcelona.23 Another, founded upon his later conduct of the war, gives grounds for believing that he was keen to avoid an all-out assault on Barcelona which would inevitably have led to great bloodshed and destruction, to a legacy of bitterness and the alienation of the many citizens hitherto faithful to the crown. Perhaps he was already of this mind, but unable to stand against the confident insistence of Gaston de Foix and his French ally bolstered by the successes of the previous weeks. What led to later expressions of exculpatory doubt may have been the failure of the siege. Ever since the French army crossed the Pyrenees Barcelona had anticipated an attack. When that concern turned to certainty at the beginning of September, preparations began to put the city on a war-footing. The chief counsellor, Miquel Desplà, assisted by a committee of six, was given command of the defence; weapons were inventoried, men assigned to posts on the walls, and buildings adjacent to the outside face of the walls demolished; in every square arose gallows as a warning to traitors; divine aid was summoned through the bishop’s prayers and days of fasting. As for attempts to concentrate military resources, they proved only partially fruitful: the count of Pallars and several other captains ignored orders to fall back upon Barcelona, possibly because they doubted their ability to break through the enemy lines, possibly because they feared being trapped in a place that many thought doomed. The promised Castilian hosts, too, failed to appear. Assiduously the Catalan authorities spread reports that large armies led by de Beaumont and Enrique himself were on the 22

Sobreques i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 242. Zurita, Anales, XVII, xliii. ‘No era el rey de parecer que se pusiese cerco a Barcelona, hasta haber sojuzgado toda su comarca . . .’ 23

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march, more, it must be suspected, to raise morale than from conviction. Even without them, Desplà could count on 5,000 men to defend Barcelona against an adversary 7,000 or 8,000 strong, a ratio distinctly in his favour.24 Of the progress of the siege we know very little.25 Gaston established his headquarters at Sant Andreu to the east of the city; where the king made camp is not recorded. The famous French artillery seems to have made little impression on the walls and gates; their mines likewise. No general assault was attempted, and although Alfonso of Aragon did succeed in taking the hill of Montjuich, most armed encounters were initiated by the defenders who harassed the besiegers with repeated sorties. A contemporary chronicler writing in Valencia gives an account of one such sortie on the night of 21 September which led to the seizure of a heavy bombard nicknamed ‘Bocafoc’ from the royal encampment.26 A naval engagement on 26 September resulted in the rout of eight French galleys which had been threatening an attack from the sea. Such lacklustre proceedings might suggest that Juan was expecting a fifth column to deliver the city into his hands, or at least to create a disturbance sufficient to distract the defenders. The queen and others could testify that when they left Barcelona a vigorous opposition to the Biga was still very much in evidence. What they did not appreciate was how effectively repression had since cowed it, and how profoundly French intervention had rallied popular opinion around the separatist banner. The guilds could by now safely be given a voice in the city’s councils and a share of its offices; it was a surgeon-barber, Melchior Rotllan, sent to stiffen resistance at Montcada, who was hanged there by the queen in his counsellor’s robes after the fortress had fallen. Continuing mass addiction to the Carlist cult added another dimension to the spirit of defiance. A group of prominent citizens who might have organized a rising ( Joan Galceran Dusay, his son Guillem Pere Dusay, Joan Almogàver, Galceran Dusay, Joan Bernat Tarré, and Pere de Conomines) had fled betimes to a safe haven in Valencia. In the municipal records there is no whiff of treachery, without which so great a city might withstand a siege prolonged over many months, even years. Juan’s summons to surrender, with a promise of general

24 The figures of 60,000, even 70,000, men ready to bear arms given by some contemporaries are wildly exaggerated. The total population of the city was only half this figure. For a full account of measures taken to defend Barcelona see Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 380–6. 25 The fullest account is that given by the French chronicler Guillaume Leseur, Histoire de Gaston IV, Comte de Foix, ed. H. Courteault, 2 vols. (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de France, 1893–5). 26 Miralles, Dietari, 293. In mitigation of this reverse the royalist author puts the number of assailants at 22,000!

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amnesty excepting only the six members of the Generalitat (25 September), fell on wholly deaf ears. The futility of the enterprise soon became evident for king and count persevered for only three weeks. On 3 October, having laid waste its surroundings, they turned their backs on Barcelona and directed their march inland towards Vilafranca del Penedès and the still-distant Castilian army of Jean de Beaumont. Attempting to force a passage through Aragon to Lleida, the plan urged on him by the insurgents, de Beaumont had captured the frontier town of Calatayud, but, finding Zaragoza hostile, he had switched to a more southerly route. It took him through Hijar, the property of Juan de Hijar, one of the few Aragonese nobles to take up arms against Juan; from there he advanced in the first week of October to Mora d’Ebre, and finally to Tortosa, a separatist stronghold, all the while turning a deaf ear to pleas that he should turn back to shield Lleida against an expected royalist onslaught. Enrique meanwhile was hovering indecisively on the Castilian frontier, more concerned to avoid a clash with France than fly to the aid of his Catalan subjects.27 Vilafranca fell to the king’s forces on 9 October after a resistance rendered more desperate by an atrocity committed at the outset. A small group of French, having scaled the walls, found itself isolated when the ladders broke; two of them, the seneschal of Bigorre and one of Gaston’s pages, tried to surrender against ransom but were slaughtered by their captors. In retaliation the town was delivered to the mercy of the French soldiery who massacred large numbers of men taking refuge in the church. Women and children were spared thanks to the queen’s intercession. The captain of Vilafranca, Joan de Cardona, found hiding in the church tower, was beheaded at the king’s command, his body quartered and exposed on a gibbet.28 From the beginning of the conflict both sides had shown little mercy. At Verges the French had executed twenty or thirty prisoners in reprisal for the escape of others; in the storming of Colomers a similar number had perished by fire in the castle keep when they refused to surrender. So had atrocity spawned atrocity; and rumour, by exaggeration, fuelled panic and retribution. By the time it reached Valencia the news from Vilafranca had been blown into a tale of a wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children pursued into the church, and even upon the altar; this in 27 Castile and France were already on a collision course over Navarre where Enrique’s claims to sovereignty conflicted with those of Gaston and his wife backed by Louis XI. The marriage of Louis’s sister to Gaston’s son and heir had further sharpened French territorial appetites. 28 Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 153–4. Zurita, Anales, XVII, xliv, puts the number of men killed in the church at 400.

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retaliation for the cold-blooded killing of three prisoners whose heads had been cut off and thrown from the walls.29 The other side responded in kind. Orders were given (27 February 1463) that when the castle of La Roca del Vallès fell after a lengthy siege, all its defenders were to be put to the sword, saving only the elderly, women, and children. On the orders of de Beaumont, the three Oliver brothers, leaders of the defence were paraded through Barcelona before execution, ‘chains around the neck, irons on the legs, hands tied behind and mounted on cart horses at a time when all may behold them’.30 If the blood-letting in Vilafranca was intended to spread terror and persuade other places of the folly of resistance, it had immediate effect; the royal army swept on unopposed to the south, took Tamarit without firing a shot, and prepared to avenge the reverse suffered at Barcelona. On 17 October, reinforced with troops gathered by Archbishop Pere d’Urrea, it appeared before its next major objective, the ancient city of Tarragona and immediately established a close siege, with Juan and Gaston installed in convenient monasteries, those of Santa Clara and the Predicadors respectively.31 To secure the sea approaches, vessels took up position off the little port of Salou to the south. Then began an intense bombardment by the French artillery. Zurita’s description of the city shows how it might well have withstood the most determined of sieges. It seemed [to the king’s captains] impregnable because it was sited on a steep, rocky hillside and surrounded by walls so strong that the passage of many centuries had not availed to wear them away, and because it was on the sea from where it could very easily receive help. There survived towers and walls of Roman origin with foundations of boulders so huge that it seemed impossible they could be moved by the machines and skill of these times. Their tunnels and cellars reached to the shore, so it seemed they could lack nothing essential to life if they controlled the sea.32

The first trial of strength came when a fleet from Barcelona, supported by a sally from the city, endeavoured to land reinforcements. Forewarned, the 29

Miralles, Dietari, 293. ‘. . . ab catenes al coll, grillons a les cames e mans ligadas derrera e a cavall en bèsties de bast e de dia, a la hora que a tothom sia manifesta lur entrada, sien mesos en ciutat’. J. Sobrequés Callicó, Catálogo de la Cancillería de Enrique IV de Castilla (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1975), no. 930. 31 Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 155–6. Cortiella i Òdena, Una ciutat catalana, 341–54. 32 ‘. . . parecióles ser inexpugnable por estar puesta en una áspera ladera de rocas y cercada de muros fortísimos que no había podido consumir la antigüedad de tantos siglos y estar sobre la mar en tal sitio que puede recoger el socorro muy fácilmente. Duraban algunas torres y muros de edificio romano fundados sobre tan disformes y grandes peñascos que no parecía que podían ser movidos por máquinas y artificio ni destos tiempos ni destos hombres, y sus minas y cavernas llegaban a la mar y de ninguna cosa necessaria a la vida parecía que podían tener falta si tuvieran por sí la mar.’ Zurita, Anales, XVII, xliv. 30

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French drove them back to the ships in fierce fighting which left both sides with heavy casualties. A few days later the soundness of Zurita’s evaluation was put to the test by an attempt to storm the city, for, contrary to the statements of some historians, Tarragona did put up a spirited resistance. The assault, pressed home until nightfall, failed completely against the massive walls. A second attack, launched by night, was likewise thrown back, but the French artillery did succeed in breaching the walls near the hospital, and, despite their efforts to make good the damage with wooden barricades, the citizens began to fear that further resistance would end in a devastating sack and a slaughter similar to that inflicted on Vilafranca. Fear and the influence of an important element favourable to the king thus led them to appeal to their archbishop (a warrior cleric, prominent among the assailants!) to negotiate a surrender. D’Urrea willingly agreed and by 1 November had come to an amicable arrangement with the count of Prades, acting for the king; the French, it was stipulated, should receive a sum of money, rumoured to have been 4,000 florins, in return for an undertaking not to enter Tarragona—such was the fear engendered by these foreigners. A few days later Juan made a ceremonial entry amid scenes of jubilation inspired, probably, as much by relief as by enthusiasm. Rodrigo de Rebolledo, the captain appointed to govern Tarragona, behaved harshly towards some in the city and neighbouring towns; in particular he purged the governing council and commandeered livestock and foodstuffs. The negotiated surrender of Tarragona did, however, mark a new phase in Juan’s conduct of the war. Henceforth cities were to be encouraged to submit with the assurance that they would be spared reprisals and, moreover, have their statutes and privileges confirmed, an enticing carrot for an apprehensive bourgeoisie. Tarragona enjoyed additional favour, probably thanks to the influence of its archbishop: for the next eight years it was to be the royalist capital of Catalonia, distinguished by the presence of a royal council,33 bureaucrats, and a large garrison. The king and queen frequently took up residence in a royal palace refurbished at the city’s expense.34 De Beaumont meanwhile had left Tortosa and gone by sea to Barcelona. He arrived there on 24 October to swear, in Enrique’s name, to observe the laws and liberties of his new subjects, and to receive from them (11 November) the

33 Among the council members were Pere Boquet, a leading light of the Busca, and Francesc Pallarès, a former counsellor of Barcelona who, although belonging to a high bourgeois family, had shown sympathy for the Busca. 34 Cortiella i Òdena, ‘Tarragona, capital accidental del Principat’, Una ciutat catalana, 355–82.

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oath of loyalty.35 Only two days later he revealed Enrique’s deeper ambitions by proposing that Catalonia be united in perpetuity with the kingdom of Castile. Nothing could have been less welcome to Catalan ears, but they could not afford to return a blunt refusal so, instead, they confronted Enrique with the dangerous suggestion that he should assume the title of king of Aragon.36 At any cost Castilian arms had to be drawn into the fray. A good half of de Beaumont’s army, a thousand men, horse and foot, led by his deputy, Juan de Torres, had already gone to bolster the defence of Lleida. The remainder stayed comfortably in Tortosa where, late in December, they were joined by another contingent under the command of Juan Hurtado de Mendoza.37 So far these Castilians had, by design rather than by accident, avoided contact with the army led by the king and the count of Foix; a clash involving large bodies of French and Castilians raised the spectre of conflict between two states which had hitherto pursued a policy of close alliance. The chances of an immediate encounter diminished as winter closed in and Juan turned away from Tarragona towards his base at Balaguer. Still in company with Gaston and the queen, he first received the submission of his own town of Montblanc, then pressed on through L’Espluga de Francolí and Torregrossa to reach Balaguer, another personal possession and the starting point of his campaign, on 12 November. A council of war held there decided that the time had come to retire to winter quarters, the king’s men in Balaguer, the French at Castelló de Farfanya and Tàrrega. So positioned, they would be able to keep watch upon both Catalonia and Aragon where Castilian incursions and intrigues allied to endemic feuding and violence threatened to spread the Catalan conflagration over its borders.38 Reports that Ruy Diaz de Mendoza was setting out from Cuenca to cross the frontier with a thousand lances appeared to confirm those fears and led to Juana being dispatched to Zaragoza at the end of November to rally the kingdom against him. She discovered that Mendoza had indeed passed unresisted through lands controlled by nobles sympathetic to the Catalan cause: Juan de Hijar (de Beaumont’s brother-in-law), Jaime de Aragon, and Charles’s majordomo, Hugo de Cardona. Immediately she appealed to Zaragoza for a thousand infantry to join with the cavalry of the kingdom in 35

Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 399–402. According to Martín (Enrique IV, 122–4), Enrique was disposed to accept this offer, but was dissuaded by his council under the influence of Juan’s allies, the archbishop of Toledo and the marquis of Villena. Any form of Castilian sovereignty in Catalonia would have been untenable without possession of the intervening territory of Aragon and Valencia. 37 It numbered 185 men-at-arms and 300 horse. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 199. 38 Sarasa Sanchez, Sociedad y conflictos sociales en Aragón, 94. 36

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resisting the invader; still more urgently she begged the king to come in person with all the men he could muster. So alarmed was Juan at this assault upon Aragon—and Enrique lurked with still larger forces near the frontier—that he hastened on to Zaragoza in company with Gaston de Foix ahead of their army, reaching there on 15 December. The immediate danger of war on Aragonese soil had by then evaporated because Mendoza had moved swiftly on into Catalonia to join his fellow Castilians in Tortosa. So a tempestuous year ended with the Christmas festivities celebrated by Juan, Juana, and Fernando together in the Aljaferia, the royal palace of Zaragoza. Vicens Vives, following Zurita, dismisses Juan’s campaign in Catalonia as nothing more significant than a raid which did more harm to his friends than to his enemies.39 A powerful French army had not delivered the anticipated swift victory over the rebels, and the subsequent appearance of substantial Castilian forces in the other camp had thrown into confusion the whole of Juan’s military and diplomatic strategy. On the other hand, the Catalan leaders had displayed ineptitude and timidity in the field, recklessness in their political judgement. Two of the greatest cities of Catalonia—Girona and Tarragona— had been lost; Perpignan followed suit on 9 January 1463 when it submitted to the French. Castile had not lived up to expectation. De Beaumont, Enrique’s regent in the principality had no illusions: ‘We have lost a third part of Catalonia . . . and these people are ill-content’, he lamented. ‘They are saying such things that truly I dare not leave the house so as not to hear them.’40 Hardly the words of a man who felt that all was going well. Despite the reverse at Barcelona and some rebel successes at the close of the year (Igualada and the castle of Montcada were retaken), the balance of war at the end of 1462 must be reckoned to fall in Juan’s favour. What had swayed the balance—the power of France—was, however, about to disappear, for Louis XI was deciding that the time had come to get out of Spain. 39

Vicens Vives, Juan II, 283. ‘. . . es perdida la tercera parte de Cathalunya . . . E estos pueblos están mal contentos . . . fablan cosas tales que buenamente non oso sallir de casa por no oyr las’ (22 Jan. 1463). Letter to Juan Fernández Galindo, a captain of the Castilian troops in Catalonia. Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 422, and idem, Catálogo de la cancillería de Enrique IV, no. 332. 40

13 Diplomacy, or War by Other Means Having thrown the conflict open to foreign interference by his deal with France, Juan knew that he could only win by preventing the Catalans from following suit. No sooner did he get wind of their approaches to Castile than he essayed his own moves to undermine them by approaching Enrique with offers of negotiation and his illegitimate daughter Juana as a hostage in pledge of good faith. His gambit achieved nothing; Enrique accepted the Catalans as his subjects, dispatched an army (even if it accomplished little), and on 13 November 1462, through his representatives, Jean de Beaumont and Juan Ximenez de Arévalo, received their oath of fealty in the cathedral of Barcelona. Juan had then to trust that his friends in Castilian high places—the archbishop of Toledo, the marquis of Villena,1 and the admiral of Castile—would somehow force or manœuvre their king into different paths. His confidence was not misplaced; they ensured that Enrique rejected the Catalan proposal, delivered late in December, that he should assume the title king of Aragon, quashed suggestions for an attack upon Zaragoza or Valencia, cut off funds for the Castilian forces already in Catalonia, and thereafter steered him towards dubious negotiations.2 Another player unpleasantly surprised by Enrique’s behaviour was the French sovereign, Louis XI. The prize he counted upon plucking from the Catalan embroilment, Cerdagne and Roussillon, would be put at risk should Catalonia become subject to Castile. There arose a further complication when, during the autumn, Castilian troops began to appear on the scene: Louis had pledged to aid Juan in defeating the rebels and foreign foes. Existing treaties forbade hostilities between himself and Enrique; not that treaties weighed unduly on Louis’s conscience, but the prospect of war with Castile was not something he had foreseen or welcomed. Reassessing the situation, he moved 1 Juan Pacheco, marquis of Villena, had hitherto been hostile to Juan but was alienated from Enrique by the favour the king showed to his rival at court, Beltran de la Cueva, another in that line of favourites through which weak kings hoped to bolster their authority. 2 Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, 194–8. Martín, Enrique IV, 124. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 284.

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swiftly to extricate himself from his obligations to Juan without forfeiting his prize. In the last days of 1462 a large army under Jacques d’Armagnac, duke of Nemours, marched into Roussillon. It met resistance from the people of Perpignan who had, since November, held the castle under siege, but by 9 January the city was in French hands.3 Quickly they overran the rest of Roussillon, hoisted everywhere the lilied banners of France, not those of Aragon, exacted oaths of loyalty to Louis, and appointed officials in his name. A contingent of Nemours’ army then proceeded to bring Cerdagne to heel, although it was not until 16 June 1463 that they reduced its capital, Puigcerdà. All Juan could do against this flagrant violation of a treaty was to save a little face and a veneer of sovereignty by nominating Louis his lieutenant-general in the lost territories.4 It was a futile gesture, for Louis was resolved, as he informed a delegation from Perpignan, to annex the counties: they had, he argued, rejected the king of Aragon as their lord and had thus become the lawful prize of their conqueror, the king of France.5 The ‘Universal Spider’ had secured his prey. Further he did not wish to go; certainly not into war with Castile at a time when an Anglo-Burgundian alliance threatened France in the north.6 The danger of conflict between France and Castile loomed largest in the bleak, wintry heartland of Aragon where Gaston’s lieutenant, Amanieu d’Albret, confronted a Castilian force sent in December 1462 to aid the rebel Aragonese magnate, Juan de Hijar.7 After they had taken Belchite, Juan asked the French to lay siege to the main rebel stronghold, the town of Hijar. This d’Albret refused to do, affirming that the French had not come to fight Castilians to whom they were bound by treaty.8 Instead, he took himself to the Castilian court on New Year’s Day 1463 to pave the way for an emissary from the king of France, and to sign a truce valid for ten days from 14 January.9 While Nemours was busy occupying Roussillon and without a word to his 3

Appeals to the Castilian captains at Tortosa to go to its rescue fell on deaf ears. He did so on 1 Jan. 1463. 5 Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 167–8. ‘Et est le dit seigneur conclud et delibéré de unir et joindre les diz comtez de Roussillon et de Sardaigne à sa couronne sans jamais en estre separés pour chose qu’il peust advenir.’ 6 The danger was heightened in Dec. 1462 by the arrival in Castile of an embassy from Edward IV of England proposing an alliance. Ibid. 182–5. 7 In Nov. 1462 Enrique appointed de Hijar’s son, Luis, to be governor of Tortosa, the base for Castilian operations in Catalonia. By calling on the French to aid him against rebels in Aragon, Juan had increased his debt to France to the sum of 300,000 écus. 8 Zurita, Anales, XVII, xlvii. 9 Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 180. The way for this demarche had been prepared at the French court by the archbishop of Toledo and the marquis of Villena. News of it had reached Barcelona in Dec. when de Beaumont wrote to Enrique asking him to take up the cause of Blanche of Navarre in any meeting with Louis. Sobrequés Callicó, Catálogo de la Cancillería de Enrique IV, no. 92. 4

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Aragonese ally, on 6 January 1463 Louis sent Jean de Rohan, admiral of France, to Enrique with an offer to mediate in the affairs of Catalonia and Aragon. Urged on by the archbishop and the marquis, the king of Castile accepted, whereupon Louis ordered his captains to observe an extended truce covering the whole of Aragon and Valencia to the end of March. Thus was the sword struck from Juan’s hand. He pleaded in vain with Louis to order d’Albret and his other captains to remain in Aragon; led by Gaston de Foix, the whole army withdrew to Navarre. Louis had seized the initiative on all fronts, simultaneously grabbing the Pyrenean counties, recalling Gaston’s army, and setting himself up as arbitrator between Enrique and Juan. Further exchanges between the French and Castilian courts led to an agreement that the two monarchs should meet on the frontier at Fuenterrabía to settle all differences fomented by the Catalan revolt. Enrique attempted to seize the initiative in advance of that encounter with a project which demonstrated how lukewarm was his commitment to the Catalan cause: France should join him to crush Juan and parcel out his domains. Enrique would take chunks of Aragon and Valencia plus the revenues and lands still left to Juan in Castile. Louis would keep Roussillon and Cerdagne, leaving Catalonia for his brother Charles, duke of Berry, who would marry the oft-marketed Infanta Isabel. Gaston de Foix should have Navarre. This whole farrago was obligingly leaked to Juan by the marquis of Villena.10 Louis turned it all down with a show of moral indignation: he would not betray his ally, Juan, and he had his own claims on the crown of Aragon as valid as any that might be advanced by Castile. Barcelona knew little of what was afoot, only that the two kings were to meet, and that Catalonia had been excluded from the truce in order that the war against Juan might be pursued there. Any comfort it might have derived from that provision had already been nullified by Enrique’s demand, delivered in December 1462, that Catalonia assume responsibility for paying the 2,000 lances dispatched to its aid. Finding the money for even half that number, and hence the means of waging war effectively, was proving well-nigh impossible.11 There remained a glimmer of hope; France might be induced to abandon Juan. As for the king of Aragon, he had no choice but to cling to his fickle ally and struggle to ensure that Louis kept his word. Just as he had thrown a fig-leaf over the loss of Roussillon and Cerdagne, so he covered his embarrassment at seeing 10

Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 181. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 285. De Beaumont conveyed these concerns to Enrique immediately after receiving the demand. Sobrequés Callicó, Catálogo de la cancillería de Enrique IV, no. 92. 11

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the French army abandon Aragon by making himself a party to the truce. Although the Castilian invaders paid little heed to that gesture, Louis rewarded him with a voice in the deal being negotiated by de Rohan.12 Equally vital to his chances of survival was the tireless intrigue of his Castilian cabal which had gained the upper hand in Enrique’s counsels. Its leaders, Villena and the archbishop of Toledo, coaxed their king into a crucial concession: Louis XI should act as sole arbiter between Castile and Aragon, pronouncing upon all matters in dispute, and Castilian interests in the process should be entrusted to themselves.13 They had probably already ascertained through de Rohan how Louis’ judgement was likely to go, but assured their master that he had nothing to fear. The detail the archbishop and Villena settled when, early in April 1463, they joined the French court at Bayonne bearing the documents which presented Enrique’s grievances against Juan and his solemn pledge to accept whatever sentence Louis might deliver.14 Having been relegated to the status of third party in these affairs, Juan decided to entrust his role in them to the experienced hands of Queen Juana assisted by his seasoned counsellors, Luis Despuig and Pierres de Peralta, constable of Navarre; these two presented his case in Bayonne while the queen kept watch from the Navarrese frontier. On 16 April she gave the undertaking to abide by Louis’s sentence.15 Standing on the sidelines at Bayonne were Joan de Copons and Miquel Cardona, the Catalan envoys to Castile; although present as part of the Castilian delegation, they were denied any part in proceedings that were to decide the principality’s fate. So tortuous did these dealings prove, that the royal encounter, first planned for February 1463, had to be postponed until April. Louis delivered his judgement, known to history as the Sentence of Bayonne, on 23 April, five days before the monarchs met on the frontier at Urtubia. Enrique concealed his habitual lack of assurance behind a magnificent entourage of gilded courtiers and a 300-strong bodyguard of Moorish horsemen. Louis, by contrast, appeared in his customary careless attire,16 dug his heels into French soil, and 12 For that purpose Ferrer de Lanuza, Justicia of Aragon, was sent in Feb. 1463 to join de Rohan at Almazán. Zurita, Anales, XVII, xlviii. Zurita also recounts the continuing aggression of Castilian forces in Aragon and Valencia. 13 Enríquez del Castillo (Crónica, 200) gives an indignant account of their dealings. 14 Enrique signed these undertakings in San Sebastian on 2 Apr. 1463. Martín, Enrique IV, 127, for the grievances. 15 For Juana’s part in these proceedings see Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enríquez, ii, ch. 12. 16 ‘si mal que pis no povait’. P. de Comines, Mémoires, ed. J. Calmette, 3 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1924), i. 138. Although not an eye-witness to these events, Comines gathered his information from reliable sources at the French court. The meeting is described in some detail by Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, 202; also by Comines, Mémoires, i. 165 et seq.

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so obliged Enrique to cross to the northern shore of the River Bidassoa. After an awkward exchange between the two men, neither gifted with easy speech,17 the parchment containing the sentence was produced and read aloud to an audience, the Castilian element of which, at least, listened in stunned disbelief, apart, of course, from the marquis and archbishop who were very well prepared. Enrique was to abandon Catalonia to Juan, along with everything he had occupied in Navarre, Valencia, and Aragon. In return he was thrown a mixed bag of pecuniary and territorial consolations: the Castilian revenues claimed by Juan, the lordship of Estella in Navarre, and a sum of 50,000 doblas. Catalonia was given three months to submit; if it complied, Juan was to pardon all rebels, respect their property, and observe the terms of the Capitulation of Vilafranca. For a further two months a commission of seven would supervise the peace: two appointed by Louis, two by Juan, two by Enrique (predictably they proved to be the archbishop of Toledo and the marquis of Villena), and one solitary Catalan nominated by Barcelona. Juan could not have asked for a body more biased in his favour! A pardon was also prescribed for individual nobles from Aragon, Valencia, and Navarre who had taken arms against their king. In a separate agreement between Juana and Villena it was stipulated that, on the withdrawal of Castilian forces from Aragon, she and her daughter, also named Juana, should deliver themselves into the custody of the archbishop of Toledo as guarantors for the surrender of Estella.18 The most powerful objection Juan might have advanced against the whole package was that it left him without any ally against the Catalans should they refuse to submit; the king of Castile was explicitly freed of any obligation to compel them, while the king of France appears to have reckoned his verdict in favour of Juan as a final discharge of his undertakings. Juana’s efforts to lure him into a new alliance fell on deaf ears, as did Juan’s attempt to insist that those undertakings still held good.19 Unwelcome, too, was the surrender of Estella to Castile, for it introduced yet another complication into the tortuous affairs of Navarre. But, like Enrique, Juan had bound himself in advance to French arbitration, so on 4 May he accepted the sentence. The king of Castile had done likewise on 29 April after signing with Louis a three-month truce designed to 17 ‘They did not much like each other’ (‘Ilz ne se goustèrent pas fort’) observed Comines, Mémoires, i. 137. In token of good faith each placed a hand on the back of a greyhound. 18 Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 186–8 gives a summary of the Sentence; also Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 456–8. 19 On 31 May Juan gave instructions to his treasurer, a witness to the proceedings at Bayonne, for a mission to France. He was to insist that Louis was still bound to aid the king of Aragon should the Catalans persist in armed rebellion. Ibid. 193.

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allow time for implementing the complicated provisions. What he balked at was the humiliation of having to break the news to Barcelona. For three weeks he kept the insurgent authorities in the dark, informing them only that he had met Louis and signed a truce. First hints of the awful truth reached them, by exquisite irony, through Galceran Requesens Dessoler, the son of their old bête noire, whom Juan had appointed in his father’s place as governor of Catalonia. Requesens had addressed letters to several hostile towns notifying them of the truce between Aragon and Castile, and calling on them to comply with its terms. Cervera, one of the recipients, passed on the news to Barcelona with expressions of incredulity, but other reports and rumours followed thickly, and by 24 May de Beaumont could no longer delay proclaiming the general truce which halted hostilities with the king of Aragon. Details of the Sentence had reached him on 21 May but he had delayed the proclamation for three days, so he informed Enrique, ‘because of muttering and unrest, not only among the populace but among many of the greater folk over the reports which are reaching them’; fear of disorder had forced his hand.20 But not until 13 June did the full, inescapable truth dawn with a letter from Catalan envoys sent in haste to Castile; their chosen king, they lamented, had been forced to accept the sentence because of ‘great commotions’ brewing at home; let them submit patiently ‘because the king of Aragon will treat you well’.21 On that same day Enrique formally renounced his Catalan crown. Even then the rebel authorities maintained a public show of disbelief; to the towns and cities of Catalonia they addressed a circular on 27 June affirming that they had Enrique’s assurance never ‘to abandon or fail the principality’.22 In secret they endeavoured to convince him (16 July) that the sentence was null and void because Catalonia had neither been consulted nor consented, and that he should, accordingly, not enforce its provisions in the principality.23 In reply Enrique lamented that he, too, had had the wool pulled over his eyes, but that he was bound by oath to accept the verdict and could promise nothing. For many months Barcelona contrived none the less to avoid falling into a constitutional limbo by treating de Beaumont as Enrique’s vice-gerent, ruling Catalonia in his name, while they 20 ‘. . . por quanto, sennor, era un gran murmurar e alteración en éstos, no solamente en el pueblo mas en muchos de los mayores por las nuevas a ellos divulgadas’. Sobrequés i Callicó, Catálogo de la Cancillería de Enrique IV, no. 1173. 21 ‘. . . per les grans comosions qui en son regne de Castella eren suscitades . . . car lo rey d’Aragó vos tractarà bé’. Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 461. 22 ‘. . . dejará ni faltará al Principado’. Martín, Enrique IV, 131. Enrique was conveying an expression of goodwill not, as the letters implied, an assurance of continued military support. 23 Letters of the same tenor were sent to Castilian nobles known to be enemies of the archbishop and marquis; but to no avail. Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 462–3.

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searched for another master. The king of Castile acquiesced in this subterfuge by continuing to correspond with de Beaumont who, as late as 18 October 1463, was able to issue assurances that he had received letters from Castile promising not to abandon the Catalans and to send Juan de Hijar with reinforcements.24 Patient submission was not the mood engendered in Barcelona by this spectacular desertion. If the principality had lost Castile, Juan had lost France whose aid he had judged essential to victory. Moreover he had seen the war spill ominously over the frontiers of Catalonia into Aragon and thence to Valencia. In western Aragon, once deprived of French support, he had failed to contain those erstwhile champions of Viana: Juan de Hijar,25 Jaime de Aragón, and Juan de Cardona. With Castilian assistance de Hijar had taken the important town of Alcañiz and, further to the south, Aliaga and Castellote; they had routed a royalist force trying to break the siege of Alcalá de Ebro and threatened the capital, Zaragoza. To the south and still within Aragon, Jaime’s son-in-law, Anton Navarro, seized his native town Rubielos together with Sarrión and Albentosa. From those points of vantage, and in company with the Castilian force in Tortosa, they ravaged the lands belonging to the Order of Montesa in the northern reaches of the Valencian kingdom. Jaime himself, supported by Cardona and Castilian cavalry, and recognized by de Beaumont as viceroy of Valencia, raided far and wide up to the very gates of the capital; castles within sight of the city fell into their hands. ‘All the king’s lands and subjects were thrown into great perils, evils and divisions. O, Catalans, how much your liberties will cost you, losing a multitude of people, exhausting your wealth, and sacrificing all your credit and reputation!’ So did the Valencian chronicler Miralles bewail the events of these dark months.26 Within Catalonia, by contrast, the insurgents had profited little from Castilian intervention. Juan Hurtado and Ruy Díaz de Mendoza, the commanders of the main body of Castilian troops had moved from Tortosa to Barcelona early in January 1463 but ventured no action while they awaited the conclusion of a truce with France and a resolution of the dispute over their pay. Three months passed before they began preparations to assist their hard24

Idem, Catálogo de la cancillería de Enrique IV, no. 2036. Letter to the count of Pallars. ‘. . . per quant me tinch per catala et so ciutada dela ciutat de Barcelona’. ‘I consider myself a Catalan, and I am a citizen of Barcelona’: so de Hijar wrote in Apr. 1462. AHB, Consell de Cent X, Lletres Comunes 32, no. 50. He had a Catalan mother, Timbor de Cabrera. 26 ‘Tots los regnes e terres e gens del senyor rey estan en gran dans e mals e divisions. ¡O cathalans, e tant costaran les libertats, perdent moltitut de gens, acabar vostres pecunies e perdent tot vostre credi e fama!’ Dietari, 297. Zurita, Anales, XVII, xlviii, gives an account of the operations in Aragon. 25

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pressed allies in the north with another attack upon the royalist bulwark, Girona. And not until 9 May did their 2,000 men lumber into position within the Mercadal, the suburbs outside the city walls. On their heels came a courier with orders to cease operations; Louis had delivered his judgement and the Castilians were to go home. Fearing a prolonged ordeal when their resources of food, men, and money had already been heavily drained, the defenders had driven out 400 non-combatants then steeled themselves to resist the formidable array of attackers. To their astonishment, a week later their ordeal turned to farce when the Castilian commanders, after a furtive night-time conference with Rocabertí, led away their whole army in the direction of Hostalric.27 Against this lacklustre performance can be set the success of Castilian troops based at Lleida under the command of Juan de Torres who, having received the truce all-clear, moved with much greater dispatch than the Mendozas. Supported by the cavalry of Lleida, he swept through a wide area in April, taking the towns of Tàrrega, Guissona, Anglesola, and Vilanova de l’Aguda. A promising operation ground to a halt in May when de Torres, like the Mendozas, received orders to depart, leaving local forces to hold the field. Their inadequacy quickly became apparent; cavalry sorties from Lleida and Cervera led by the count of Pallars were driven off and by September the count of Prades was back in Tàrrega. Where Castilian assistance to the rising was not forthcoming, the royalist cause in Catalonia had more than held its own thanks to the high military skills of Pere de Rocabertí and Francesc de Verntallat. In November 1462 Rocabertí, the captain of Girona, seized the strategic town of Navata in the heart of the hostile Empordà.28 Verntallat’s remensa bands roamed far and wide in daring guerrilla operations that kept their enemies continually on the hop and buttressed the royalist position in Girona. Communities which demonstrated their loyalty by assisting them were rewarded with incorporation in the royal desmesne, a status always coveted by those subject to private jurisdiction. Castellfollit de la Roca, Sant Joan les Fonts, Montagut, and Castellar de la Muntanya were among the beneficiaries. With their allies gone, both parties had to continue the war in such manner as their resources would allow. Of all constraints none bit deeper than a want of hard cash, the vital fluid that sustained late medieval armies. Men enlisted for fixed periods, usually no more than a few months, for an agreed rate of 27

Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 448–9. In Feb. 1463 Rocabertí was rewarded with the lands of his rebel cousin Jofre; at that time, however, Jofre still held them firmly in his possession. 28

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pay.29 When their contract ended they were free to depart, regardless of the military situation, unless an extension of service could be negotiated.30 Militia forces were still more evanescent: confined to their locality and often impressed against their will, they disbanded within a few days; even the prestigious Bandera of Barcelona began to lose men at the end of the first month of service, and after three months there remained a mere handful. The quality of these contingents left much to be desired; men of any substance could escape military service by providing a substitute, in some cases a slave.31 Barons summoned to serve either king or the Council of Catalonia would seek financial aid to sustain the vassals in their train for whom they were obliged to provide weapons and food. As Sobreques i Vidal points out,32 they burdened themselves with few men and for the shortest time possible; the greatest lords of Catalonia mustered no more than three dozen followers. Many simply ignored the summons.33 Ransom and booty torn from the enemy, and sometimes from friends, boosted a soldier’s pay at no cost to his employer, but the main financial burden fell squarely upon the latter. Civil war had dislocated the state’s fiscal machinery to such an extent that neither side could collect more than a small fraction of the customary revenues in the territory under its control. Juan saw that disruption extend beyond Catalonia to the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia during the winter of 1462/3. For the rebels the problem was somewhat lessened because they controlled Barcelona, the prime centre of commerce and finance, and its great resources. The burden imposed by war none the less far exceeded the city’s 29 In Feb. 1465 Juan notified the abbot of Poblet that a man-at-arms should be paid 150s. a month and a light cavalryman (genet) 100s. (Cortiella i Òdena, Una ciutat catalana, 367). In Apr. 1463 Valencia hired 600 men at the rate of 25 florins a month for a mounted man with squire and page; 12[1/2] florins for a horseman with one other mount (Dietari, 300). The cavalry sent to the count of Pallars in July 1463 were paid 6 libras (120s.) a month. In Dec. 1470 Barcelona laid down the following rates of pay: a man-at-arms with heavy lance, a page, weapons, and a good horse, £11 a month; a man-atarms with light lance, sword, and good horse, £8. 5s. a month; light horseman (cavaller de la jineta) with good horse and appropriate arms, £5. 10s. a month; foot soldier with cuirass, up to 55s. a month; foot soldier without cuirass, 44s. a month. AHB, Consell de Cent, II, Deliberacions, vol. 20. fo. 25. 30 The count of Pallars wrote from Cervera on 22 Sep. 1463, ‘I am here without any men. They have already completed the time for which they were paid and so they are leaving; nothing will keep them.’ (‘Jo stich aci sens gent, ja han complit lo temps del sou e axis en van que no valen gens aturar.’) AHB, Consell de Cent X, Lletres Comunes 33, no. 133. The same problem arose with Castilian troops. The captains with de Torres declared, after their successful foray from Lleida, that they would fight no more if they were not paid within the week. Ibid., no. 54. 31 In order to raise an army the Council of Catalonia decreed a levy of one man in every ten. Those who could avoided the draft; hence the constant complaints from commanders about the quality of their troops. 32 La guerra civil, i. 256. 33 When Guerau Alemany de Cervelló, the Council’s captain in the Empordà, summoned all the gentlemen of that province to join him with their men and horses (Jan. 1463) only two responded.

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normal income which was, in any case, badly diminished by hostilities. From the very outset in July 1462 additional taxes had to be imposed on prime articles of consumption—fish, wine, and meat—in order to repay (over twenty-four years!) cash advanced by the municipal bank (the Taula de Canvi) to put the Bandera in the field.34 New taxes on salt and cloth followed in August 1463. Earlier in that year ( January 1463) it had become necessary to make a forced levy on silver and gold belonging to citizens in order to coin money; only after three years would the owners receive any recompense, and then in the form of annuities. In response, gold and silver began to be smuggled out of the city in such alarming quantities that the Council of a Hundred voted in August to compel those holding precious metals to surrender them all to the state bank in exchange for annuities.35 In one way or another both parties squeezed as much as possible from their subject populations and tailored their military operations to suit. Sobreques i Vidal describes the expedients adopted by the royalist commander Rocabertí to sustain himself in Girona: he appropriated the municipal taxes, annuity payments, and monies long since deposited by communities to secure their freedom from seigneurial jurisdiction; he made workmen perform military duties without payment. Protests to the king, claiming that half the population had fled to escape Rocabertí’s exactions, brought no response other than instructions to tax the clergy and fine citizens who had shown a lack of loyalty during the first siege.36 In the other camp, the Council of Catalonia in June 1463 imposed on the towns of Empordà a levy to support 150 cavalrymen intended to safeguard the northern plain against raiding royalists at harvest-time. Mounts were to be requisitioned from horse owners against a monthly payment of six pounds. In addition, each community was required to elect a captain under whom it would turn out to aid the regular forces in an emergency. Before July had ended loud complaints forced the Council to modify its demands to an ineffectual request that the towns do ‘whatever they could’ (‘segons poguessin’). That capitulation left its captain in the region, the Baron de Cruïlles, without a regular source of cash with which to pay his troops, and hence at a pronounced disadvantage compared with Rocabertí. It drove him to lay hands on any money he could find, resulting in still more denunciations and sometimes, as happened at Castelló d’Empúries in September, outright 34

Annuities to the value of 100,000 libras were issued by the bank in July 1462. At the same time the maximum amount any individual could withdraw from the bank was limited to 25 libras. AHB, Consell de Cent. II, Deliberacions, 16, fo. 24. The financial measures adopted by the Council of Catalonia and the municipality of Barcelona are examined by Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 436–40. 36 Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 252–5. 35

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insurrection. A few months later Castelló, along with several other towns of the region, was claiming that its privileges exempted it from a new salt tax.37 On balance financial constraints weighed more heavily upon the insurgents than upon the king who could draw on resources outside the principality. With the Castilians gone, Juan also enjoyed a crucial advantage in the number and quality of his cavalry, an arm which played a decisive part in engagements fought in the open country of western and southern Catalonia. Accordingly, the summer and autumn of 1463 saw the tide flowing quietly but perceptibly in his favour. In June he named the doughty Joan Ramon Folc de Cardona, count of Prades, his captain-general in Catalonia with 350 horse and 1,000 infantry under his command. Having retaken Tàrrega, the count went on to recover most of the territory won by de Torres earlier in the year. His kinsman, the warrior cleric Jaime de Cardona, bishop of Urgell, operating to the north, took the town of Solsona. Most important of all was the success scored by Luis Despuig and the king’s illegitimate son, Juan de Aragón, the warrior prelate of Zaragoza, in clearing the enemy from their foothold in the northern parts of the Valencian kingdom.38 Cries of distress and pleas for aid rained upon Barcelona from every side. From Vilafranca del Penedès came warnings that people were saying they would rather submit to Juan than be killed by an enemy continually devastating their countryside; ‘We beg you not to make light of this for we cannot continue to live in such a state.’39 The captain of La Palma d’Ebre reported a collapse of morale under constant enemy pressure and went on to complain that, ‘to everything I can say you answer me with silence’.40 Tortosa’s anxieties were aggravated by a shortage of grain which led to popular unrest, threats against the counsellors and the expulsion of 600 inhabitants. Manresa and Cervera41 both protested that they were in imminent danger. Only at sea did the insurgents score some success with destructive raids upon the ports of Valencia (19 March and 7 May) and Tarragona. Leaders might be resolute, but would the people at large, in the face of privation, military setbacks, and Castilian betrayal, still display the patriotic fervour which had sustained their resistance in the previous summer? Louis’ sentence and his own acceptance of its terms, the Capitulation included, might, the king of Aragon hoped, persuade a significant number of his 37

38 Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 252–5. Zurita, Anales, XVII, lii. ‘Suplicam no haiau per burlar car en tant sert no podem viure com si ja ho aviem.’ AHB, Consell de Cent, X, Lletres Comunes 33, no. 163 (10 Nov. 1463). The count of Prades’ men had broken into Vilafranca in July. 40 ‘. . . a tot quant yo puch dir me donau lo callar per resposta’. Ibid., no. 192 (28 Nov. 1463). 41 Ibid., no. 146 (15 Oct. 1463). In June several prominent citizens were expelled from Cervera for words and deeds favouring Juan. 39

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opponents to sheath their swords. He had earlier been encouraged by the defection of the deputy Bernat Saportella who on 7 January 1463 fled by sea from Barcelona to Tarragona. From that royalist stronghold Saportella proclaimed himself, with Juan’s consent (23 January), sole legitimate deputy of Catalonia, a one-man government in exile; the two fellow deputies he had left behind in Barcelona were, he maintained, acting under duress. Soon afterwards he was joined by several other fugitives: moderate Buscas (the Deztorrents) and a significant number of the Biga (the banker Arnau Esquerit, the merchant Ramon Marquet, Joan Francesc Boscà a citizen). Galceran Dusay, who had fled from Barcelona to Valencia in October 1462, came to join the swelling band of exiles in Tarragona. With Juan’s approval they constituted themselves into a Diputaciò claiming to represent Catalonia. By November 1463 they were sufficiently numerous to form a parliament which offered the king the paid services of 300 horse.42 Another deep fissure had opened in the façade of Catalan unity, but it failed to trigger the collapse which Juan had anticipated. Without question a pall of oppression had hung over Barcelona ever since the Biga had cowed its adversaries in what may fairly be called a reign of terror. In an atmosphere of war and siege it became denser still, yet insufficient to stifle all seditious murmurs. By June 1463 the council thought it necessary to decree the death penalty for ‘many who, little zealous for the good and tranquillity of this principality, utter many things in favour of King Juan’.43 Strict censorship of correspondence followed in October. But those so minded could still escape, as Saportella and others before him had demonstrated. That few of consequence did so in the traumatic summer months of 1463 lends weight to the argument that the fight against Juan had taken on a meaning far deeper and more popular than the oligarchic self-interest of its early phase. Contemporaries noted the change. For them it was, in the words of Zurita, a matter of great astonishment that a people, by nature so restrained that they were commonly considered moderate and very sober, should in war become so prodigal of their lives and property that they valued it all at naught for the vain name of liberty they had conjured up against so warlike a prince . . . neither for love, nor reward, nor bonds of kinship, being so hardened of heart, could any one of them over so long a passage of time be brought to a true understanding of their country’s ruin.44 42 Cortiella i Òdena, Una ciutat catalana, 370. For the royalist Diputació see Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 431–5. 43 ‘. . . moltes gents poch zelants lo bé e repòs d’aquest Principat . . . prediquen moltes coses en favor del rey don Johan’. Ibid. 441. 44 ‘. . . cosa de gran maravilla que una nación que de su naturaleza era tan limitada que comúnamente los estimaban por modestos y muy templados, en la guerra se volviesen tan pródigos de sus vidas y de sus haciendas, que todo lo menospreciasen por el vano nombre de libertad que se habían imaginado

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Sobreques i Vidal finds something far more positive and profound in the spirit engendered by adversity in Catalonia: ‘the modern concept of the patria’. The leaders of the principality were able, he maintains, to strike a chord almost unheard-of at that time: loyalty to the land for its own sake . . . in contrast to the traditional note of loyalty to the king, which was the one continuously played upon by Juan’s propaganda. So was born the concept of the patria, not solely in its territorial form, but increasingly in its juridical aspect. Solidarity between the people of a country comes from having common laws and living in the same land, not as hitherto, from being vassals of the same sovereign.45

A similar spirit, it might be argued, was already abroad in the republics of Italy and perhaps influencing the Catalans. What remains beyond doubt is the resolve of those leading the revolution to rally their followers with calls to defend laws and liberty, never their phantom sovereigns. Established law still governed Barcelona’s institutions: the elections of November 1462 firmly followed precedent both in procedure and in the distribution of office among the estates. As for liberty, the council managed in the midst of a military and political crisis to deliver in June 1463 a decision that freed the remensa peasants from the mals usos.46 Admittedly that step was driven by the necessity to retain support among the peasantry, and it was imperfectly put into practice, but it was more radical than anything the king was yet prepared to offer. Had those appeals to the cause of law and liberty not found some answer in the hearts of the people, the rising could hardly have lasted for a decade. Yet it is difficult to believe that the old social divisions exemplified in the Busca and Biga parties had been entirely transcended in this apparent blaze of national solidarity. The authorities, drawn from the former ruling classes, kept an anxious watch for popular discontent and subversion; the loudest cries for laws and liberty emanated, probably, from those who had hitherto most profited by them; and when it came to fighting and dying for the patria the common man displayed little enthusiasm. contra principe tan guerrero . . . ni por amor ni por premio ni por ayuntamiento de sangre, estando en sus corazones endurecidos, ninguno en tanto discurso de tiempo se pudiese reducir al verdadero conocimiento de la perdició de la patria.’ Zurita, Anales, XVII, lii. 45 ‘Sabien polsar una corda gairabé inèdita en el seu temps: la fidelitat a la terra, per ella mateixa . . . en contrast amb la corda tradicional de fidelitat al rei, que era la que tocava sempre la propaganda de Joan II. Així naixia el concepte de pàtria, no solament en l’aspecte territorial, sinó, a més a més, en el jurídic. La solidaritat entre els homens d’un país es produïa per tenir unes lleis comunes i habitar una mateixa terra, no com fins ara, pel fet d’ésser vassalls d’un mateix sobirà.’ Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 260. 46 C. Font Melià, ‘La Diputació de Catalunya y los payeses de remensa: la sentencia arbitral de Barcelona (1463)’, Homenaje a J. Vicens Vives. (Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1965), i. Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 449–53.

14 The Portuguese Saviour How to reconcile their constitutional goals with the need to find a champion able and willing to defend them was a conundrum which continually baffled the rebels. The virtual autonomy achieved under Charles of Viana had offered one alluring solution, hence the holy aura that enwrapped its protagonist. His death had left unanswered the question of his ability to preserve Catalonia unaided against Juan’s patent determination to subdue it. French intervention in support of Juan had necessitated the search for a countervailing power in Castile, whatever the reservations as to the wisdom of calling in one Trastámar to oust another. Once both France and Castile had quit the field, and submission to Juan had been ruled out, there arose again the question: did Catalonia need a ruler and an ally to maintain its freedom? The poor showing of its forces during 1463 suggested that it could not survive without such a champion, whatever pitfalls the choice might present. Impressed by the power of French arms, and dismayed at the prospect of losing Roussillon and Cerdagne to the French crown, many Catalans concluded that their best hope of salvation lay in a deal with Louis XI. Should they reject his sentence, as they were resolved to do, he might be tempted to further aggression; the ease with which he had swallowed Roussillon and Cerdagne had, they feared, whetted his appetite for greater gains. On the other hand, at Bayonne he had given Copons some cause to believe that he was well disposed towards Catalonia.1 It was, therefore, imperative to probe his intentions, to win him over, if possible, to a benevolent stance, to avert, at all costs, his hostility. No time was lost. The council extended the truce with France until Christmas and, even before receiving certain news of Enrique’s renunciation, appointed an embassy led by the archrebel, the abbot of Montserrat, to discover what

1

Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 199–200. In particular he had promised to lift the ban on trade between France and the principality.

152

War, Civil and Foreign ALFONS IV K. of Aragon d. 1336

CECILIA of Comenge = JAUME, Count of Urgell d. 1347

PERE IV K. of Aragon d. 1387

PERE of Urgell = 1 BEATRIU de Cardona 2 MARGARIDA of Montferrat d. 1408

JOAN I d. 1396

HUG FOLC II = ISABEL de Cardona

MARTI ELISABET = JAUME II of Urgell d. 1433 d. 1410 ISABEL = PEDRO Duke of Coimbra

PEDRO Constable of Portugal

Figure 2. The Portuguese connection

might be afoot in the councils of the French king.2 It left Barcelona on 23 June, but it was August before it caught up with the French court near Chartres where it found itself faced with a rival mission from the king of Aragon. Both were kept dancing in attendance until late in the year while Louis watched and waited for that moment which might deliver the prize to him on his own terms. It did not take that long for the Catalans to discover their host’s ultimate ambition: on 2 September they wrote, ‘We have learned for certain, from many sources, that the King of France and his advisers, among whom are some citizens of that city [sc. Barcelona], are working to the end that the principality should, by hook or by crook, become French.’3 But while ready enough to parade his Catalan credentials (he had a Catalan grandmother), Louis well knew that any overt move towards his goal at that moment would earn him the enmity of both Aragon and Castile, an outcome to be avoided when Burgundy and England were threatening in the north. So he prevaricated, and eventually 2 The other members were Joan Copons, representing the military order, Pere Savartes for the commons, and four delegates appointed by the city of Barcelona. Calmette (ibid.) devotes ch. 6 to this embassy. 3 ‘Nosaltres havem per cert, per moltes vies, que axi per lo rey de Ffrança com per altres quoadjudants seus, entre lesquals ne ha alguns ciutedans de aqueixa ciutat, es treballat que, per fas e per nefas, aqueix Principat sie ffrancés.’ Ibid. 474.

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fobbed off the delegation with the promise that, should they shake off all attachment to Castile, he, as a true Catalan, would do all in his power to succour them; something that could easily be done because between himself and the Catalans ‘there are no mountains’ (‘noy havia muntanyes’).4 With that phrase he convinced many in Barcelona that their cherished independence threatened to vanish into the maw of a mighty neighbour, while a pro-French party gained assurance that with Louis lay the salvation of Catalonia. Meanwhile an alternative champion had made his appearance, one who had unsuccessfully put himself forward twelve months earlier. Late in November 1462 had arrived in Barcelona a Portuguese lawyer bearing a message from Dom Pedro, constable of Portugal.5 His father, the Infante Pedro, had married Isabel, daughter of that other Catalan icon, Jaume of Urgell, defeated by the Trastámar Fernando in his bid for the Aragonese throne at Caspe, and in his subsequent rebellion. With these impeccable credentials Pedro declared himself a candidate for the vacant throne. Politely he had to be told that Enrique of Castile, who had a better claim, had already filled it, ‘but should need arise we shall make use of your lordship’.6 No one among the rebels could then have dreamt that within a year they would spontaneously be begging him to take the crown. Having despaired of Castile and France, the Catalan leaders dug out Pedro’s letter which was read before the council on 13 October. A fortnight later, without any further consultation with the gentleman and peoples concerned,7 he was offered not the sovereignty of Catalonia alone, but the crown of Aragon. Here, surely, was a sign that rebel counsels were losing a grip on reality.8 Two galleys sent to convey the new sovereign had difficulty finding him because he had left Portugal in November to accompany King Afonso V on an ill-fated expedition against Tangier. Twice an increasingly anxious Barcelona had to dispatch further pleas before Pedro, discovered in Portugal’s North African enclave at Ceuta, answered the call to assume the crown that had eluded his maternal grandfather. Without further ado and, allegedly, without his sovereign’s consent, he set sail to meet his destiny. He disembarked in his 4

Ibid. 500. L. A. da Fonseca, O Condestável D. Pedro de Portugal, a Ordem Militar de Avis e a peninsula ibérica do seu tempo (1429–1466) (Oporto: Centro de História da Universidade do Porto, 1982). 6 ‘. . . si la necessitat ho requeria, nos empraríem de vostra senyoria’. Sobrequés i Callicó, La guerra civil, i. 411. 7 On 6 Oct. Pedro had despatched from Avis another letter renewing his bid for the crown, but this did not reach Barcelona until 13 Nov., too late to have influenced Catalan deliberations. Some verbal communication may, however, have preceded it. 8 Zurita, Anales, XVII, liii. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 290–2. J. E. Martínez-Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, (Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 1936), 18–19. 5

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new capital on 21 January 1464 to a rapturous welcome. ‘Rejoice, rejoice, worthy Catalans . . . for there has come our natural lord who will love all, not as vassals, but as sons and brothers.’9 Why had Pedro been chosen? Mainly because he was the only candidate available, partly for his sound credentials as a Catalan and pretender to the throne, partly for his military experience, and partly because he was expected to bring the material and moral backing of Portugal and Burgundy (his aunt Isabel was married to Duke Philip of Burgundy) without the threat of subjection to a foreign power. Furthermore, at the age of 35 he might be counted upon to outlast the septuagenarian Juan. In most of these calculations his champions were to be proved sadly astray. Pedro was born in 1429. In 1439 his father, the infante Dom Pedro, succeeded in supplanting the queen-mother, a sister of Alfonso the Magnanimous, as regent for the young king of Portugal Afonso V. To bolster that position, Pedro married the king to his daughter Isabel; another Isabel, his niece, married Juan II of Castile; and in 1443 he conferred on the young Pedro the title of constable of Portugal. Two years later the constable launched his military career by leading a Portuguese army to aid the king of Castile against Juan of Navarre and his brother Enrique, but he arrived too late to cross swords with Juan at the battle of Olmedo. Instead he participated in some skirmishes with Granada then returned home to face a crisis which engulfed his family. With the regency at an end, Dom Pedro’s enemies engineered his banishment, stripped his son of the office of constable, and drove him to a desperate resistance which ended with his death at the battle of Alfarrobeira (May 1449). The younger Pedro escaped to many years of a miserable, wandering life as a refugee in Castile; his sister Queen Isabel of Portugal died, reputedly poisoned. Only when the triumphant faction judged him completely harmless was he allowed back into the uncertain favour of Afonso V. In those very reduced circumstances he had made his bid for a Catalan crown and, initially disappointed on that score, embarked on the expedition to Tangier. His abrupt departure in January 1464 from Afonso’s camp at Ceuta gave his enemies ample scope to portray him as a deserter at a crucial point in the campaign, and apparent cause to deny him subsequently any assistance in Catalonia. He came, then, without money and only a handful of retainers, but with a personality and appearance that captured the hearts and minds of his 9

‘Alegrar, alegrar, virtuosos cathalans, alegrar . . . car vengut és lo senyor natural qui a tots amarà, no com a vassalls, mas com a fills e germans’. So enthused the Generalitat. Ibid. 19 n. 12.

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new subjects. Handsome, elegant, refined in manner, fastidious in taste, he was, like Charles of Viana, a man of culture and seemingly a fitting replacement for the lost idol. When he landed in Barcelona on 21 January 1464 the city greeted this second saviour with ceremonial splendour in the church of Santa Maria de la Mar; bells rang, bonfires blazed in every quarter, and people danced in the streets.10 What the ecstatic crowds could not perceive was an introspective temperament (his motto was ‘Peine pour Joie’) and the onset of a fatal sickness, probably pulmonary tuberculosis. Celebrations and ceremonies concluded, Pedro profoundly impressed the Catalans by throwing himself immediately into the task of saving the western bulwarks of insurgency, Lleida and Cervera. The latter had been put in imminent peril when a few townsmen conspired with the royalist captain, Juan de Cardona, to seize the town’s citadel. With such energy and optimism did Pedro set about his task that on 6 February, barely a fortnight after his arrival, he was able to lead an army 2,400 strong out of Barcelona to succour the beleaguered place. A brisk march took him half the way—to Igualada—and there he halted. Barring the road stood Juan’s son, Alfonso de Aragon, whose challenge to combat Pedro rejected even though he enjoyed a superiority in numbers. The initiative thereupon passed to Alfonso who moved upon Vilafranca del Penedès, so forcing his opponent to turn about in order to defend his line of communication. By March Pedro found himself back in Barcelona with nothing to show for all he had staked upon his first enterprise. It would have been a wholly humiliating end to an expedition launched with such panache had he not been able to report that the Cervera fortress had been recovered through local initiative, and to promise that his cousin, Pedro d’Eça, with Jean de Beaumont, now serving yet another master, would press on to relieve both Cervera and Lleida.11 That latter assurance soon proved as illusory as did the expectations of those who had invited him to Catalonia in the belief that they had lighted upon a seasoned warrior who would lead them in short term to victory while submitting to their continued hold upon the levers of state power. They discovered instead a tough political adversary who threw the blame for his own military shortcomings upon their failure to fulfil promises, especially financial ones, made when he was offered the crown.12 The immediate issue was the ever-present 10 ‘Solempnitat de la intrada del senyor rey en Pere, net del Comte d’Urgell’, Llibre de les solemnitats de Barcelona, 274–7. 11 For Pedro’s first expedition see Martínez-Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 17–22. 12 L. da Fonseca, ‘As finanças reais no governo do Condestável Pedro de Portugal em Barcelona (1464–1466)’, CHCA, XVII, iii. 351–5.

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problem of finding money for the troops. To keep his army together he wanted it paid two-thirds in cash, one-third in cloth. Without cash in their pockets, he argued, his men would prey upon civilians and lose all discipline; cloth they could sell at only half its nominal value.13 Barcelona, swayed by merchant pressure, insisted on the opposite ratio. After much acrimonious correspondence they compromised on half cash, half cloth. The clergy, too, earned Pedro’s wrath by quibbling over its financial contributions. His return to Barcelona brought a showdown focused upon the revolutionary Council of Catalonia which since 1462 had exercised supreme authority, harnessed only in nominal fashion to that of its selected monarch. Pedro successfully demanded an end to this diarchy; the council was dissolved, leaving the traditional institutions, the Generalitat and municipal organs, to speak for the principality. On that basis he swore, on 21 March 1464, to respect the privileges of Catalonia.14 Only military success could have reconciled his subjects to that display of authority, and to the heavier taxes which followed it, but the prospect of victory began to look dimmer than ever. To the north, where Rocabertí and Verntallat held the upper hand, one setback followed another. The desperate inhabitants of Besalú claimed they were reduced to eating ‘cats, rats, horses and mules’;15 only by truce could Ripoll and Sant Joan de les Abadesses, so these towns alleged, save themselves from starvation. A call made in March to barons of the region to abandon their ‘neutralist’ (‘indiferents’) stance and show themselves ‘good and loyal Catalans’ (‘bons e leals catalans’) fell on deaf ears.16 Some, among them the widow of Bernat de Vilamarí ( he had died in Florence in August 1463) and her brother Ivany de Castro, instead seized the opportunity to declare for Juan. Bernat Guillem d’Altarriba, a sworn enemy of the Cruïlles family, did likewise.17 To the south, Mateu and Pere Ramon de Montcada, whose estates lay in that region, were extending royalist control along the Ebro. Most menacing of all, the royalist grip was tightening upon Lleida where the defenders, commanded by the Portuguese Pedro d’Eça, found themselves virtually isolated. Juan’s captains, having taken Torres de Segre on the river south 13

L. da Fonseca, ‘As finanças reais no governo do Condestável Pedro de Portugal em Barcelona (1464–1466)’, CHCA, XVII, iii. 25–6. For the common practice of paying armies partly in cloth see Ryder, ‘Cloth and Credit: Aragonese War Finance in the Mid Fifteenth Century’, War and Society, 2/1 (1984), 1–22. 14 Martínez-Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 28. 15 Ibid. 27. The town’s plight was eased on 31 Mar. 1464 when a relieving force managed to bring in some foodstuffs. 16 Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 161. 17 Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 29. Pedro’s appointment of Bernat Gilabert de Cruïlles as his captain-general in the Empordà precipitated this defection which led to prolonged fighting in the region of Vic.

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of Lleida, frequently raided up to its walls, forcing their way across the bridge which faced the city. Despite one successful operation to break through with supplies, Pedro took the desperate step of ordering the expulsion of ‘women, children, Jews and other useless persons’.18 Another attempt to save Lleida, ‘the second city of the principality’,19 had become imperative. To effect it Pedro ordered the proclamation of a general call to arms (Princeps namque), a measure traditionally resorted to when the ruler found himself or his state in imminent peril. The edict went forth on 18 May, but far from responding wholeheartedly to the plight of a sister-city, Barcelona, the necessary heart of any such enterprise, raised many obstacles. First it questioned the legality of the proclamation; next it sought to limit the number of men to be raised to one thousand; having been cajoled into doubling that number, it then resolved to pay for only one month’s service, complaining that other cities were doing their best to avoid any contribution of either men or money. Those who did march in the first days of June went ‘as though they were going to the gallows’.20 Barcelona’s doubts as to the enthusiasm of others appeared justified when no more than a further thousand men arrived to join its own contingent. At least 15,000, not 3,000, so Pedro maintained, should have answered the call. Defeatism hung heavy in the air. Once again the advance of the Catalan army faltered when it reached Igualada in mid-June. Pedro put the blame on lack of provisions and the ridiculously brief period of enlistment given to the men from Barcelona; half that time had already expired; all his enemy Juan had to do was wait another fortnight and victory would be his. Barcelona must, Pedro insisted, set an example by paying its troops month by month until the mission had been accomplished, and ‘men of honour’ should freely volunteer their services. In response the city agreed to pay for one further month; beyond that the counsellors and ‘right-thinking citizens’ envisaged the raising of a regular army of a thousand horse and a thousand foot funded by all loyal cities, ‘So that everyone might go quietly about his business and no one be forced to go to war or send jewels to pay for someone to go in his place’.21 Hamstrung by this less than enthusiastic response, Pedro saw desertion whittle away his strength until by mid-July no 18 ‘. . . mujeres, niños, judíos y otras personas inútiles’. Ibid. 31. His order was not executed; large numbers of women and children were still in Lleida when it fell to the royalists. 19 ‘. . . la segona ciutat del principat’. AHB, Consell de Cent, II, Deliberacions, 16. fo. 115 (4 May 1464). 20 ‘. . . que par que anassen a la forcha’. Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 36. 21 ‘. . . en manera que quiscuna condicio de persones reposadment puixen fer son exercici e algun no sia forçat de anar en la guerra, ne trametrey joyas pagant lo quin vendre a sa part’. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions, 16, fo. 131 (15 July 1464).

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more than three or four hundred of the Barcelona Bandera remained with his standard. Juan meanwhile had temporarily patched up his dispute with the king of Castile over that portion of Navarrese territory (Estella) awarded to Enrique by the Concordat of Bayonne. A settlement signed in Corella on 2 March 1464 not only brought an end to immediate threats of Castilian interference in the civil war, it also gave Juan the great satisfaction of seeing his queen and daughter Juana released from the custody of the archbishop of Toledo with whom they had remained for ten months as sureties.22 Even his own dominions were beginning to prove more cooperative: Valencia, its own territory free of hostile forces, offered 200 cavalry,23 Aragon, delivered from the threat from Castile, responded to a summons of the host.24 All attention now fastened upon Lleida, the bulwark of rebel resistance in western Catalonia. On 1 May Juan had established himself in the Franciscan monastery outside the walls to take command of the siege. Shortly afterwards he was joined there by the queen who had come with the troops raised in Aragon; these took up position facing the city along the western banks of the Segre river. Alfonso de Aragon was quartered with his squadrons in the convent of the Dominicans. Such a gathering of the royal family left no doubt as to its resolve to subdue Lleida. The city’s commander, Pedro d’Eça, fought bravely and skilfully. His artillery inflicted many casualties as the enemy pressed nearer the walls, and with constant sorties he endeavoured to hold them back. But he had no answer to Juan’s superiority in heavy cavalry; the besiegers drew ever closer and their sappers began to drive mines beneath the walls. D’Eça now found it impossible to make foraging sorties and a desperate hunger gripped the besieged; those who suffered most, the common people, began to demand surrender. The remains of the army scraped together by Pedro for their relief had ventured no nearer than Cervera; its morale and discipline were abysmal.25 A small body sent forward under the command of the count of Pallars managed to reach Tàrrega, only to be halted by superior royalist forces under the doughty 22

Zurita, Anales, XVII, liv. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 116–20. But, as Vicens Vives remarks ( Juan II, 291), the ink was scarcely dry on the document before new causes of dissension erupted between these inveterate antagonists. 23 W. Küchler, Les finances de la Corona de Aragó, 176. According to the Dietari (305) a hundred cavalry received pay in Valencia on 20 June 1464. 24 As Zurita (Anales, XVII, lv) explains, this summons obliged all ‘gente de guerra’ to follow the king. Zaragoza, however, had withdrawn its offer of 400 archers and 100 horsemen in protest against Juan’s intention to lay waste the country around Lleida. 25 Pedro attributed their shortcomings to a long period of peace which had rendered the Catalans unused to bearing arms. Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 211.

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count of Prades. Substantial contingents were meanwhile ignoring Pedro’s call to join the main host and instead spending their energies on reducing pockets of royalist allegiance to the rear:26 Jean de Beaumont took the castle of Montcada; the Portuguese count of Abrantes and Llorens de Montcada busied themselves with Prats del Rei, Calaf, and Torroja. Another of Pedro’s captains collared Berenguer de Requesens in a skirmish. Such petty triumphs, achieved in blatant defiance of Pedro’s authority, brought no comfort to the famished defenders of Lleida. On 6 July 1464 they surrendered. Next morning Juan and his queen entered the city followed by copious quantities of grain. Starving children and mothers are reported to have thrown themselves with wild lamentations at the sovereigns’ feet. Moved by their plight, Juana ordered that the children be sent to her camp and fed. In a further gesture of reconciliation the king confirmed all Lleida’s privileges, with the understandable exception of the power to muster a military force.27 It was a decisive moment in the struggle: Juan’s opponents had lost western Catalonia—Pedro retired precipitately from Cervera—and though they might stubbornly defend their eastern redoubts, hopes of victory had vanished. Pedro’s biographer, Martinez Ferrando, sums up the situation in these words: ‘a wave of growing pessimism and mistrust which from now onwards could not be suppressed and which on all sides continuously fomented lesser and greater betrayals during the reign of this prince’.28 Juan’s forces pressed on remorselessly, taking Verdú, the Esplugues, Guimerà, Barberà, and Alcover. Alcover, ‘a place which above all others had chosen to distinguish itself by word and deed in its rebellion’,29 suffered uncharacteristic punishment; for more than a year it had resisted the forces of Pedro de Urrea, and in August 1464 defied both king and archbishop, yielding only after the royalists stormed through a breach opened by a bombard in its walls. The jurats and leading rebels were hanged and their bodies exposed on the walls; many of its privileges were forfeited; the archbishop even wanted to obliterate its name. The insurgents had acted with equal severity against the principal defenders of Cardona. But such acts were 26 Tortosa was among the cities which ignored a summons to send its fighting men to assist in the relief of Lleida (ibid. 44). All three of Pedro’s commanders in the Empordà disobeyed his orders. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 162. 27 Juan appointed Bernat de Requesens captain of Lleida. 28 ‘A més a més una onada de pessimisme i desconfiança que d’ara endavant ja no podrien ésser extirpats i que nodririen per ci per llà, constantment, durant el govern d’aquest príncep, petites i grans traïcions.’ Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 39. 29 ‘. . . lugar que sobre todos los otros se quiso señalar en dicho y en hecho en su rebelión . . .’ Zurita, Anales, XVII, lvii.

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becoming uncharacteristic: both sides usually refrained from official acts of reprisal and vengeance. In the wake of military humiliation came a witch-hunt seeking out those of suspect loyalty, whether it might be from sympathy with Juan or hostility to Pedro.30 Those detained and tortured or expelled numbered many hitherto conspicuous as champions of the Catalan cause, among them Joan Bernat de Marimon (son of the captain of the Bandera), Franci Desplà (a deputy of the military order), Antoni Pere Ferrer (another knight), the baron Francesc de Pinos, and Juan de Hijar, the most prominent Aragonese rebel.31 Even the fiery abbot of Montserrat, whose dealings with Louis XI were thought to have inclined him too far towards a French solution, fell into the net. Several more were driven into exile, ready recruits for the growing body of malcontents gathering around Saportella in Tarragona. Graver still, this round of persecution served as a pretext for the Navarrese Jean de Beaumont, close friend of Charles of Viana and Enrique’s lieutenant in Catalonia, to renounce allegiance to Pedro (25 August). He is reputed to have demanded the release of two suspects, Saplana and Pinos, in an angry exchange with Pedro who accused him of defending traitors. His true motives are to be found in a personal antipathy towards the Portuguese and a desire to seize the opportunity presented by the settlement in Navarre to rebuild his fortunes in his native land. A few days after breaking with Pedro he secured a reconciliation with Juan by delivering to him the town of Vilafranca del Penedès, barely 30 miles distant from a panicstricken Barcelona.32 Far away to the south, in those same bleak days of insurgent fortunes, another stalwart of the Catalan cause came to grief: troops dispatched from Valencia cornered Jaime de Aragon, son of the duke of Gandia, in his mountain fastness. He surrendered to the Valencians on 19 August after they had cut off his water supply.33 How irreparable was the damage inflicted on Pedro’s authority and reputation by this chain of disasters became immediately evident, for in that same 30 The Council of Barcelona noted in July that there were those who ‘spoke improperly to the disservice of the king and the harm of the common weal’ (‘alguns parlaven indegudament axi en desservey del Senyor Rey com en dan de la cosa publica’). AHB, Consell de Cent. II, Deliberacions, 16, fo. 131. 31 From the beginning of the conflict de Hijar had figured prominently among the leaders of Catalan armies. That his loyalty was now wavering seems proven by the fact that he was released from captivity in Barcelona in an exchange of prisoners and soon afterwards threw in his lot with Juan. How much importance the king attached to his defection is demonstrated by the marriage arranged between his son and Guiomar Enriquez, first cousin of the queen. 32 Zurita, Anales, XVII, lvii. Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 45–8. 33 Zurita, Anales, XVII, lviii. He was held prisoner in the castle of Xativa where he died in 1465. His son Alfonso managed to escape and resumed the struggle.

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month he had to acquiesce in the restoration of the Council of Catalonia. Thereafter relations between himself and that alternative seat of power became ever more strained. On the loyalty and competence of Catalans in general he placed increasingly less reliance, appointing Portuguese captains in strategic posts covering the approaches to Barcelona and seeking ever more urgently for external aid. When choosing him, the Catalans had seemingly concluded that Juan, stripped of foreign assistance, lacked the means to overcome the principality; they, therefore, had no need of a master bolstered by external forces. Pedro, quickly disabused of that notion by lack of men and money, had from the outset searched far and wide for succour. His first appeals to France, Burgundy, Castile, Portugal, Naples, and Rome had borne no fruit. A glimmer of hope came in the summer of 1464 in the shape of a Burgundian fleet dispatched to the Mediterranean in response to Pope Pius II’s call to crusade; a visit to Barcelona by one of its commanders, the Bastard of Brabant, and the pope’s death in August 1464 encouraged Pedro to think that many of these crusaders might be diverted to his service. Some did, on their own initiative, take his pay, but the fleet’s commander-in-chief, the Bastard of Burgundy, declined to become involved despite Pedro’s extravagant offers of Catalan treasure and lands.34 Although Pedro’s failure to find allies had consolidated Juan’s advantage in their struggle, it happened, as so often in this and other conflicts of the age, that success was not turned into victory because the party holding the upper hand found its resources temporarily exhausted. Leaving his captains to wage local campaigns from garrisoned towns, Juan returned in mid-August to his own Catalan headquarters, Tarragona, in order to renew his forces and conclude other matters of moment, notably peace with Genoa and a final settlement in Navarre to incorporate the newly reconciled Beaumont faction.35 How far events in Catalonia had moved in his favour was evidenced by his ability to assemble that November in Tarragona a second Catalan parliament. In return for the customary royal redress of abuses, mostly occasioned by the war, this gathering granted him the service of 300 cavalry to counter a threat posed by the appearance of Burgundians in Pedro’s service. The skirmishes and forays of that autumn and winter brought the usual local swings of fortune, on balance to Juan’s advantage. The most notable of these minor actions took place in the north where the captain of Girona, Pere de Rocabertí, inflicted a severe defeat on Jofre, viscount of Rocabertí, who was 34 35

Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 40–1, 61. Zurita, Anales, XVII, lix. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 296–8.

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besieging Leonor de Castro, widow of Bernat de Vilamarí, in her castle at Palau-Saverdera. Verntallat, the remensa chief, achieved some audacious coups: after seizing Ripoll, where the veguer opened the gates to him at night, he went on to take St Joan de les Abadesses, Camprodon, and Olot. Although he had soon to abandon most of these conquests, he had demonstrated how fragile was the insurgents’ hold on this area and the extent of disaffection in their ranks. Harsh repression had to be used against dissidents in the coastal town of Palamos; similar measures were taken to quell unrest in Tortosa, the increasingly isolated southern centre of Catalan resistance. Closer to Barcelona, treachery raised its head in Igualada, Manresa, and Molins de Rei. As for the tally of Catalan successes, these amounted to putting down a rebellion by the lord of Centelles, recapturing the castles of Forès, Barberà, and Pau, and negotiating the surrender of Ulldecona, a town in the far south that was destined to change hands many times.36 Where both parties focused most attention during the winter months was on the towns of Cervera and Tàrrega, left dangerously exposed by the fall of Lleida. Around the former, royalist forces commanded by the count of Prades had settled to a siege designed to starve it into surrender. Acutely aware that his reputation could not survive a repetition of the Lleida fiasco, Pedro threw himself into preparations for a rescue. Taking with him whatever troops he could muster in Barcelona, he left the city late in December and marched westwards by way of San Cugat, Martorell, and Gelida. And there he came to a standstill. Just as in the ill-fated expedition to save Lleida, he found that the Generalitat was making difficulties over payment for the men needed to bring his army up to strength, particularly the cavalry where he had always suffered a marked inferiority in numbers. Mutual recriminations flew back and forth, the Generalitat complaining of money wasted and urging prompt action to succour Cervera, Pedro demanding reinforcements and suggesting that the Catalans surrender their silverware in order to finance his campaign with an issue of debased coins. And, lest he become too dependent upon earthly aid, he kept a lamp burning day and night before the image of the Virgin at Montserrat. It took a whole month of ill-tempered argument to set the army once again in motion. Having secured its rear and boosted its morale by a quick victory over rebels in Manresa on 20 February, it pushed confidently on towards Cervera with the intention of scattering the besiegers and bringing in

36

Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 62–5.

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a great train of provisions.37 Pedro’s adversaries had meanwhile been given ample notice of his intentions and time to reinforce the count of Prades with the few men available. With those reinforcements came Fernando, the young prince on whom Juan had begun to load heavy responsibilities. After two brief excursions to the Vilafranca del Penedès region in September and October38 the king had spent five months in Tarragona, an unprecedented spell for so restless a spirit confronted by such an array of challenges. The explanation may well lie in a worsening of the eye affliction which was leading him into complete blindness and, one must assume, causing him acute mental anguish. Uncertainty about his ability to conduct affairs of state would account for the measures taken to prepare Fernando for an active role in government, although still a minor below the age of 14. The process began with a grand ceremony in Zaragoza cathedral on 21 September 1464 which recognized the prince as heir to the thrones of Aragon and Sicily; there followed on 14 October his appointment as governorgeneral, and on 20 October the necessary ratification of that act by the Aragonese Cortes assembled in Zaragoza. Thus was the way cleared for Fernando to assume nominal command of his father’s army when it prepared to encounter Pedro in the following February.39 Continuing the process of delegation, on 6 March 1465 Queen Juana was invested with the authority of locumtenens generalis with power to exercise all royal functions in her husband’s absence.40 Was this the culmination of a long-nourished ambition to gain for mother and son complete ascendancy over Aragon, or a further burden thrust upon shoulders hardly fit to bear it? Any enthusiasm aroused in the army by the prince’s appearance was dampened by an ill-omen sighted as it marched through a bleak winter landscape towards Calaf and the enemy: great flocks of storks, normally seen only in summer, flew across the sky darkening the sun. But whatever the misgivings aroused by this aberration of nature, Pedro had advanced to nearby Els Prats de Rei and battle was unavoidable. In raw numbers Pedro had a marked superiority: 130 cavalry, 500 light horse, and 2,000 infantry against 60 cavalry, 600 light horse, and 1,000 infantry. Against that advantage weighed the problem of coordinating the motley elements of the insurgent host: newly arrived Burgundians, Navarrese, and Castilians left over from de Beaumont’s followers, many Portuguese, 37

Ibid. 66–70, for detail of Pedro’s activity during these months. These moves raised fears that he was planning to attack Barcelona in the aftermath of de Beaumont’s defection. 39 40 Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 126–8. Ibid. 133–4. 38

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and a majority of Catalans. On 28 February 1465, as the sun was setting, the two armies drew themselves into battle array, Fernando’s around a hill, Pedro’s based on a hermitage in the plain. According to the chronicles, Pedro called on his men (we are not told in which tongue) to remember the wrongs of his grandfather, the count of Urgell, the sufferings of Charles of Viana, the prospect of booty and the fate awaiting any who were taken prisoner. If Fernando delivered any battle oration, it has not been preserved for posterity. Despite his numerical superiority, Pedro left the initiative to the enemy who, perceiving some disarray among the Burgundians in his vanguard, launched an attack which scattered that body with heavy casualties. There followed assaults on the right and left wings with fierce combat between the heavy cavalry as Pedro’s men gave ground. Both sides still had formations in reserve, especially the infantry, but it would seem that at this point, seeing his vanguard and wings mauled and in retreat, Pedro despaired of victory. Stripping off his royal insignia and exchanging his charger for a light horse, he made his escape into Els Prats. Most of his cavalry and infantry followed, saved from pursuit by the early onset of a winter night. Casualties among his men had been comparatively light: 60 cavalry dead and 250 taken prisoner. However, among those prisoners were numbered several of the most prominent Catalan leaders: the viscounts of Roda and Rocabertí, the baron of Cruïlles, Guerau de Cervelló, and the Portuguese captains Pedro d’Eça and Juan d’Almeida.41 The loss of so many men of note, combined with the psychological blow of yet another defeat, brought Pedro and his adherents close to despair however much they might assure the public that the battle of Calaf had been an indecisive affair, and that Hector could not have performed greater feats than their king.42 That gloss upon the sorry affair did indeed have a little substance. Surprised by the scale of their triumph, the victors, still inferior in numbers, lacked the strength to follow it up with a push into the Catalan heartland, or even to prevent Bertran de Armendáriz rallying some fugitives and with them delivering the promised relief into Cervera. It was but a temporary respite; within days the count of Prades had again encircled its walls.43 On the field of Calaf the Portuguese prince had certainly performed no feats worthy of Greek epic; his credentials as a military leader had, on the contrary, been torn to shreds. An underlying strength of will could none the less still 41 The prisoners were taken first to Valencia and thence to the formidable castle of Xativa, the usual destination of high-ranking captives. 42 ‘Hector no podie fer més que ell ha fet.’ So wrote the diputats to San Feliu de Guixols. 43 For the battle of Calaf, Zurita, Anales, XVII, lxii. Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 71–3. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 152–5.

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manifest itself in an aggressive defence of his own reputation and of the cause he had embraced. The heartland of Catalan resistance lay now, he reasoned, in the northern regions, so it was towards the hills of Empordà that he led his discomfited army with the intention of eliminating royalist strongholds there. Confronted by an empty treasure chest, he resorted to paying his men in kind until such time as he might gather contributions in the Empúries and force the diputats to accept a debased currency. New captains, admittedly of lesser stature and experience, were found to replace those lost at Calaf. A fresh contingent of Burgundian mercenaries joined him at Castelló d’Empúries, raising hopes that the appeals directed to that state might not, after all, be in vain. Not surprisingly, this concentration of forces in the north did produce some successes. First, Besalú was relieved, then, in April 1465, Siurana surrendered after fierce resistance, La Bisbal followed in June; in both places savage reprisals were meted out to defenders and inhabitants alike. Palau-Saverdera, defended by Vilamarí’s wife and her brother, agreed to submit if not succoured within one month. These successes owed much to the fact that the enemy lacked the means to threaten Barcelona and hence force Pedro to concentrate on its defence; they demonstrated that a civil war fought in this manner might yet drag on for a very long time. If his enemies thought that failing sight had permanently dimmed Juan’s appetite and capacity for action, they were soon disillusioned. Heartened by the victory at Calaf, the king took himself in March to Tàrrega in order that he might assess for himself the progress of operations against Cervera. His spirits were further lifted by news of the calamities afflicting Castile and France. On 16 July 1465 at the battle of Montlhéry a Burgundian-led confederacy of French princes, proclaiming the ‘Public Good’ as their cause, plunged France into civil war. Castile suffered the same fate, thanks in part to Juan’s own machinations. Immediately after the fall of Lleida he had entered into a pact with a cohort of Castilian grandees (among them his old allies the Enríquez clan, the marquis of Villena, and the archbishop of Toledo) with the purpose of overthrowing the current royal favourite, Beltran de la Cueva, marquis of Ledesma, and making Enrique’s brother Alfonso heir to the throne in place of his infant daughter Juana whom many considered to be Beltran’s child. For his part Juan had undertaken, if called upon, to enter Castile to aid the plotters in cornering and coercing Enrique.44 Their pressure forced Enrique to proclaim 44 Zurita, Anales, XVII, lvi. In return Juan was to recover his Castilian patrimony, except for that part held by Villena and the master of Calatrava. Enrique had obtained his divorce from Blanche of Navarre on the grounds of impotence but claimed to have recovered his virility with his second wife, Juana of Portugal.

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Alfonso his heir in November 1464, but in the new year, backed by popular opinion in the towns and Cortes, he fought back. His enemies responded with reckless defiance: on 5 June 1465, having deposed the king in effigy, they placed the crown on the head of the 11-year-old Alfonso. Juan’s detested relative who had fed the fires of rebellion in Catalonia now saw it ablaze in his own realms.45 Fired with renewed optimism, Juan prepared to throw himself back into the fray. Late in May he joined his wife in Valencia where she had spent three months drumming up men and money and supporting Depuig, the master of Montesa, in his campaign to regain Ulldecona. After collecting 40,000 florins promised to the queen, he took the bombards of Valencia with 300 horse and 600 infantry to put a speedy end to Ulldecona’s stubborn resistance. But despite the destruction inflicted on the walls by the royal artillery, the garrison repelled a general assault launched on 21 June. Juan thereupon resolved to spend no more time on this sideshow because messages had come warning that Pedro might, after his success at La Bisbal, fall upon the forces besieging Cervera. Taking ship for Tarragona, he hurried north to confront his chief adversary.46 Juan’s arrival in the camp outside Cervera brought to an end Fernando’s first experience of military command, but not his responsibilities, for he was dispatched to summon military aid from Aragon.47 Don Alfonso, Juan’s older, illegitimate offspring, meanwhile distinguished himself in feats of derring-do at Igualada. The fall of that town (17 July) on the highway between Barcelona and Cervera left the latter’s defenders with little hope of rescue or relief as they watched the besieging forces systematically sealing every approach and subjecting the city to bombardment by night and day. Their anxiety was matched in Barcelona where the diputats engaged in acrimonious correspondence with their monarch over the peril facing Cervera while he reproached them for their failure to furnish men and money; the trade and manufactures which had in the past brought wealth to Catalonia now, they protested, lay in ruins, and they were at their wits’ end to raise the sums he demanded. Amid such recrimination Pedro belatedly ventured into Barcelona. On 10 August he made a public appeal for volunteers to march to the aid of Cervera, an appeal which seems to 45 Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, 236–7. De Valera, Memorial de diversas hazañas, 97–9. Zurita, Anales, XVIII, ii. Martín, Enrique IV, 171–82. 46 Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 134–7. 47 Several towns responded, sending companies of men to serve the king, but for only one month. Zurita, Anales, xviii, p. iii. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 163.

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have awoken some spark of patriotism because one week later he was camped in the vicinity of Manresa with a respectable force. In its ranks were a number of experienced fighting men recruited in Portugal by Pedro’s sister Felipa. They had reached Barcelona in mid-July on a Portuguese flotilla which also carried Fernão da Silva and the younger Jaume d’Aragó who had escaped from imprisonment in the castle of Xátiva.48 But all this activity came too late; overcome by hunger and despair Cervera had surrendered to Juan on 14 August. Pedro, as always, blamed everything on the shortcomings of others (the needless fears of the besieged and the dilatory behaviour of the Catalan authorities); his own state of mind he portrayed as one of Ciceronian stoicism: ‘it is the mark of weak minds to display lack of moderation both in adversity and prosperity’.49 He nevertheless retreated precipitately upon Barcelona where he was assailed with a litany of reproaches. As he responded in kind, trust and respect crumbled away. Hard on the heels of defeat came plague which struck Barcelona that summer sowing yet more gloom and misery among a demoralized population. Following his now familiar strategy of strangling Catalan resistance by picking off one by one the major towns which sustained its heartland, Juan next set his sights upon the great southern city of Tortosa, a wealthy river-port commanding the delta of the River Ebro, and the base for damaging forays into the neighbouring kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon. How much importance the diputats attached to the city they made plain in a letter to Pedro justifying their failure to pay Portuguese in his service; the money available, they insisted, must be spent on defending Tortosa: ‘Tortosa is the right eye, Perpignan the left eye, and Barcelona the heart of the mystic body of Catalonia.’50 Reports of disaffection among its citizens fostered royalist hopes, ill-founded as it transpired, that it might be ripe for the plucking.51 On the march towards his prey Juan seized Els Prats de Rei, Santes Creus, and Vilarodona, swept on through the province of Tarragona, subduing those areas which had defected in his absence, and by 2 October had joined his army encamped on the Ebro outside the great fortress of Amposta. 48

Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 77–82. ‘Sicut, enim, res adversas sic secundas immoderate ferre lenitatis est.’ In a letter to the diputats. Ibid. 84. 50 ‘Tortosa és l’ull dret, Perpinyà lo squerra e Barchinona lo cor del cors místich de Catalunya.’ Ibid. 98. 51 Joan de Belloch, the captain of Tortosa, reported on 9 Sept. that all the population was in good heart except for the conversos ( Jews converted to Christianity) who were being expelled. AHB, Consell de Cent, X, Lletres Closes, no. 57. 49

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Rather than attempt an immediate assault on Tortosa, it was decided to isolate it by cutting all access by land and sea. On the seaward side this entailed taking the castle of Amposta which commanded the apex of the Ebro delta. Ever since 1461 the castellany of Amposta had set Juan at bitter odds with its former castellan, Pere Ramon Sacosta, who in that year had been elected master of the Order of St John in Rhodes. The king had seized upon that opportunity to have the unquestionably loyal Bernat Huc de Rocabertí appointed in his place, only to find that Sacosta was determined to hold on to the office and its associated possessions. Sacosta’s instinctive sympathy for the Catalan cause was thereby converted into active support which carried with it a majority of Hospitallers within Catalonia and ensured that Amposta was defended by a resolutely anti-royalist garrison. A full-scale siege was in prospect.52 By the time the king arrived his army had already crossed the broad stretch of river, the men in small boats, the horses swimming, in order to invest the town of Amposta on the southern bank. To the north, another force commanded by Juan de Aragon using terror tactics (‘la guerra muy cruel’)53 quickly occupied all the territory between Flix and Gandesa, effectively sealing the landward approaches to Tortosa. At Amposta, however, the initial élan of the assault across the river soon lost momentum in face of a defence sustained by sea as well as by land. Whereas the insurgents could rarely outclass the royalists in the field, their sea-power still matched anything mustered against it. Ten galleys sent by Ferrante of Naples to aid his uncle arrived in October but failed to prevent enemy craft carrying help to the Amposta garrison.54 As the weather worsened the attack became literally bogged down in the marshy terrain; wolves, snakes, and polluted water added to the assailants’ discomfort. And so the siege dragged on through the winter into the spring of 1466 with Juan investing more energy in futile negotiations with the master of Rhodes than in military operations. Sustaining Amposta served not only to protect Tortosa, it also kept the main body of Juan’s forces tied down in the far south, leaving Pedro’s commanders free to pursue his strategy of eliminating enemy footholds in their northern redoubt. The campaign began in promising fashion: Camprodon, Berga, Bagà, and Olot had all been occupied by the time Pedro made his appearance in 52

For Sacosta see Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii, 75. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, i, passim. Zurita, Anales, XVIII, vi. 54 Ferrante’s final victory over the Angevins and Neapolitan rebels in 1465 left him free to aid Juan. The insurgents again demonstrated their continued ability to strike at sea when in Jan. 1466 a brigantine captured a vessel carrying provisions from Valencia to the king’s camp. 53

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Ripoll on 20 October. A few days later he took possession of St Joan de les Abadesses after its inhabitants had voted by ballot to surrender (those in favour cast a bean, those against a pea). From there he hastened to shore up the defences of Camprodon, the frontier town which had come under attack from French marauders. Success in this north-western sector was not, however, repeated on the Girona front where the Portuguese captain Fernão da Silva’s attempts on Anglès, Amer, and Besalú were foiled by the usual robust action of Pere de Rocabertí, a failure which did not deter Pedro from appointing da Silva’s brother João captain-general in the places captured to the north-west. Inevitably that move was seen as marking an undue partiality for Portuguese and mistrust of Catalans. His nationality apart, João da Silva infuriated the Council of Catalonia by interfering with its jurisdiction in the Empúries. His departure on an embassy to England in January 1466 might have resolved the issue had not Pedro pointedly replaced him with his brother Fernâo. Furthermore Pedro did nothing to win hearts and minds by his harsh treatment of those who put up any resistance. Olot was burned and its inhabitants heavily fined; an occupying force of Gascon mercenaries went on the rampage in St Joan; everywhere an unpaid soldiery pillaged, even in churches, and an empty treasury exacted a heavy due.55 As winter closed in Pedro took up residence not in Barcelona but in Vic. In visibly failing health, he was increasingly influenced by a coterie of Portuguese who resented Catalan attempts to assert a joint sovereignty; they in turn were accused of blatantly filling their own pockets at Catalan expense. Pestilence and bad blood between him and its councils made the Catalan capital unappealing. So, too, did uncomfortably close incursions along the valley of the Llobregat by enemy raiders led by the formidable count of Prades and Alfonso of Aragon; on 6 November a large force of their cavalry, with Alfonso at its head, had spread devastation and panic into the suburbs of Barcelona at Sants and Hospitalet. More urgently than ever Pedro was driven to seek salvation from abroad. To gain it he was prepared to barter Catalan sovereignty over Cerdagne and Roussillon to France. Rather more hopefully he looked for greater Burgundian support by trying to enlist the services of Duke Philip’s son, the Bastard of Burgundy, together with the Bastard of Brabant. But if earlier appeals to these would-be crusaders had gone unheeded, now less than ever were they or any other any power inclined to go to the rescue of a visibly tottering adventurer. 55

Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 88–90.

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At Amposta Juan had in December handed over command to Pierres de Peralta, constable of Navarre. He then took up residence in Tarragona where with Queen Juana he celebrated the Christmas festivities and met the Catalan parliament he had convoked in November. It promised the services of 300 horse, in effect a continuation of the aid furnished by the previous parliament. That business concluded, he immediately turned his attention to the kingdom of Valencia which had of late been generous in support both with men and money56 and it was in expectation of more that he summoned the Corts of that kingdom to meet in San Mateu in January 1466. First fruits came when, on 26 February, the kingdom’s representatives swore allegiance to Fernando as primogenitus,57 but they displayed no readiness to shoulder new financial burdens. By the beginning of April Juan was left with no choice but to prorogue the uncooperative gathering in order to concentrate all his attention and resources against Amposta’s stubborn defiance. The queen he sent off to Zaragoza to extract what she could from the Aragonese Cortes.58 Where the kingdom of Valencia had proved unforthcoming, its capital again demonstrated a readiness to open its purse by offering a loan of 45,000 sous (15 January 1466) and a royal bodyguard of a hundred archers.59 More he could not extract despite constant appeals delivered through messengers and members of the royal family. Among the latter appeared Don Alfonso adorned with a long beard which he had sworn not to shave until his father had entered Barcelona.60 Despite a dearth of funds, Juan was able to throw a strong force by land and sea against Amposta when he resumed command of operations there in February 1466: with him came the master of Montesa, the castellan of Amposta, the archbishop of Tarragona, and a fleet commanded by Bernat de Vilamarí—a much-needed boost to the morale of the weary army of besiegers. Fernando returned to the field with a detachment which during the spring months took control of the whole Ebro valley, so cutting the last land routes by which any relief must reach either Amposta or Tortosa. Only the sea remained open, and it was from that direction that the Council of Catalonia, ignoring Pedro, made a final effort to save its imperilled southern bastion. Lamentations 56 In addition to 40,000 sous from the city of Valencia, the king received 30,000 from Morela in June 1465. In May of that same year the kingdom had sent 150 horse to aid the master of Montesa; a hundred archers joined the siege of Amposta in Dec., followed in Jan. 1466 by a further 64, among them 30 Moors. Also in Jan. Alzezira contributed 25 archers. 57 58 Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 163–5. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 148–52. 59 60 Vicens Vives, Historia crítica, 165 n. 520. Miralles, Dietari, 318.

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over its earlier failure to send aid had poured in from that isolated outpost. ‘We cannot live on words, for the stomach doesn’t brook delay’, wrote the captain of Tortosa on 6 February, adding that the poor had long since been reduced to eating carob beans and had lost all hope.61 It still took until the end of April to man and provision four ships, and their first destination was not the Ebro but Mahon in Minorca. For six months that last overseas outpost of the insurgent cause had been under close siege by troops and vessels from Majorca and had warned that without relief it could resist no longer. It needed only a brief reconnaissance to convince the fleet from Barcelona that it had no hope of breaking the blockade, so it sailed away leaving Mahon to its fate. On reaching the Ebro, it found its way to Amposta barred by heavy cannon mounted on both banks of the river. The commander, Pere Joan Ferrer, countered by lashing together three of his ships armed with all the guns and men he could muster. With this floating gun platform he attempted to force his way up-river, supported by the Amposta garrison which launched a sortie against the enemy camp. It failed to break through and late in May Ferrer returned to Barcelona, abandoning Tortosa to hunger and despair. Against the slim chance that it might return Juan provided by bringing to the Ebro eight Majorcan ships freed by the victory at Mahon.62 By 17 June all was in place for an assault on the castle of Amposta, its walls and towers already pulverized by a prolonged bombardment. Pride of place fell to the titular castellan, Bernat Huc de Rocabertí, who led a column which breached the heavily defended main gate, opening the way for other companies to storm the fortress’s redoubts from within and finally plant the standards of Aragon upon its walls. Its stalwart commander, Pere de Planella, finding himself at bay with no more than thirty men in the last crumbling tower, surrendered to the king. He had hoped for some diversionary attack from Tortosa, but Tortosa had not stirred and now lay exposed before the mass of the advancing royal army. Among the city’s inhabitants despair of any relief weighed against fear of the vengeance they might expect from a monarch growing increasingly irate at Catalonia’s stubborn resistance. Their apprehension grew when it became known that Juan had hanged several of Amposta’s defenders and threatened Planella and sixty Tortosans captured there with the same fate if they failed to arrange Tortosa’s capitulation within five days. To buy time they sent a deputation forty-strong to explore terms of surrender with the king who, after much 61 ‘. . . nosaltres no podem viure de paraula car lo ventre no comporta dilacio’. AHB, Consell de Cent, X, Lletres Closes 35, no. 124. 62 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, vi.

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haggling, agreed that they might send emissaries to Barcelona; if not relieved by the end of July, they would surrender. That breathing-space the city spent in preparing itself for a spirited resistance and a spectacular breach of faith. Without any warning a surprise attack was launched on the king’s camp at daybreak on 7 July, perhaps in the hope of ending the war with one audacious coup.63 It did succeed in sowing confusion, carrying off two bombards and several prisoners; it also infuriated the king who ordered the siege to begin without further delay. His army took up position on the right bank of the Ebro facing Tortosa. A company of archers, embarked on a large raft in mid-river, harassed the city at close range, and the artillery, now securely entrenched almost a mile away, opened a duel with guns placed on the city’s bastions. It was an even match: while the latter wrought much havoc among the besiegers, the royal cannon battered walls and buildings and, more importantly, shook morale and widened those cracks in the body of citizens which had long worried the authorities. It took little more to sap Tortosa’s will to resist; the most resolute gathered in the castle, the majority hastened to negotiate their city’s submission with the king’s council. Pleas for clemency on the grounds that they had been neither instigators nor ringleaders in Catalonia’s troubles may have softened royal ire; more probably Juan hoped, by a conciliatory gesture, to reinforce the message already proclaimed in Lleida and Cervera: Catalans had nothing to fear from their lawful king. Accordingly, on 15 July the syndics of Tortosa swore allegiance to Juan in return for pardon and a confirmation of the city’s privileges and liberties. In addition they secured the freedom of Pere de Planella, who had so resolutely defended Amposta, and others taken prisoner in operations around the lower Ebro; foreigners who had served in the defence of Tortosa were guaranteed safe passage out of the country in return for the castle’s surrender. All fortresses in the city’s jurisdiction were to be commanded by royal appointees for the duration of hostilities; Tortosa itself Juan entrusted into the reliable hands of Pedro de Urrea, archbishop of Tarragona. And on 17 July, to set a ceremonial seal upon his victory, he entered Tortosa with great pomp and pageantry accompanied by his soldiery while the fleet bedecked with his standards thronged the river. In a further symbolic act, on the following day, having heard a solemn mass, he ascended a throne and in public took an oath to observe the Usatges of Barcelona, the privileges of Catalonia and all 63 In Jan. Belloch, the captain of Tortosa, had written to Barcelona, ‘If you were willing this could be the scene of his destruction and it would bring an end to the war’. (‘Si vosaltres vos voleu aci sera la sua destruccio e se donara fi ala guerra.’) AHB, Consell de Cent, X, Lletres Closes 35, no. 111.

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other rights granted by his predecessors, excepting only the Capitulation of Vilafranca. That very public reaffirmation of his commitment to Catalonia, and probably the hasty surrender of Tortosa, had been prompted by the news that his rival, Pedro of Portugal, had died on 29 June.64 The winter Pedro spent in Vic had seen everything disintegrate around him. Desperate for money, he had lashed out at the Diputació: in five months it had, he complained, furnished him with a derisory 200 pounds; unpaid his troops were deserting to the enemy or plundering the civilian population. Had his health permitted, he would, he threatened, have come to Barcelona and, following the example of Julius Caesar, seized any cash in private hands to give ‘the few men left to us’ (‘aquesta poca gent que ens resta’) some sustenance.65 In reply the deputies alleged that his Portuguese commanders were too busy devastating the land for their own profit to engage the enemy, and that the money available had been better spent in efforts to relieve Tortosa than on Pedro’s meagre entourage of forty or fifty, of whom most were court functionaries not fighting men. The conduct of the war had, in effect, been taken out of his hands. He was indeed in no condition, physically or mentally, to undertake any operation. Such hopes of victory as he still nursed were fixed upon phantom foreign legions. A polite letter from his Burgundian cousin, the count of Charolais, was construed as full of promises, including a force of cavalry; but Barcelona’s envoy in Pedro’s court was not vouchsafed a sight of it. Similar expectation and secrecy were woven around a half-page letter in Latin delivered with great ceremony to Pedro in the bishop’s palace at Vic by an English ambassador. Presumably it touched upon the proposal mooted by Pedro’s aunt, the duchess of Burgundy, that he should marry Margaret, sister of King Edward IV, for in March 1466 envoys were duly dispatched to England with powers to conclude the match on terms which would bring 1,000 English men-at-arms and 3,000 archers to his rescue. It was further suggested that English corsairs might profitably transfer their activities from the Bay of Biscay to the shipping of his foes in the Mediterranean.66 Weaving these and other fantasies, among them schemes to fill an empty treasury with the melted silver of churches and monasteries, Pedro installed himself at the beginning of April in Manresa. There his health rapidly deteriorated until on 10 May he fell seriously ill, suffering attacks of fever and losing 64

65 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, vii. Martinez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 240 (16 Feb. 1466). Margaret was to be accompanied by as few women as possible, and preferably young girls so that they might more easily learn the language and find husbands. She should bring no, or very few, officials, and only men who might soon return to England. Ibid. 231–8. 66

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his appetite. Towards the end of the month, having entrusted the defence of Manresa to another Portuguese, Gil de Teide, he was carried by litter to Sabadell. Two days later, ignoring all medical advice, he rode non-stop to Granollers and arrived there exhausted. His sickness now entered its last stages. News of further reverses added to his torments: the failure to relieve Amposta, Camprodon lost, Ripoll and Piera on the verge of surrender. To no avail a stream of physicians and rare medicines were brought to his bedside; ineluctably he grew weaker until he could do no more than suck the milk of two wet-nurses. On 29 June he died—of pulmonary tuberculosis—at the age of 37. Immediately, and inevitably, rumours began to circulate that he had been poisoned, a cause commonly assigned to the untimely deaths of powerful men. The same had happened after the demise of Charles of Viana, but whereas that calamity had been attributed to the machinations of enemies of the Catalan cause, in Pedro’s case the finger of suspicion was pointed at its leaders. Since arriving in a blaze of hope and glory he had disappointed at every turn and been temperamentally at odds with his subjects; a sorry string of military reverses and jurisdictional disputes had strained their relations so near to breaking point that his death must have come as a relief to those who now despaired of their choice of monarch. The chronicler Garcia de Santamaria, although hostile to the rebels, hardly erred when he wrote, ‘In their inmost hearts citizens wore a joyful mourning’.67 The town of Palamos, writing to assure Barcelona of its continuing devotion to the cause, confirms his judgement with the confident assertion that ‘we shall be delivered from our present misfortune, and much more quickly than if the king had lived’.68 The deputies themselves notified Tortosa of Pedro’s death with the assurance that ‘all is for the best’.69 They none the less conducted his funeral with full regal ceremony and interred his body, as he had requested, in the church of Santa Maria de la Mar, the scene of his rapturous reception but two years before.70 67 ‘Luto de alegria los ciudadanos en sus secretos ánimos traían’. Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 121. 68 ‘. . . desliurats dela gran fortuna en que som e molt pus prest que si lo Rey fos viu’. AHB, Consell de Cent, X, Lletres Closes 35, no. 174 (2 July 1466). 69 ‘. . . tot esser per lo millor . . .’ Martínez Ferrando, Pere de Portugal, 249. They went on to promise the doomed city that everything would now be done to send relief; while Pedro lived, because of his illness ‘et alias’, he had not given it the necessary attention. The phrase ‘et alias’ glossed over all the other differences which had arisen between the deputies and their king. 70 The official account of the funeral ceremonies is given in Llibre de los solemnitats de Barcelona, i, ed. A. Duran i Sanpere and J. Sanabre (Barcelona: Institució Patxot, 1930), 280–5.

15 In Extremis, France In the will made on the day of his death Pedro had named a successor, his nephew João, eldest son of his sister Isabel and Afonso V of Portugal, and hence a scion of that ill-starred house of Urgell. That João would jeopardize his prospective Portuguese throne to follow his luckless uncle into the Catalan morass was highly improbable; that the Catalans would place any further faith in rescue from that quarter was equally unlikely. Many, wearied of war and reconciled to defeat, voiced a readiness to listen to the overtures coming from Juan in the shape of assurances that he would respect every constitutional form, the Capitulations of Vilafranca apart, assurances reaffirmed by a delegation from the Cortes of Aragon which offered its good offices towards a reconciliation. Disaffection was not confined to Barcelona. In Castelló d’Empúries ‘persons little zealous for the good of the principality’ were raising their voices and trying to prevent Arnau de Foixá reinforcing the town with a body of cavalry. The counsellors of Manresa lamented the danger they faced ‘for our sins’ following the departure of the contingent of Portuguese cavalry which had been defending them. Palamós, where many had died of pestilence, voiced fears that its long walls and few men could not withstand the expected enemy attack. Against such waverers was ranged a hard core of irreconcilables who controlled the organs of government and were resolved to continue the struggle at all cost and by every means. These diehards seized the herald sent by the Aragonese to ask for safeconduct, tore up his letters, and threatened similar violence against the embassy should it venture any further.1 On 2 July 1466 they decreed the mere utterance of any sentiment in favour of Juan and his family a capital offence. Was this blind obstinacy in the face of inevitable ruin? The tide of victory running so strongly in Juan’s favour—after taking Tortosa he had cleared the whole passage of the Ebro from Zaragoza to the sea by bribing the defenders of Flix, Miravet, and Ascó—certainly gives that impression. Had Pedro 1

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, ix. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 308.

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JOAN I d. 1396

MARTI I d. 1410

YOLANDE = LOUIS II of Anjou MARTI K. of Sicily d. 1417 d. 1409

LOUIS III of Anjou d. 1434

RENE of Anjou d. 1480

JEAN of Calabria d. 1470

LEONOR = JUAN I K. of Castile d. 1382

FERNANDO I K. of Aragon d. 1416

MARIE = CHARLES VII K. CHARLES Count of Maine d. 1472 of France d. 1461

LOUIS XI K. of France d. 1483

Figure 3. The French connection

lived but another year, Juan would almost certainly have gone on to take Barcelona and bring the war to an end because his opponents would have exhausted their means of resistance. His disappearance offered them another chance to seek abroad for the succour which might yet save them from disaster. Anxiously Juan kept his eyes on the rebel leaders in Barcelona; or rather, his ears, for the cataracts which for years had been obscuring his sight darkened it completely in the summer of 1466. The Catalans, having spurned his offers of peace, urgently needed to find a new leader both to still public disquiet and to retrieve a desperate situation on the battlefronts. Sentiment and a desire to clothe rebellion with a fig-leaf of legitimacy led them to search yet again in the genealogical tree of their ancestral rulers, among whose remaining branches the only one offering promise of adequate support now flourished in France. It sprang from Violant (Yolande), daughter of King Joan I of Aragon, who had married Louis II of Anjou (d. 1417). Her eldest son, also named Louis, had been a principal contender for the Aragonese throne at Caspe, and had later fought Alfonso the Magnanimous for the succession to the kingdom of Naples; in both contests he had been worsted by the Trastámars. After Louis’s death in 1434 his brother René inherited both the duchy of Anjou and the claims to the Aragonese and Neapolitan thrones.2 Another of Yolande’s children, Marie, had 2

A. Ubieto Arteta, El compromiso de Caspe (Zaragoza: Anubar, 1980). Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, ii. 229–31.

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married King Charles VII of France and became mother of Louis XI. Both René and Louis could therefore advance plausible titles to the disputed throne of Aragon. When it suited, Louis readily flaunted his Catalan credentials and his keen interest in the principality’s fortunes, but more in the manner of a predator than a protector; he had made it brutally clear after the submission of Perpignan in 1463 that he had ‘conclu et deliberé d’unir et joindre lesdits comtés de Roussillon et de Cerdagne a sa couronne sans jamais en être separés’.3 With domestic peace restored, albeit precariously, to his kingdom and Pedro dead, he might be expected to fish further. Even in extremis the insurgents shrank from ignominiously ending their crusade for Catalan autonomy by submission to the crown of France, and yet it was cruelly obvious that only in that kingdom could they find the help which might save them from disaster. René of Anjou looked to be the answer to their dilemma. In addition to a Catalan ancestry, he had an impeccable record of hostility to the Trastámars, French estates within easy reach of Catalonia, a son and grandson to ensure dynastic continuity, and above all a claim upon the goodwill of Louis XI in return for services rendered during the war of the Bien Publique. Moreover, at this very moment he found his hands freed and his hatred of the Trastámars increased by the inglorious end of the war waged by his son, Jean of Calabria, to drive Alfonso’s heir, Ferrante, from the Neapolitan throne.4 On the other side of the balance sheet, a side which probably received only cursory attention in a Barcelona driven to the verge of desperation, lay René’s age (he was born in 1409), his poor military record, and his scanty resources. What mattered was the need to engage French power in the conflict. Having concluded the funeral rites for Pedro on 8 July, the counsellors resolved on 30 July to offer René the crown of Aragon, a crown which was not, of course, in their gift. Two weeks passed before the relevant documents and instructions to the three ambassadors were ready. They left Barcelona on 27 August, landed at Marseille, then travelled to Angers where the duke of Anjou gave them private audience on 27 September. Without ado René accepted the proffered crown with the conditions attached: that he or his son should quickly go to his subjects’ aid with a substantial military force, and— a point on which the Catalans laid great emphasis—that the son, Jean of

3 P.-R. Gaussin, Louis XI (Paris: Nizet, 1976), 353. Gaussin dubs Louis’s argument ‘pure hypocrisy’. 4 A. Ryder, ‘The Angevin Bid for Naples, 1380–1480’, in D. Abulafia (ed.), The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494–5 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995).

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Calabria, should be recognised as primogenitus and assume the role of locumtenens.5 Immediately afterwards René was proclaimed king of Aragon before his assembled court and the ambassadors performed the customary ceremony of homage by kneeling to kiss his hand. That all should have been concluded seemingly without any deliberation on René’s part is to be explained by the fact that news of the Catalan intention had long since leaked to all interested parties. As early as 27 August, the day on which their embassy left Barcelona, René had written to assure the Catalans of his readiness to take up their cause, and had already come to a secret understanding with Louis XI promising French support. Two weeks delay in receiving the ambassadors had given him ample time for final reflection. The opportunity to bring down the family which had inflicted such humiliation on his own house—the crown of Aragon in recompense for the lost crown of Naples—proved irresistible. He knew, however, that all depended on substantial aid in men and money from his royal nephew. A mission was accordingly dispatched from Angers on 5 October to secure a public declaration to that effect from Louis XI. The Universal Spider promptly obliged by denouncing the Pact of Bayonne, calling on the Catalans to take up René’s cause, and branding all who should oppose ( Juan inevitably among them) as enemies of France. Significantly he did not accord him the title king of Aragon, only that of count of Barcelona; the support he gave would be scrupulously measured to suit the greater interest of France. News of the Catalans’ approach to René had long since reached the Aragonese court where it caused no little consternation. Yet, although cataracts had at the same time finally extinguished his sight, Juan reacted with his customary energy and determination. Aware that direct French intervention on the side of the Angevins represented the true danger, he endeavoured through conciliatory missions to dissuade Louis from taking that step, and, little confident of success, he embarked simultaneously on a diplomatic campaign to rally support from the many states which might feel themselves threatened by Valois ambition. In Italy he played, without success, on the fears of the dukes of Savoy and Milan, warned the pope of the Catalan hysteria that sought to canonize Charles of Viana, and rallied his nephew Ferrante, king of Naples, who had so recently faced the same foes. In November he turned his attention 5 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, ix. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 265–71. The ambassadors were also to urge René to take hostage men loyal to Juan so that they might be exchanged for the captive count of Pallars.

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to England where the Yorkist king Edward IV had good reason to fear the machinations of the exiled Lancastrian Queen Margaret, René’s daughter, with the king of France. Nothing was needed to persuade the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany that with Juan they faced a common foe. So did the king of Aragon, described at this moment of crisis by a German eye-witness as ‘a very old, little man, quite blind and miserably poor’,6 contrive to spin his own web around a crafty antagonist.7 But he lacked the means to forestall his new foes by an immediate attack on the remaining strongholds of Catalan resistance. At the news from Anjou Barcelona burst once more into orchestrated joy, given some substance by Louis’s order (2 Sept. 1466) for the reopening of commerce between that city and Roussillon,8 and by his intervention with the duke of Milan to end Genoese attacks on Catalan shipping.9 Louis succeeded, too, in stirring up the old hornets’ nest in Navarre by encouraging the count of Foix to claim his inheritance there without awaiting his father-in-law’s muchdelayed demise. Covering himself with the pretext of regaining Navarrese lands usurped by Enrique IV, Gaston swept unresisted through the mountain kingdom and on into Castile where he seized the town of Calahorra as a bargaining counter. It proved a foolhardy venture for he immediately became mired in fruitless dealings with both parties in Castile’s civil war. Juan raged impotently at what seemed a re-enactment of Charles of Viana’s defiance but any armed response was out of the question when a French army might at any moment irrupt into Catalonia; he could do no more than keep a distant watch on Navarre from the town of Alcañiz where he was engaged with the Cortes of Aragon.10 The French did not, however, immediately sweep across the Pyrenees. René, deciding that his days as a soldier were long past, had delegated the responsibilities of command in Catalonia to his son Jean of Calabria11 with the title of locumtenens generalis, traditionally bestowed on the monarch’s eldest son. But Jean was busy serving Louis in the pacification of northern France and would 6

7 Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, ii. 293. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 312–14. Louis had forbidden it when Pedro accepted the crown, not to please Juan but because he was mortally offended by the Portuguese incursion into what he chose to regard as his own sphere of influence. 9 If the Genoese did cease hostilities against Catalan vessels they continued to put themselves at Juan’s service: in Dec. 1466 Genoese galleys were transporting a great bombard and other royalist artillery to the Empordà. Coll Juliá, Juana Enriquez, ii. 166. 10 Zurita, Anales, xviii, p. viii. Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, ch. 83. 11 The title duke of Calabria was bestowed on the heir to the Neapolitan throne; Jean bore it by virtue of his father’s claim to that throne. 8

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not repeat Pedro’s imprudence in abandoning a lord on whose favour hung the success of his own enterprise. To reassure the Catalans that succour was indeed at hand it accordingly became necessary to appoint some other commander to lead the promised expeditionary force. The choice fell upon Bofillo del Giudice, a minor Neapolitan noble who had long ago thrown in his lot with the Angevin cause in his homeland; he had fought for René against Alfonso, fled into exile in 1442, followed Jean of Calabria in his war against Ferrante, and returned with him to renewed exile in 1464. In the interval René had rewarded his loyalty with the offices of counsellor and chamberlain. Hardly a highprofile champion of the Angevin cause! René’s military preparations were equally unimpressive: the end of the year saw del Giudice still in Perpignan organizing a modest force of 140 lances—110 of them furnished by the king of France, only 30 by the would-be king of Aragon. Taking advantage of this unexpected breathing-space, Juan sought to consolidate his position in northern Catalonia with the hope of holding the French at the Pyrenees. His forces, led by his indomitable queen and the Infante Enrique, took their leave of him at Els Prats de Rei at the end of September, pushed on rapidly north-eastwards through Olot, and within a week had taken Besalú and Bascara. Many other towns prudently switched allegiance to the side currently wielding the sword in their neighbourhood. Sweeping on towards the coast, Juana paused at Sant Mori on 15 October to summon clerics, nobles, knights, and commoners to meet her on 26 October, wherever she might be, in order to discuss the pacification of the region. At this point her confidence was manifestly running high; and justifiably so it seemed when on 24 October the conquest of San Pere Pescador brought her army to its goal, the sea. There they were joined by a galley squadron in which the queen embarked in pursuit of her next objective, the port of Roses. Don Enrique led the attack launched on 7 November against determined resistance. In fierce fighting around the bridge which led across the marshes to the town Enrique, Pere de Rocabertí, and other royalist leaders were badly wounded. With the attack repulsed, several bombards out of action, and news of an approaching enemy fleet, Juana gave the order to retire upon San Pere Pescador, losing in the process men and baggage, as well as the flush of victory. None the less she talked of renewing the attack when reinforcements of men and artillery should arrive by sea from Tarragona.12 In the mean time she pressed ahead with the parliament which gathered initially in San Pere (a large proportion of its members were 12

For this campaign see Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enríquez, ii. 155–68.

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already with her in a military capacity), then, late in November, transferred to Sant Jordi Desvalls, comfortably closer to Girona. Of its deliberations and conclusions no record survives. It manifestly failed to breathe new life into the campaign to secure the Empordà and mountain passes against the Angevins. Still less was there hope of repelling the French, should Louis XI throw his military power into the scale. Reports that he had denounced his treaty with Juan reached the queen in mid-November; by the end of the month all doubt had vanished, along with any hope of further operations towards the Pyrenees.13 All Juana could do was attempt to put loyal towns in some state to resist attack—a fruitless effort given a lack of funds and the destruction already inflicted on their walls by passing armies—and retire herself into the Girona redoubt. There she remained a bare two months until news came that del Giudice had at last set his army in motion and crossed the Pyrenees. On 23 January she abandoned Girona, so avoiding the danger of becoming once again, as in 1462, a hostage to the fortunes of war. On 1 February del Giudice entered Castelló d’Empúries; three weeks later a leisurely, unopposed march brought him to Barcelona. Although starred with initial successes, the autumn campaign in Empúries had ultimately failed to check, or even delay, the French advance; men and money had melted away. Equally unsuccessful was an attempt to strike at the heart of rebellion through a rising in Barcelona; the aborted plot led only to a further proscription of those suspected of sympathy with the repudiated dynasty, among them the counsellor Francesc Sescortes who was executed on a charge of treason.14 Three months later Jean of Calabria, a handsome figure brimming with confidence, but already 50 years of age, followed del Giudice across the mountains, determined to make his mark as locumtenens and saviour of the Catalan cause with a spectacular victory. Having taken Banyoles and Cervià de Ter, he advanced upon his chosen target, Girona, nerve-centre and symbol of royalism in northern Catalonia. On 21 May 1467 that city found itself yet again under siege. And yet again expectations that it would speedily fall to the assailants were confounded. Pere de Rocabertí, vigorously supported by the bishop, Joan 13 The Aragonese monarchs none the less clung to the hope that an open breach with France might be avoided. To that end Juana gave orders, in Jan. 1467, for the return of booty seized from lands held for Louis in Cerdagne: ‘the king and ourselves have ordered that for the present no war or any manner of action should be taken against lands which are held by the King of France’. (‘. . . lo dit senyor Rey e nos havem proveyt e manat no esser al present encara feta guerra ni novitat alguna a les terres que.s tenen per lo rey de França.’) Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 421. 14 Vicens Vives, Juan II, 319.

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Margarit, displayed his customary skill and tenacity in holding the enemy at bay for three months.15 Jean’s problem was that he had come with forces wholly inadequate to the task before him. Whereas the Catalans were counting upon formidable French legions paid by the duke of Anjou and the king of France, Jean, like previous paladins in the separatists’ cause, was expecting them to finance their own salvation. Before reaching Girona he had proposed engaging the services of the count of Armagnac with a formidable host of 400 lances, 1,000 archers, and 2,000 foot soldiers; Barcelona would have to foot a bill running to 12,000 francs. The city bit the bullet, agreeing to raise the money by an issue of annuities, only to discover that it could no longer fill its coffers by that means. A few days later it could not even find the cash to pay seventy-five horsemen to defend the Llobregat at its very gates.16 The duke of Calabria had no better success in a later, and much more modest, bid for 300 cavalry needed for the siege of Girona. All Barcelona could supply was a great bombard, some smaller pieces of artillery, and firearms with the powder to fire them. It also offered, in place of the cavalry, 500 infantry recruited locally and paid for one month.17 That offer Jean promptly rejected on the grounds that ‘peasants and people of the towns and cities are quite useless in warfare, and when they are captured they pay excessive ransoms’; he proposed instead that he be given the money to hire 200 seasoned foot soldiers.18 Once more he gained consent but not the cash; his messenger, the abbot of Ripoll, was told to explain how difficult it was for the municipal bank to disburse that amount of money. By mid-August he had so few infantry left in his camp that the council of Barcelona proposed sending its veguer into the countryside to call to arms more of those ‘useless’ peasants. Little wonder that Jean of Calabria was neither able to take Girona or prevent the approach of a relieving army accompanied by a rival primogenitus, the infante Fernando. A two-week march from Els Prats del Rei through the mountains of central Catalonia had brought the prince and his thousand horse to Salt on the outskirts of Girona. There on 16 August he was greeted by Rocabertí and Bishop Margarit, and by the 15 Miralles (Dietari, 323) records that in July Rocabertí mounted a sortie which caused heavy losses in the French camp, and in that same month ambushed a large supply train dispatched from Barcelona. 16 AHB, Consell de Cent II, Registre de Deliberacions, 18, fos. 13–14, 14–15 May 1467. 17 The money to pay them was to be raised by the sale of wheat from municipal granaries. In order to deceive the enemy into thinking that a much larger force was being raised, it was proposed to hold musters of the same five hundred on two successive days. Ibid., fo. 29, 10 July 1467. 18 ‘. . . los pagesos e poblats en les ciutats e villes son molt inutils ales armes e quant son presos paguen extrems rescats’. Ibid., fo. 35, 26 July 1467.

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spectacle of an abandoned enemy camp. Jean of Calabria had already taken himself off in the direction of Barcelona, reaching Hostalric on 21 August and thence by sea the capital. However brave a face Barcelona might show with illuminations and festivities, it could not be disguised that the long-awaited champion had arrived with a pitifully small following and no great victory to his credit. He had, he claimed unconvincingly, left the bulk of his men to defend the Empordà through which his brother-in-law Ferry de Lorraine, count of Vaudemont, would very soon lead a much greater force furnished by the king of France. To disguise his present deficiency and make a show on his formal entry, the city fathers called on the guilds to turn out a respectable array of armed men who would march in his train. And so concerned were they that enemy bands marauding in the vicinity might do him some mischief while he waited outside the walls for the ceremonies to be made ready that they waived protocol to get him safely within the city without any ceremony whatsoever. It therefore became necessary for Jean to make a second, formal, entry on 2 September when in the Plaça del Born he swore, in his father’s name, to observe and defend the laws and liberties of Barcelona.19 In the opposing camp hopes ran high that Louis might not, after all, give the Angevins anything more than token assistance. Juan had spent the last months of 1466 in Aragon observing Gaston de Foix’s Navarrese escapade run into the sands and grooming Fernando for his destiny. The infante had celebrated his coming of age at his fourteenth birthday on 10 March 1466 and took his first steps into regal responsibility the following October when, before the Aragonese Cortes assembled in Zaragoza, Juan invested him with the powers of locumtenens generalis. In that capacity he might exercise any royal function which his father chose to delegate; he had become the blind king’s eyes. Together they returned to Catalonia in January 1467 to prepare against the expected French invasion. Being ill-provided with men and money, they had first to seek the means of waging war. A Catalan parliament assembled in Tarragona during March obliged with an offer of 300 horse financed by an annual tax of 20 sous on every hearth. Valencia proved less accommodating: its Corts, when the king closed it on 20 June 1467, had still not agreed on a subvention; its towns and citizens, individually solicited, professed a desire to help, ‘but didn’t know how’.20 Despite that show of reluctance, at the close of August 19 20

Duran i Sanpere, Llibre de les solemnitats, 286–93. ‘. . . mas no sabien com, ni en quina manera’. Miralles, Dietari, 324.

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Juan was able to embark for Tarragona with a large sum raised from donations and borrowings against crown revenues. Castilian grandees—most especially the archbishop of Toledo, the admiral, and the marquis of Villena—who were backing Alfonso against Enrique in their contest for the throne, were accounted another likely source of military assistance. Those nobles had proposed, and Juan had accepted, a double marriage designed to cement their fortunes to those of Aragon: the Aragonese princess Juana should marry Alfonso while Fernando married Beatriz Pacheco, Villena’s daughter. On 1 May 1467 Fernando dutifully assented, whereupon Pierres de Peralta, constable of Navarre, was dispatched to Castile to conclude both the marriages and drum up aid against the French. For his part Juan still nursed the ambition of marrying his heir to the Princess Isabel, and was therefore not disappointed when Villena found it expedient to withdraw his daughter from the marriage field. But he was frustrated in his hopes of winning Castilian help against the French because both parties in the fratricidal conflict within Castile spent the summer gathering all their forces for a show-down that came with the bloody battle of Olmedo on 20 August.21 The outcome was a defeat for Juan’s allies and hence an end to hopes that they might come to his rescue. Salvation came instead from his own subjects. To the contributions extracted from Catalonia and Valencia was added that granted by the Cortes of Aragon presided over by Queen Juana. Despite the ravages of breast cancer which had first manifested itself early in the civil war, Juana took over direction of the assembly when her husband departed for Catalonia and summoned all her reserves of energy and political skill to cajole it into paying for a cavalry force of 500 men for nine months; the money was to be raised by a tax on bread and meat. Command of its host the Cortes entrusted to the king’s most experienced captains, the archbishop of Zaragoza, the castellan of Amposta, and the governor of Aragon. Queen and Cortes concluded the business on 23 May, just as the Angevin jaws closed upon Girona. By 31 July Juana was able to inform the city that her son was bringing an army to its relief. Nor was that the only service rendered to her husband by Juana in the summer of 1467. From Zaragoza she travelled to Ejea de los Caballeros in order to meet her step-daughter Leonor, wife of Gaston de Foix. Together they hammered out a pact which guaranteed the Navarrese succession to Leonor, thereby enabling Gaston to extricate himself without loss of face from an embarrassing situation in that kingdom and Castile.22 Their 21 22

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, x. Martín, Enrique IV, ch. 5. Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámara, 200–2. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 192–8.

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understanding was consolidated the following year when Gaston’s eldest son paid a visit to Zaragoza. Although the count tried to preserve his credit with Louis XI by pretending that his wife and son had acted on their own initiative, no one was deceived: Juan had escaped a potentially ruinous distraction. Although modest in numbers, the royal host was able to exploit its August success in breaking the Angevin siege of Girona with further victories in the Empordà. The strategy aimed, as in the campaign of the previous autumn, at cutting enemy lines of communication with France. The key town on that route, Castelló d’Empúries, was stormed; others, notably Verges and La Tallada, opened their gates without resistance. In little more than a month, most of the territory lost to Pedro the previous autumn had been brought back to a nominal allegiance; ‘nominal’ because men could not be spared to garrison it effectively. Only by winning hearts and minds could military success in the region be transformed into genuine support for the royalist cause. With that goal in mind, Juan, accompanied by his sons the archbishop of Zaragoza and the master of Calatrava, sailed northwards from Tarragona in October to join Fernando. With all three he made immediately for Girona, the city which throughout the war had played a critical part in sustaining his foothold in northern Catalonia. He made his entrance on 27 October, and the next day in the cathedral swore to respect Girona’s laws and liberties, the practice he had been at pains to follow in other major towns. In a far more substantial gesture, designed to answer the grievances and ensure the none-too-certain loyalty of the civil authorities, he sacrificed the unpopular governor Rocabertí, replacing him with his son Alfonso, master of Calatrava. In effect control of Girona had been handed over to the Margarit clan and various civil factions, for it was certain that the nominal governor would soon be required in other fields.23 Even before the king made his appearance in the northern theatre of war, opinion abroad was coming to the conclusion that he had successfully weathered the unimpressive Angevin storm. The Milanese ambassador to the French court reported on 15 October that Jean of Calabria had achieved nothing of importance, that the king of Aragon had the upper hand, and that domestic troubles would soon oblige Louis XI to withdraw his support from the Angevins.24 Jean, it was true, had conspicuously failed to coax Barcelona into furnishing any troops to defend the Empordà, perhaps because in an address to the Council of a Hundred on 11 September he had rashly asserted that the 23 For Rocabertí’s unpopularity see Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 82–4. In Oct. 1469 he made a comeback as deputy to the captain-general in the Empordà. 24 Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 156.

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region was secure.25 More to the point, the Catalans had expected the money for the promised succour to come from the treasuries of France and Anjou, not from their own exhausted coffers. They went so far as to sanction the issue of bonds to the value of £3,000 against new taxes on cloth and shipbuilding, but threw the onus of finding takers upon the duke; he soon found there were none.26 Frustrated in that direction, Jean turned in October to the device of a general mobilization under Princeps Namque (the state in danger) although it sat ill with his earlier assertions that the north was secure. Feelings ran very high when he exempted the two lower orders of citizens from the summons and insisted that the first two orders must either serve or purchase exemption. Vehement objections that he was violating all precedent led to the usual pecuniary compromise whereby Barcelona handed over a sum of 3,200 florins in discharge of its obligations.27 With that money Jean was at last able to hire a body of seasoned men for a campaign in the Empordà. These transactions soured still further relations which had been none too harmonious since Jean’s arrival. When told that the Council could not consider his business because several members were ill, he replied that ‘he would give them the medicine they needed and other rather caustic remarks’.28 On a more sombre note, the Valencian diarist records that he had Francí Desvalls, chief financial officer of the city, and four other notables of Barcelona executed on 10 October on a charge that they had corresponded with Juan.29 The Milanese ambassador’s prognostications might, therefore, have proved correct had his third player, Louis XI, not acted contrary to expectation by deciding to dispatch Jean V, count of Armagnac, into Catalonia at his own expense. Having so publicly pledged his support for the Angevin enterprise, Louis could not let it end in swift, ignominious failure with no finger raised in its defence. With the count went René’s son-in-law, Ferry, count of Vaudemont, leading an army of 400 lances. Exactly when they entered Catalonia is unsure but it probably happened early in November 1467 and was 25

AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions, 18, fo. 47. Ibid., fos. 47 and 52, 28 Sept. 1467. The financial problem was compounded by the fact that the city of Barcelona and the principality recruited and paid separate armed forces; this led to endless wrangles over who should pay for what. In reality few other towns still loyal to the rebel cause were in a state to contribute anything. 27 Ibid., fo. 63, 29 Oct. 1467. According to Vicens Vives ( Juan II, 319), it was their opposition to this measure which led to the arrest of Sescortes and the jurist Estopinyá. 28 ‘. . . que ells los donaria la medicina que havien necessaria e altres paraules algun tant punyents’. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions, 18, fo. 58 (18 Oct. 1467). 29 Miralles, Dietari, 325. 26

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almost certainly the reason for Juan’s withdrawal from Girona to the little port of Sant Martí d’Empúries, a way of escape should need arise.30 No one doubted that war-torn Girona would be the invaders’ prime objective. It therefore became imperative to bolster its defences against yet another siege with men, arms, and foodstuffs. All available supplies were accordingly assembled at Sant Martí under the king’s direction, and on 21 November 1467 the convoy began its journey towards Girona escorted by the larger part of the royal army under Fernando’s command. It had progressed barely two miles towards the village of Viladamat when it was assailed by the combined might of Armagnac and the duke of Calabria. In the ensuing combat Fernando’s forces suffered a total rout; large numbers of the rank and file were killed and many of its captains were taken prisoner. Among these captives were some of the most notable royalists: the master of Montesa, the castellan of Amposta, the son of the justicia of Aragon, Rebolledo, and Pere Vaca. The prince himself, narrowly escaping their fate, managed to flee to the coast and the safety of the galleys. So perilous did they judge their situation in the aftermath of that defeat that Juan and his son wasted no time in boarding their galleys and abandoning the Empordà. The castellan of Amposta and the son of the justicia later contrived to escape their captors. The other prisoners of note were led in triumph through the streets of Barcelona festively decorated in celebration of this rare and seemingly tideturning success.31 Calaf had been avenged. When the fugitive king and prince stepped ashore at Tarragona they found Queen Juana in the last stages of her fatal illness.32 And there they passed their last Christmas feast together under the melancholy pall that had enveloped their lives and fortunes. Shortly afterwards, on 13 February 1468, Juan lost the cherished companion who had sustained him through so many years of tribulation. Now, if ever, one might have expected that tough old war-horse—bereft of sight, wife, and threatened by the might of France—to have lost heart. Had Louis XI at this juncture given Anjou his wholehearted backing, Catalonia might well have been irretrievably lost. Instead, he seemed more interested in 30 On 20 Nov. Queen Juana ordered the authorities of Montblanc to gather the population of indefensible places, together with their food supplies and livestock, into fortified towns because news had come that the count of Armagnac had entered Catalonia and was advancing in that direction. Coll Juliá, Doña Juana Enriquez, ii. 430. 31 Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 188–90. In Dec. 1467 negotiations were under-way to exchange the master of Montesa for Bernat Gilabert, baron of Cruïlles, and a ransom of 1,000 florins. Rebolledo, together with his son and nephew, had to wait until Apr. 1468 before they were exchanged for the viscount of Rocabertí and others held prisoner in Xativa. 32 The cancer had spread from the breast to the mouth and throat.

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keeping the conflict alive than in ensuring outright victory for his protégé. Before the victorious count of Armagnac could fall upon Girona he found himself recalled to France in the winter of 1467, leaving behind Vaudemont with no more than a hundred lances. Worse still, in the following spring Louis summoned Jean of Calabria himself to France on the pretext that he was needed to negotiate with the duke of Brittany who had reputedly declared that he would parley with no one else. Jean quibbled, but eventually—at the end of July 1468—had to set out for France leaving Vaudemont in command; he could not afford to disobey the one on whose will, or whim, rested the fate of the Angevin enterprise. Some have detected Juan’s hand in a turn of fortune so opportune for himself; certainly he was in contact with François II of Brittany through the Foix family.33 The Catalans themselves were in no position to make good the deficit of men and money created by Louis’s complete disregard of his pledges to Anjou; raising a militia in the autumn of 1467 appears to have exhausted their extenuated resources and led within a few months (February 1468) to the collapse of that icon of Catalan commercial power, Barcelona’s municipal bank (the Taula de Canvi).34 All therefore depended upon French money and manpower which at this crucial moment were not forthcoming on the scale needed to break Juan’s power and spirit. Even as the queen lay dying, Juan had sent Fernando in her place to bargain with the Cortes in Zaragoza for further military subsidies. Playing upon genuine public grief for his mother, the prince extracted from the Aragonese a promise to abandon their feuding, at least until the war had ended,35 and to grant the proceeds of the wine and bread duty. Furthermore they sent an emissary to Valencia urging that kingdom to follow the Aragonese example in aiding the king against his enemies. In Tarragona he borrowed and begged what he could; not soon enough to save the isolated fortress of Castelló d’Empúries from surrendering to Jean of Calabria on 17 April after five months’ stout resistance, but in time to put the master of Calatrava into the field against Vaudemont’s French who were besieging Sant Joan de les Abadesses. In an engagement fought on 23 May they were driven off with heavy losses. Royalist propaganda trumpeted this action as a famous victory to be celebrated with 33

François was married to Gaston’s sister, Marguerite de Foix. A. M. Adroer i Tasis and G. Feliu i Montfort, Història de la Taula de Canvi de Barcelona (Barcelona: Caixa de Barcelona, 1989), 36 et seq. In Sept. 1467 Jean had promised to do all in his power to sustain the tottering Taula. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 18, fo. 47. On 18 Feb. 1468 the Council issued an ordinance for its reform. Ibid., fo. 90. 35 Despite that undertaking, the factions were again at one another’s throats before two years had elapsed. 34

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processions and services of thanksgiving; bonfires blazed across the Aragonese Mediterranean from the Balearics to the Bay of Naples. Immediately afterwards Juan delivered another stroke in his political battle with René by proclaiming Fernando king of Sicily, sharing the sovereignty of that kingdom with his father. The rooted desire of the Sicilians to have their own king had led the viceroy (Lope Ximénez de Urrea), locked in negotiations with the island parliament for a subsidy urgently awaited by Juan, to recommend that move. Juan assented, partly to gratify the Sicilians, partly to confer greater status on the youth who, it seemed, must very soon succeed him, and partly to render more hollow those pretensions to the Sicilian crown which René continued to maintain among his titles. On 19 June, amid great pomp, Fernando’s coronation as king of Sicily was celebrated in Zaragoza cathedral. In practice Juan had no intention of heaping new responsibilities on the young shoulders of an heir already loaded with a multiplicity of burdens; the machinery of government in Sicily would continue to function as before, under his own ultimate direction. What mattered was the impact in the realm of international politics.36 Bolstered by his new title and a forced maturity—he was now a battlehardened veteran of sixteen years—Fernando left Zaragoza, accompanied by an experienced body of advisers, to establish his headquarters in Tàrrega. Once there, his counsellors determined the army should wait to see what move might be made by the forces Jean of Calabria was assembling in Hostalric. Should they strike northwards, as was bruited, against the Infante Alfonso (the master of Calatrava), Fernando would march through the mountains to support his brother; otherwise he might employ his men in mopping up centres of resistance in the Urgell region; or else—and this was the tactic favoured by Juan— he might advance towards Barcelona in the hope of encouraging a rising in that city. The belief, nurtured since the conflict began, that Juan commanded the secret loyalty of large numbers in the capital, had never lacked foundation, as evidenced by the harsh measures repeatedly decreed against those suspected of treachery. Now it had greater substance than ever before: the so-called mascarats (‘the masked ones’) were showing their faces with increasing boldness, even within the Consell de Cent where opposition to the war had begun to find a voice. Terror no longer sufficed to stifle dissent. In the event, the Barcelona strategy had to be abandoned because in July Jean led his army towards the Empordà so that it might reinforce the mauled 36

Vicens Vives, Fernando el Catolico, ch. 5.

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ranks of Vaudemont while he, in obedience to Louis’s command, withdrew to France. In response, Juan, who despite age and infirmity still insisted on exercising overall control of strategy, directed Fernando to go in pursuit, either by way of Vic, one of the few major strongholds still under enemy control, or by the road passing through Cardona. On the advice of his council, Fernando opted for the Cardona route, but determined first to secure his line of communication by dislodging garrisons of Portuguese mercenaries from the castles at Concabella and Sisteró, and by posting cavalry detachments in Calaf and Prats de Rei to contain other enemy garrisons. Prudence alone had not dictated such caution; the army was bogged down by a desperate lack of money. According to Zurita, Fernando was unable to pay his artillery men, foot soldiers, and scouts or meet the necessary petty expenses of war.37 In straits such as these the prince’s war council declined to take responsibility for any move which might lead to another Viladamat; direction, they insisted, must come from the king. Fortunately for Juan, the enemy at that moment was in no better shape, but the danger remained that the duke of Calabria might soon return from France with substantial reinforcements. Alfonso, master of Calatrava, became so apprehensive of finding himself trapped in the Empordà should the duke reappear with a much superior force that he sought leave to resign his command.38 Acutely aware that he lacked the means to wage war effectively, Juan was meanwhile struggling to extract from an Aragonese Cortes, which had been sitting in Zaragoza since 1466, a pledge to maintain 500 cavalry over a long period. Should they consent, he intended to convoke other cortes in Valencia in the hope of winning from them another 300. All he could do immediately was to send Fernando the newly liberated master of Montesa and castellan of Amposta in order that they might lend the weight of their experience to his council. Throughout August the king of Sicily, the title now used by Fernando, moved about between Tàrrega, Cervera, and Lleida, awaiting developments in the Empordà and supervising the destruction of fortifications in nearby places seized from the enemy. When, by the end of that month, it had become clear that Jean was not about to lead a formidable host over the frontier, Fernando at last began his march to Cardona. There on 13 September he held discussions with his father, as a result of which he pushed on rapidly to Berga and took the town by storm on 17 September. With equal dispatch he then beat a retreat, 37

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xvii. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 204–7. He was replaced as captain-general of the province, apparently on Fernando’s recommendation, by Louis de Beaumont, count of Lerin and constable of Navarre. Louis had recently married Juan’s illegitimate daughter Leonor, another step in the king’s endeavour to settle Navarre. 38

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first to Cardona and from there to Cervera. Reports were coming of a massive concentration of French troops in Roussillon intended to overwhelm Girona; every man, every weapon Juan possessed would be required to save it. Cries for help from that city, left to subsist on its own resources since the wreck of the relief convoy at Vilademat the previous November, had grown increasingly strident during the summer. In the mountains to the west, Verntallat held his own, but had little if any food to spare for the needs of Girona whose fate therefore came to depend upon succour delivered from far afield, whether by land or sea. A lack of resources having, as we have seen, ruled out any major foray towards the Empordà, efforts were concentrated on organizing other forms of relief. From Lleida, at the end of August, Juan ordered pay to be given to any Catalans possessing arms and horses who might be willing to escort a mule train to the beleaguered city, and, once there, protect its vital farmland. That anything came of this plan may be doubted. Better success attended another attempt set in train when the king returned to Zaragoza in September. It involved sending Rodrigo de Bobadilla with a hundred horse to reinforce the Girona garrison. Bobadilla did get through after defeating an enemy force that tried to bar his way, but it does not appear that he brought any supplies, so his arrival only exacerbated the city’s food problem. Meanwhile attempts to deliver relief from the sea were being made by four galleys sent to Juan’s aid by his nephew, King Ferrante of Naples. Under their commander Bernat de Vilamari, they left Tarragona on 7 September, sailed to the Medes islands off L’Estartit and remained there for a month endeavouring to get food to Girona in the face of opposition from an enemy who occupied the intervening territory. Zurita implies that they had little success.39 Had Rocabertí still commanded in Girona, the defence of that city would certainly have been conducted in a more aggressive and imaginative manner and its supply problems have been correspondingly eased. The master of Calatrava, Rocabertí’s nominal successor, spent little time in Girona, and when he relinquished command in the Emporda in September 1468, leadership in the city fell entirely into Margarit hands. For all his other qualities, Bishop Joan Margarit, the head of that clan, had no military skill, nor had his brother Bernat, titular captain of the city. The likelihood that Girona would withstand another determined siege looked increasingly remote. 39

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xviii.

16 The Castilian Marriage The king of Aragon was well aware that he had earlier extricated himself from a seemingly unavoidable and unequal contest—with the king of Castile—not with arms but through domestic and international intrigue. That same strategy he had already begun to deploy against the duke of Anjou and his backer, the king of France. Just as he had encouraged a party of Castilian grandees in their rebellion against Enrique IV, so he now sought alliance with the great peers of France, notably the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, who were bent on humbling Louis XI. A formal treaty of alliance with Charles the Bold was to follow on 22 February 1469. In the south of France similar hostility to the Valois was inclining the counts of Armagnac and Foix more favourably towards Juan. Further afield Juan had little difficulty in convincing Edward IV of England that they had a mutual interest in thwarting Angevin ambition; a treaty to that end was signed in London on 20 October 1468. Among the Italian states, the king of Naples had needed no persuasion to furnish his kinsman with material as well as diplomatic aid against a common foe; the duke of Milan remained committed to the Aragonese dynasty in Naples, and hence benevolently neutral towards Juan; even Florence responded favourably to formal notification of Fernando’s elevation to the Sicilian throne; Venice alone displayed an inclination to see in the Catalan rising a possible benefit for its own Italian ambitions.1 While so much diplomatic activity ensured that the Angevins would receive no foreign assistance, and that domestic turmoil would limit Louis’s ability to support René, it did not, Naples excepted, provide Juan with the means he needed for outright victory. France had once furnished them, at a high price, only to turn the tables at a crucial moment. Now he looked to Castile, not solely as an immediate source of salvation, but as the kingdom where lay his dynastic roots and ambition. If only the mastery over it, towards which he had struggled all his life, could be won, the Crown of Aragon need fear no foe. He 1

Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 287–93. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 336–41.

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might go further still, and achieve a goal that had long tantalized his family: take the crown of Castile from the senior branch, which had produced a catastrophic series of kings, into the resolute hands of the junior Trastámares. Consistently this branch, the Antequeras, had kept its sights on that crown by taking every opportunity to marry with those who wore it and their close kin; most recently Juan had proposed marrying his daughter Juana to the Infante Alfonso whom he was backing to oust Enrique from the Castilian throne. Also he had repeatedly contemplated a marriage between Fernando and Isabel, another possible successor to that throne. Other brides for Fernando were, it is true, given serious consideration: Marie, daughter of the duke of Burgundy, Beatriz Pacheco in 1467. But the whole scene suddenly changed when, on 5 July 1468, Alfonso of Castile expired in a town near Ávila after a very brief illness. The cause of death was probably an outbreak of plague in Arévalo, from where Alfonso and his sister Isabel had fled at the end of June; gossip inevitably hinted at poison. The result was to deprive the archbishop of Toledo and his allies, Juan prominent among them, of the puppet king with whom they had been undermining Enrique. In response, having installed Isabel in Ávila, they proclaimed her princess of Castile; elsewhere—in Seville, Jerez, and Cordoba — other leaders of the anti-Enrique coalition declared her to be the legitimate heiress to the crown. It took a meeting of all the grandees of that party, held in August, to agree on a common strategy: together with Isabel they would assemble in Cebreros ready to hammer out an agreement on the succession (favourable, of course, to Isabel) with Enrique and his partisans gathered in nearby Cadahalso. After much further parleying, brother and sister finally came face to face, on 19 September, at Los Toros de Guisando, an inn halfway between their encampments, to ratify an accord which guaranteed the crown to Enrique for the rest of his life and to Isabel thereafter.2 Immediately the news of Alfonso’s death reached Juan in Zaragoza, he had concluded that Isabel now held the key to the Castilian crown, and that he must act swiftly to persuade the power-brokers around her to make Fernando her husband. After a hasty consultation with his son, he dispatched Pierres de Peralta, by now a seasoned agent in these matrimonial affairs, to offer the Castilian prelates and grandees any titles to land and revenues he might possess

2 De Valera, Memorial, ch. 42. Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, 310–11. Martín, Enrique IV, pt 3. Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámara, 204–6. Enrique’s authority within Castile was, at this stage, reinforced by the death of his rival, Alfonso, and the military support of the towns organized through the Hermandades (Brotherhoods).

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in their kingdom in return for their favour in this match. On his arrival in Castile, Peralta found that Enrique and Isabel had both been spirited away by the Marquis of Villena, Juan Pacheco, to his stronghold of Ocaña.3 Pacheco’s purpose was to frustrate the Antequera marriage, seen as a disaster for himself and all those who had profited from the liquidation of the vast Antequera patrimony; the means he proposed was a double Portuguese match, marrying Isabel to Afonso, the widowed king of Portugal, and that king’s heir, João, to Juana ‘la Beltraneja’. Whatever the outcome of the Castilian succession crisis, the kingdom’s fortunes would thus be tied to Portugal, not Aragon. An embassy led by the archbishop of Lisbon hastened to Ocaña to seal a pact that satisfied not only Pacheco but the innate anti-Antequera sentiments of Enrique. Apprised of this menacing turn of events by the archbishop of Toledo, Peralta made his way to Ocaña where he contrived some meetings with Isabel, and, with the promise of glittering rewards, won over to his purposes two of the most influential among her small circle of advisers: Gonzalo Chacón, her treasurer, and his nephew Gutierre de Cárdenas, her maestresala. The papal nuncio to the Castilian court was also secured by similar means. Through the winter months these advocates of the Aragonese marriage had to contend with the pressure exerted on Isabel by her brother and Pacheco. What finally determined her choice of husbands has been the subject of endless speculation because hard evidence for it is wanting. Some have emphasized a romantic angle: her preference for the youthful, comely Fernando as against two portly, unprepossessing suitors more than twice her age.4 Others give weight to hard political motives: a determination not to be spirited away from Castile and its throne, coupled with a realization that none would prove doughtier champions of her cause than the king of Aragon and his son. Sentiment and calculation must both surely have swayed her. By January 1469 it had become clear to all which way she inclined: Juan’s envoys wrote confidently of success; the nuncio stood ready to provide the necessary dispensation for a marriage of cousins; the disillusioned Portuguese were heading home. In February Peralta carried to Zaragoza the terms dictated by Isabel and her advisers. They appear one-sided

3

A meeting of the Castilian Cortes in Ocaña served as justification for their removal there. In addition to the Portuguese king, another suitor acceptable to Enrique had appeared in the unfortunate shape of Charles, duke of Guyenne, brother and heir to Louis XI. Even Richard of Gloucester, brother of Edward IV, had briefly entered the frame. Del Val Valdivieso, Isabel la Católica, 48–9. Sánchez-Parra, Crónica anónima, 261–3. Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xx–xxi. 4

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in that they are concerned exclusively with defining the role of Fernando as Isabel’s consort, and with the wholly unrealistic amounts of aid he was to furnish in cash and arms. There was no reciprocal pledge of any Castilian assistance to Aragon in its travails. But that mattered not at all to Juan; he was ready to promise anything in return for the prize he had pursued all his life—the kingdom of Castile. On 5 March 1469 in Cervera Fernando signed the marriage contract to which Juan gave his consent on 27 March, adding the proviso that the undertakings demanded of him should only come into effect when Isabel had regained her freedom.5 The light that dawned on his Castilian dreams had, at the same time, been restored to the old king’s eyes. While she lived his wife had opposed any attempt to remove the cataracts, fearing it might irreparably harm his health. After her death, increasing frustration with a handicap which rendered impossible that tight control over affairs he had always enjoyed steeled him to endure an operation. It was performed by a Jewish physician from Lleida, Cresques Abiabar, who, on 11 September 1468 (a day selected as astrologically auspicious) successfully restored the sight of the right eye. A delighted king then insisted on having the same done to his other eye despite Abiabar’s objection that more than a dozen years must pass before the heavens were again so propitious. Under pressure the rabbi identified 3.30 p.m. on 12 October as the suitable moment for surgery which brought light back to the left eye. Astonished contemporaries could only conclude that fortune did indeed favour this indestructible old warrior.6 Keeping one rekindled eye on the Pyrenees, where the Angevin might at any moment reappear, the other on the unfolding drama in Castile, Juan passed an anxious winter in Zaragoza. With the marriage contract concluded in March, he could look with relief and immeasurable satisfaction on one—to him the most important—side. Not everyone shared his euphoria: his counsellors and the great men among his subjects viewed his apparent absorption in Castilian business with patent and understandable disquiet: his extravagant proffers of lands, revenues, and dignities within the Crown of Aragon as well as in Castile, not only offended their patriotic sentiments, but seemed to betray indifference to the plight of a country sucked dry of its wealth and menaced with imminent invasion. From the treasury’s well-nigh empty coffers he scraped, in May 1469, what little he could find in order that the archbishop of Toledo might spread it

5

Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 242–9. Idem, Juan II, 323–7.

6

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xviii.

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judiciously among waverers and the well-disposed.7 In their minds lurked, too, the old fear that royal authority buttressed by the resources of Castile threatened them with impotence. In the last resort Juan would probably have sacrificed Catalonia to his greater ambition, yet he was of a mettle that would yield not a foot while he had the strength to resist. So, in the spring of 1469, in concert with Fernando, he made what provision he could to meet the expected French onslaught. King Louis of France had been watching events in the Spanish kingdoms with mounting concern; his cavalier treatment of Enrique had brought about a dangerous combination of Castile and England (Treaty of Westminster, September 1467); the betrothal of Fernando and Isabel now threatened to destroy his Catalan ambitions and unite Castile and Aragon against France. Belatedly recognizing his error in not having given René of Anjou and his son the aid that might have brought the Catalan war to a swift conclusion, he now mustered all his strained resources to dispatch the count of Dunois with 400 lances and 5,000 archers into the Empordà. On 18 April 1469 Fernando, who had spent the winter presiding over a Catalan parliament in Cervera, learnt that the French had taken up positions around Girona. For months the city had been complaining of a shortage of provisions which grew more desperate as the French tightened their blockade. In response Fernando sent mule-trains, escorted by 150 lances under command of the count of Prades, to provision Olot, Castellfollit, Besalú, and such fortresses as were still accessible in the neighbourhood of Girona. Having accomplished that mission, the count had orders to attempt to relieve the city through the most convenient gap in the French lines. As with most armies of this age, the French had insufficient numbers to draw an unbroken cordon round a besieged place of any size but there is no evidence that the count either attempted or succeeded in breaking through. Meanwhile in Zaragoza, spurred on by his new-found sight, the king was preparing to take the field in person at the head of companies of cavalry furnished by the Cortes of Aragon.8 All this activity came too late. Jean of Calabria, having made peace between Louis XI and the duke of Brittany, returned to Catalonia hard on the heels of 7 A. de Palencia, Crónica de Enrique IV (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1973), 277–8. De Valera, Memorial, ch. 48. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 250. The money was carried to Castile by Alonso de Palencia, a servant of the archbishop and a major chronicler of these times. With him went Juan’s treasurer, Pedro de la Caballeria, who was to try—unsuccessfully as it proved—to win over the powerful Mendoza family. 8 The Infantes Enrique and Alfonso together with the Castellan of Amposta were also summoned to join in this belated attempt to relieve Girona.

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Dunois. Together their strength was such that the royalist commanders would venture no move without the promised reinforcements. On 1 June Girona capitulated, not to the Angevin but to Dunois as lieutenant-general of the king of France. First the jurats handed him the keys of the outer gates, then none other than the Bishop Margarit delivered the keys of the fortress which had so long and triumphantly withstood earlier sieges. Only later in the day, on the cathedral steps, did Jean of Calabria receive the keys and possession of the city from Dunois. Lack of food and the means of defence were the reasons advanced by the Girona authorities for their rapid capitulation. They do not explain the failure of the Margarits, to whom Juan had entrusted the city, to garrison the fortress and put up some resistance from its walls. A biographer of the bishop advances the hypothesis that the surrender had been planned between Joan Margarit and the king at the time of the royal visit in 1468 as a form of strategic withdrawal.9 That interpretation of events hardly accords with our estimate of Juan’s character. More persuasive is the argument that Louis’s display of military might had convinced the Margarits that Catalonia, like Roussillon and Cerdagne, were destined to fall to France, and that they needed to accommodate themselves to the new regime if they were to preserve their fortunes. They would have become still more convinced of the wisdom of bowing before the prevailing wind when, soon after the fall of Girona, Tanguy du Châtel, lieutenant-general of the French king in Perpignan, brought another 500 lances to swell the already formidable invading force. One after another key royalist strongholds in northern Catalonia—Camprodon, Besalú, Olot—fell before them. The duke of Calabria who returned to Barcelona on 17 June in the wake of these triumphs was a very different person from the sad figure who had first appeared there two years earlier. Alongside this military onslaught upon Juan, the French king launched a diplomatic offensive intended to wreck his rival’s Castilian strategy. His agent was the able, imperious cardinal of Albi, Jean Jouffroy, who achieved one goal of the mission, a rupture of the Anglo-Castilian alliance and restoration of the old bond between Castile and France, but failed in the other—to prevent the marriage of Isabel to Fernando. Jouffroy met Enrique and his controller, Beltrán de la Cueva, in Andalucia where they were endeavouring to bring to heel the cities and nobles whose enthusiasm for Isabel’s cause had reached 9 Tate, Joan Margarit i Pau, 51. In evidence Tate cites a letter sent by Juan to the Neapolitan ambassador in Sicily after Girona had been recovered in 1471. In that letter the king asserts that Margarit had remained in the city after its surrender ‘ab voluntat e ordinacio nostra’. Vicens Vives ( Juan II, 331) suggests that the Margarits had been in touch with Angevin agents since early in 1468.

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dangerous levels.10 They undoubtedly knew of the contract signed with Fernando and readily accepted the cardinal’s proposition that Isabel should be betrothed instead to Louis’s brother and heir, the duke of Guyenne; so might she be removed from Castile and, with luck, from its throne. To pursue his mission further, Jouffroy had first to find and then persuade the intended bride. As a precaution, before leaving Ocaña in May 1469, Enrique and Beltrán had extracted from her an oath to do ‘nothing new’ with respect to her marriage during their absence. Oaths, they should have reflected from their own experience, were of little force in great matters of state, and they weighed little with Isabel whose first concern, after fixing her choice upon Fernando, was to escape from Ocaña. That she contrived in August 1469 under the pretext of carrying the body of her brother Alfonso from Arévalo for burial in Ávila. Denied entrance to Arévalo by partisans of Enrique, she took refuge with her mother in Madrigal, her birthplace, and it was there that the cardinal caught up with her. The advantages of the French marriage he painted for her in the rosiest of hues, Fernando’s character and prospects in much darker tint.11 In brief reply Isabel stressed only her duty to do whatever the laws of her country and the honour of its crown might require. Frustrated the cardinal retired to France. A few days later intercepted letters gave warning that Enrique intended to have her detained, a threat soon followed by news that the archbishop of Seville was coming with a large body of soldiers to ensure her arrest. The only hope of escape lay in an appeal to her champions, the archbishop of Toledo and the admiral of Castile. Outpacing his rival cleric, Toledo snatched Isabel away to the comparative safety of Valladolid which she reached on 31 August. Urgently she sent messengers to warn Fernando that he must come without delay because the powerful opponents of their marriage would soon devise means to forestall it. Isabel’s emissaries found the king of Sicily in Zaragoza. The early months of the summer he had spent with his army in its base at Cervera trying to organize the relief of Girona. After the city’s capitulation, engagements developed between his forces and the advancing French; worsted in one of these encounters, Fernando again had a narrow escape from the field. That incident convinced Juan of the perils which threatened his son should he continue to cross swords with the French. Nothing could better suit Louis’s designs than to have Fernando taken prisoner or killed; nothing could more effectively bring Juan 10

Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, ch. 128. Seville had proclaimed her queen of Castile. He doubtless knew that the first two of Fernando’s illegitimate offspring had been born in the spring of 1469. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 207–8. 11

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to despair and wreck everything upon which he had set his heart. At a meeting between father and son held in Cervera it was accordingly agreed that Fernando should retire as far as possible from harm’s way, to Valencia. Taking ship down the River Ebro, he reached the southern capital on 16 July, and remained there until 11 September. The pretext put about for this sudden withdrawal from the scene of war was that he needed to gather the dowry promised to Isabel and redeem a fabulous ruby necklace, rumoured to be worth 40,000 florins, bequeathed him by his mother. Heavy borrowing secured some cash (8,000 florins) and the necklace. Palencia then carried them in haste to the archbishop of Toledo who in turn put them into Isabel’s hands when he rescued her from Madrigal. The king of Sicily’s absence from Catalonia probably made little difference to the military situation there. On the insurgent side the duke of Calabria was faring somewhat better than his predecessors in his dealings with the powers of Barcelona. Whereas earlier difficulties had arisen mainly from contentions over alleged Catalan failures to furnish the resources for war, the local contribution to the military effort had now become relatively insignificant and the ability of the insurgent leaders to exercise their cherished control over affairs correspondingly diminished. With a weakened grip on the levers of power went a growing anxiety as they saw their titular monarch, René, absorbed with his French domains and French politics, his son increasingly the tool of the French king. Dunois’s behaviour on the surrender of Girona gave ominous warning that the whole of Catalonia might go the way of Roussillon and Cerdagne into the maw of the French state. Such apprehensions swelled the ranks of dissidents, prompting further purges and flight.12 The core of hard-liners signalled their resolve to fight on by decreeing another levy of militia; a scant response only served to emphasize the fact that military power, and hence the fate of Catalonia, lay now wholly in French hands. Through the summer of 1469 it seemed that French arms must prevail as the tide of war moved relentlessly against Juan. Only at sea was he able to take the initiative by harrying the coasts of Catalonia and Provence with a fleet of twenty-one galleys and six ships. On land the French seized place after place in the Empordà and around Vic; in the Pyrenees work was afoot to prepare roads for the passage of more heavy artillery. Jean launched his own successful offensive against those royalist positions which had menaced Barcelona. The 12

Among those who fled was Joan Boscà, a citizen who had played a prominent part in the early days of the rising.

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autumn promised to be still more perilous for the king because pay for his Aragonese contingents ran out on 6 October and that of those hired by the Catalan parliament on 15 November. Only by the uncertain expedients of selling towns, soliciting loans, and extorting money from those without legal protection could he hope to find the means of keeping an army on foot. In the midst of these anxieties came news of Isabel’s flight to Valladolid, news which brought Fernando post-haste from Valencia to Zaragoza. There he learnt from Toledo’s emissaries, the ever-diligent Palencia and Guttiere de Cardenas, that efforts to secure him a safe passage to his bride through Mendoza territory had come to naught. Any attempt to pass unescorted exposed him to certain danger among lords whose loyalty was to Enrique; delay put Isabel and the whole enterprise at risk. Everything hung upon the decision of Juan who was far away at Guissona wrestling with the worsening military position in Catalonia. From that quarter came two suggestions: one impractical, given the urgency of the matter, that Fernando should make further efforts to win over the count of Medinaceli and others of the Mendoza clan; one more realistic, that he devise with his inner council a plan to get to Valladolid quickly and without alerting his enemies. They duly elaborated a scheme whereby he would venture into Castile in disguise and with only a handful of companions; to cover his tracks it would be given out that he had to leave for Calatayud in order to suppress a feud that had erupted there. Although the enterprise appears to have fired Fernando’s imagination,13 it aroused in his father profound misgivings, heightened by reports of cavalry movements on the Castilian frontier. Only after a conference with Palencia and de Cardenas in Lleida was Juan finally convinced that the risks must be accepted. With much misgiving he wrote the letter that dispatched his son on a fateful journey.14 With his four companions in the guise of merchants, and himself dressed as a carter, Fernando set out for Valladolid at the beginning of October. Once over the frontier, they took a direct route, the road from Gomara to Burgo de Osma. Nightfall on the first day brought them to a village inn where they halted for rest and a meal, with Fernando playing his role by serving at table. Another two days and nights of travelling at the modest pace suited to their merchant 13 Palencia, who was present in Zaragoza, thought that the archbishop of Zaragoza, Fernando’s half-brother, and the most senior in his council, displayed overmuch enthusiasm for the scheme in the expectation that any mishap might eventually put the crown of Aragon on his own head. Palencia, Crónica, 292. De Valera, Memorial, ch. 50. 14 M. P. Sánchez-Parra (ed.), Crónica anónima de Enrique IV de Castilla 1454–1474, 2 vols. (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 1991), ii, ch. 14. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 258–60.

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character saw them reach Burgo at dusk on 6 October. There reassuring news awaited them; quartered nearby lay the count of Treviño with 200 horse sent by the archbishop of Toledo. But, still apprehensive of betrayal, the party maintained its disguise and tireless pace for another night and day until it gained shelter in the castle of Gumiel and a festive welcome from the countess of Castro. All concealment could now be dropped as on 9 October, escorted by Treviño, Fernando made his way to Dueñas, a fortress belonging to the archbishop’s brother and situated a few miles from Valladolid, to await what Isabel might advise.15 Galloping full tilt from Burgo, Cardenas and Palencia had gone ahead to reassure the princess that her fiancé had come safely through the most dangerous stage of his journey. News that he had reached Dueñas dispelled all her fears. On 12 October she wrote to her brother Enrique announcing Fernando’s arrival and her fixed resolve to marry him; the king, she insisted, need have no fears for the peace of his realm. The same message went out to all the prelates, nobles, and cities of Castile. Letters of similar tenor under Fernando’s signature were dispatched from Dueñas. There remained some questions over the protocol that was to govern relations between the spouses, questions that threatened to get out of hand. To settle them the archbishop of Toledo arranged a secret meeting between the two on the night of 14 October, a meeting witnessed only by himself and Fernando’s four companions. All agreed that the marriage be celebrated without delay because even within Valladolid there were many great men opposed to it. Accordingly, on 18 October the archbishop conducted the betrothal ceremony during which he read a papal bull granting dispensation for marriage between cousins. The bull, allegedly issued by Pius II, was forged for the occasion; Juan had been pressing Rome for the requisite document, thus far in vain, and neither he nor his Castilian allies were prepared to see the whole enterprise founder on such a technicality. On the following day, 19 October 1469, the marriage was celebrated and consummated.16 Four days later Guillen Sánchez, one of Fernando’s four companions, brought the news to Juan, waiting in Zaragoza. Relief and rejoicing at the successful outcome of so many years’ scheming mingled with cold reality: the king of Aragon could harbour no illusion that this coup had put an end to his problems in Castile or, much less, in Catalonia. He had, in fact, compounded his difficulties in both directions, as other letters carried by Guillen Sánchez made 15

Palencia, Crónica, 292–4, and the Crónica anónima (ch. 14) give accounts of this journey. Palencia, Crónica, 296, and Crónica anónima, ch. 16. The text of Isabel’s letter to her brother is given by Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, ch. 136. 16

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painfully evident. A council presided over by the archbishop on the eve of Sánchez’s departure had resolved that Fernando must for one year maintain a force of 1,000 cavalry to protect himself and Isabel. The cost, 40,000 florins, would have to be met by Juan because the son had arrived penniless, and Isabel had no money of her own; in addition, Juan was reminded, 100,000 florins of the dowry remained undelivered, and Isabel wanted possession of the estates in Sicily, Aragon, and Valencia traditionally assigned to a queen of Aragon.17 Any hope that these impossible burdens might be offset by massive Castilian intervention against the Catalan rebels was quickly dispelled by the prospect of renewed civil war in the neighbouring kingdom. Enrique was huffily rejecting every olive branch held out by the newly-weds; an enraged Juan Pacheco, marquis of Villena, had begun to plan how Enrique’s disputed daughter, Juana, might be re-established as a formidable rival to Isabel for the Castilian throne. To that end he immediately set in train negotiations to marry the 8-year-old Juana to that same duke of Guyenne whom Isabel had so brusquely rejected. A resort to arms looked inevitable. Fernando and too many of Aragon’s scant resources would be tied down in Castile. Insurmountable though his difficulties may have seemed in the autumn of 1469, Juan had some grounds for optimism. He was well-versed in the art of manipulating the timing and manner of discharging the extravagant dowry settlements commonly negotiated among European royalty. No one would have expected punctual, or even eventual, delivery of everything promised in Castile. On the home front, despite losing the Empordà, he still controlled the greater part of Catalonia whose representatives he was able to summon to a general Cortes of all his realms in the Aragonese town of Monzón. Like the earlier gathering in Cervera, such an assembly visibly rebutted the claims of the Barcelona-based organs to speak for all Catalans. This was a theme which Juan took up in a long and eloquent address to the opening session of the Cortes on 13 November. After a detailed rehearsal of events in Catalonia, he praised in turn the loyalty of his kingdoms, coming lastly to the Catalans. And what, O Catalans! should I say of you? Only that the perversity and faithlessness of the rebels has not matched the loyalty and sincerity of those who, like yourselves, have remained faithful to us. Not only have you spilled your blood and many a time risked your lives for the safety of our state, but also, prising honour above everything, you have sacrificed your wealth, abandoned your patrimony, left your parents, your 17

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxvi. Among the other points in the letters delivered by Sánchez was a request that Juan use every means to obtain the genuine papal bull needed to validate the marriage.

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wives, your children. You have given us all the aid your means permit and we can confidently assert that there never has been, nor ever will be, any lord better served by his vassals. With you we have gained Lleida, taken Cervera, reconquered Tortosa, and finally recovered a great part of the principality. In you we have found fidelity as vassals, help as friends, obedience as sons.

He went on to warn that rebel designs threatened them all with subjugation to France. Their arrogance has reached such a point that, not content with being dragged into an iniquitous rebellion against us, they seek to impose masters on such notable kingdoms, on such eminent persons as yourselves whose very servants are often more worthy than they. Now, far from abandoning their plots, they are ceaselessly working to the end that you, conquerors of so many nations, should be vanquished and subjected by the French, your enemies of old, whose harsh and proud overlordship has never been tolerated by any people. They [sc. the French], certainly, remember the victories you have won; they remember the blood spilt in the time of our forebears. To avenge it they are already in arms, not only in our territory [sc. Catalonia], but very close to you.

Finally he appealed for the aid needed to avert these perils and put an end to rebellion. As for finding soldiers, there is no need to search, for assuredly, of all the nations on earth, you are the most gifted in bearing arms. Likewise, we are amply supplied with provisions. What we principally lack is money. It is a question of furnishing it in order to hire troops and make a great effort, by sea as well as by land, to achieve the final rout of our enemies and the submission of those misguided vassals who have dared deny the house of Aragon. The task is easy if we march ahead in unity; otherwise it is well-nigh impossible.18

The fruit of his eloquence was a substantial aid, including a Catalan offer of 300 horse for four years and a general levy of one man for every ten families,19 but it matured only in May 1470 after several months of debate. This gathering also saw a cautious step taken towards constitutional normality in Catalonia when Saportella’s one-man Generalitat was replaced by the traditional three diputats chosen by lot; they took up residence in Lleida, another mark of royal confidence that the loyalty of once hostile cities could now be trusted.20 18 The full text of the speech, delivered in Castilian is in ACA, Cortes, 45, fo. 170 et seq. A French version in Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 304–13. 19 Cortiella i Ódena, Una ciutat catalana, 373. Measures to raise the levy were set in train in July 1470. 20 However, as a precaution, Saportella selected all the names entered in the ballot.

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An exceptionally severe winter, combined with empty war chests, had by this time driven both sides to disband their armies. The very scale of the numerical superiority enjoyed by the French put correspondingly greater strains on their paymasters and provisioners. It nonetheless seemed inevitable that Louis XI would renew his support for Anjou in the coming year so, as well as soliciting financial aid from his subjects, Juan took measures to strengthen his frontier with France. The Pyrenean county of Ribagorça, hitherto in the possession of Fernando, he transferred in November to another, and in military skills, the most able of his sons, Alfonso, master of Calatrava, who would be able to attend in person to its defence. Developments on the international scene, always prominent in Juan’s calculations, also cast some light into the domestic gloom. In August an embassy to Naples had secured from Ferrante the promise of two ships and 500 men. In October a treaty with Genoa put an end to that republic’s naval support for the Catalans. In November the bishop of Sessa departed on a mission to all the major states of Italy which, among other benefits, was eventually to cajole from Rome that vital bull of dispensation. Juan’s anxieties over French intentions were shared, if from an opposite viewpoint, by his Angevin antagonist. Would Louis XI continue to furnish and fund the troops for another campaign in Catalonia? The omens were not reassuring. Tanguy du Châtel’s force had spent only a little time campaigning before it was withdrawn to counter a rebellion by the count of Armagnac, a rebellion to which the king of Aragon had readily lent a hand. Their period of engagement having expired, Dunois’s men, too, had retired across the Pyrenees in the late autumn, leaving Jean of Calabria with little more than a rag-tail force of native militia. On 12 January 1470 he in turn crossed the Pyrenees to probe Louis’s intentions and seek help from his father in Provence, transferring his powers to his cousin Jean de Lorraine, but leaving the conduct of affairs effectively in the hands of the ever more eccentric Consell and Diputació. Eight months were to pass before he returned empty-handed. Why, at this crucial moment, did Louis XI abandon his design to drive Juan from Catalonia? It had become a question of priorities. A rift between Warwick ‘the kingmaker’ and Edward IV of England presented Louis with an opportunity to restore the Lancastrians to the English throne (with them René’s daughter, Queen Margaret), and so break the menacing coalition between England and Burgundy. That prospect proved irresistible, and the resources which might have conquered Catalonia poured instead into an expedition against England. Where Louis did persevere in his contest with Juan was in his resolve to prevent the marriage of Fernando and Isabel taking Castile irrevocably into a camp hostile to France. Seizing on the proposal to marry his brother, the duke

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of Guyenne, to the rehabilitated infanta Juana, he sent the cardinal of Albi back to Castile with orders to conclude the match. A ceremony of betrothal accordingly took place on 26 October 1470, accompanied by a declaration in which Enrique revoked his recognition of Isabel as heir to the throne, putting in her place his daughter Juana. Given the infanta’s age—8 years—this was a longterm strategy which swiftly came to grief on the twin rocks of Guyenne’s preference for an alliance with the duke of Burgundy’s daughter followed soon by his death in May 1472.21 Juan might have been expected to have turned this abrupt change of fortune to account by throwing all he could muster against a crippled foe. Instead he found himself drawn yet again into the black hole at the heart of all his schemes—Navarre. Continued feuding between the factions there had so exasperated him that in December 1469 he took the drastic step of replacing Gaston de Foix and his wife as locumtenentes in that kingdom with their eldest son, also named Gaston. The action seems stamped with that rash ill-judgement which characterized most of his actions touching Navarre. Rather than submit to such a rebuff, the count of Foix, supported by the Beaumont faction, renewed his attempts to gain control of the kingdom, forcing Juan to employ the 400 cavalry raised by the kingdom of Aragon that autumn in combating the count rather than pursuing the unexpected advantage in Catalonia. The war-like archbishop of Zaragoza had likewise to be transferred from Catalonia in order to take command of the threatened Navarrese city of Tudela until Juan arrived in person with a force sufficient to compel Gaston to raise his siege. He left behind only small numbers of men widely dispersed in garrisons between Olot, Peralta, and Vilafranca. This determined response surprised Gaston who had calculated that Juan would of necessity have to keep most of his strength in Catalonia. Disabused he withdrew from Navarre. Both parties were shortly afterwards disentangled from the issue of high authority in that kingdom by the death in bizarre circumstances of the younger Gaston in November 1470; he was killed in a tournament staged by Louis XI to celebrate the betrothal of his brother, the duke of Guyenne, to Juana of Castile.22 By May 1471 differences had been patched up and the status quo restored; Gaston and Leonor were once again heirs and locumtenentes in the kingdom.23 21

Enríquez del Castillo, Crónica, ch. 147. Louis made himself guardian of the deceased prince’s two children, and thereby ensured subsequent French influence over Navarre, another trophy plucked from his Spanish rival. 23 Zurita, Anales, xviii, p. xxxii. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 341–2. The immediate cause of the new outbreak of violence in Navarre had been the murder of the archbishop of Pamplona by Pierres de Peralta’s henchmen. 22

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Preoccupation with the affairs of Navarre and Castile necessarily distracted Juan from Catalonia to the extent that, at the outset of 1470, he delegated his authority in that theatre to his illegitimate son Alfonso, the master of Calatrava. With few resources to hand, Alfonso in his capacity as lieutenantgeneral achieved nothing more than the taking of the small town of Sarral in April. The only other royalist success sprang from the enterprise of Verntallat who seized the castle of Castella in May, and followed this up with two attacks upon Girona. Jean of Calabria meanwhile was labouring with his father to extract from the estates of Provence an aid of 70,000 florins. Monies raised in this fashion always took long to negotiate and long to gather, so Jean returned to Barcelona in August still awaiting the men and instruments of war they were expected to furnish. Nor could the empty coffers of the Generalitat make good the deficiency. He was consequently in no better shape than Juan to undertake significant operations, yet worse placed to endure a stalemate. After so many years of war and reverses, rebel spirits stood in desperate need of assurance that the tide might turn, and turn without delivering them into the clutches of France. Failing that, ever larger numbers saw submission to Juan as their only salvation. Symptomatic of this mood was the defection in September 1470 of Cadaqués, a port in the heart of territory hitherto devoted to the cause, soon after Jean had returned seemingly empty-handed. Joan de Vilamarí had appeared off the port with four galleys, bribed the captain, and hoisted the royal standard. As a result the Empordà found itself threatened on the one side by remensa forays from the mountains, on the other by attack from this royalist bridgehead on the coast. To make matters worse, Jean’s health had deteriorated to a degree where he could no longer take the field. Operations to recover Cadaqués, whose loss the diputats lamented as ‘a finger in the eye’,24 had to be delegated to the count of Campobasso and Jacobo Galioto, Neapolitan exiles in Angevin service, supervised by a committee of counsellors. The bishop of Girona went with them as the duke’s representative. The siege of Cadaqués, begun in October, was still in progress when another thunderbolt struck the Catalan camp: the duke of Calabria died of a stroke in Barcelona on 16 December 1470. Stunned disbelief fell upon the rebel ranks. Unlike Pedro, he had seldom crossed swords with the Catalan leaders, behaving, in Calmette’s words ‘more like a champion than a chief ’.25 His military 24 ‘el dedo en el ojo’. Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxxiii. Their concern arose from the fact that the port gave the enemy a base from which to threaten Barcelona’s sea communications, and hence the vital supply of grain. 25 Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 172.

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reputation survived untarnished, and his affable manner had won him popularity. If, as Zurita asserts ‘his death aroused very little reaction, no more than would have greeted the death of any respected gentleman’,26 this might be put down to a concern, on the part of the authorities, for public morale. His exequies did, in fact, follow the protocol appropriate to the heir apparent, and were marked, according to the notary Çafont, by open shows of grief during the ceremony in the cathedral: ‘the sorrow and grief were such that all present burst into tears, and in the great nave was heard nothing but sobs and cries’.27 What hope remained for the Catalan cause after this third hammer-blow of fate? Their phantom monarch René wrote assuring Barcelona that he would not abandon them;28 Louis XI sent messengers with promises in the same vein;29 neither delivered the men and money so desperately needed. Even the quest for a new leader fell foul of unforeseen calamities. On the morrow of the duke’s death a summons was dispatched from Barcelona to his son Nicolas, marquis of Pont-à-Mousson, calling him to come with all speed to assume the roles of primogenitus and René’s lieutenant. But the letter found him savouring more promising pastures in Lorraine, and wholly averse to any venture into the miseries of Catalonia. René, then, had no choice but to entrust command to the deceased’s bastard son, also named Jean and now decorated with the same title, duke of Calabria. His letter of appointment was dated 5 April 1471. It caused much division of opinion and heart-searching among the diputats who only accepted it after he had agreed not to exercise many of the sovereign powers nominally attributed to a locumtenens without the express approval of the city. Only when those doubts had been laid to rest was he able to make his formal entry into Barcelona on 20 June accompanied by the usual brave show of pageantry, an occasion marred by murmurs in the crowd that such ceremony ill-befitted such a personage. Doubt also hovered over the title of ‘primogenitus’ which the authorities found it expedient to bestow upon him. Effective control of what men still remained under arms had in the interim been dispersed among an assortment of captains, many of them foreigners: Dionis de Portugal i de Eça, a shady Portuguese cousin of Pedro who had briefly taken

26 ‘. . . hizose muy poca demonstración de su muerte, y no fue mas que si hubiera muerto algún caballero estimado . . .’ Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxxiii. 27 ‘Alors la douleur et l’angoisse furent telles que tous les assistants fondirent en larmes, et dans l’immense nef on n’entendit plus que gémissements et sanglots.’ Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 173. One may suspect that the lamentation was more ritual than heartfelt. 28 His letter was dispatched from Angers on 3 Jan. 1471 and read in Barcelona on 4 Feb. 29 Letter delivered in Barcelona by a French ambassador on 20 Feb.

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service with Juan,30 and a group of Neapolitan exiles (Cola Gambatesa Monforte, count of Campobasso, Giacomo Galeota, Gaspar Cossa, Joan Torrelles, count of Ischia), lately arrived with the reinforcements Jean had sought from Provence. Only one Catalan military figure of note remained to give a national character to warfare which saw Catalonia a prey to these foreign mercenaries: he was the irreducible Hug Roger, count of Pallars. Taken prisoner in 1465, he had remained in captivity for five years until family pressure (all his close relatives were staunch royalists) persuaded him to gain his freedom with a promise to work secretly for the royalist cause. Instead, on being released in December 1470, he made immediately for Barcelona, arrived a few days before Jean’s death, and offered his sword to the rebels.31 Hug Roger’s reappearance breathed another two years of agonized life into a conflict which was on the point of dying from exhaustion. Campobasso and Galeota did indeed pursue the siege of Cadaqués to a successful conclusion at the end of December, while Dionis took himself into winter quarters in the Urgell region, but the French and Angevins under their command would soon be straggling back across the Pyrenees as their service expired. Some captains took the same route, among them Gaspar Cossa whose condotta of a hundred horse had disbanded unpaid. On 10 March 1471 René wrote to the Catalan diputats begging them to find money for Cossa’s past and future services.32 His own efforts in that direction became ever more despairing: by June he was trying to borrow from the duke of Milan on the security of towns in Catalonia and Aragon! Juan observed all this with remarkable sang-froid. Evident disarray in the Angevin camp and reports from spies scattered around rebel territory convinced him that his enemies were on their last legs: he had only to wait a little before dealing them a decisive blow. So he continued imperturbably to settle the affairs of Navarre. Once again talks with his daughter Leonor resulted in an agreement (Olit, 30 May 1471) that left him with the crown for life, Leonor with the succession, and royal authority in the king’s absence deputed to Leonor and her husband, Gaston de Foix. Some effort was also made to settle the endemic faction strife that lay at the heart of Navarre’s troubles; the omens were not promising, but enough had been done to neutralize the count of 30 From the Generalitat Dionis had received the title duke of Montblanc (traditionally bestowed on the heir to the Aragonese throne), and from Juan the lordships of Cambrils and Sarral. 31 Immediately on his arrival in Barcelona, Pallars demanded compensation for his ransom money and other expenses incurred during his captivity. Peláez, La actuación politico-militar de Hugo Roger III. 32 Lecoy de la Marche, Le Roi René, ii. 345.

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Foix.33 Another cause for Juan’s confidence arose from progress made with a network of alliances designed to gain him support among the many other powers fearful of France. Yorkist England had already been secured, an ally of inestimable value in 1471 when Louis’s ill-judged attempt to restore Henry VI to the English throne brought upon France the implacable enmity of Edward IV. Another ally, Burgundy, openly aided the Yorkists and was keeping France under constant threat of war. In Italy Juan’s diplomacy, vigorously seconded by his nephew, King Ferrante of Naples, had won over all the major states. The crowning piece of the edifice was to be put in place with the treaty of Abbeville (7 August 1471) which established a formal alliance between Aragon and Burgundy. On its fringe hovered the formidable presence of Castile in the person of Isabel, casting defiance at Louis, the champion of her rival Juana.34 Castile was, in truth, at this juncture the weakest element in Juan’s diplomatic armoury. Far from securing his great neighbour as a trusty ally, Fernando’s marriage had cost him dear, and the young couple’s future looked decidedly uncertain. Heedless of Juan’s warnings, they had quickly fallen out with Archbishop Carrillo, resenting his imperious manner and evident desire to subject them to the tutelage that the great men of Castile thought proper to impose on their princes. Carrillo, however, held all the strings and kept his protégés virtually captive throughout 1470 in his town of Dueñas.35 In December 1470 they exchanged subjection to Carrillo for a similar plight in Medina del Rioseco where they came into the hands of Fernando’s maternal clan, the Enriquez. The king of Castile meanwhile continued to maintain the right of his daughter Juana to the succession, rejected all overtures from Isabel and Fernando, and in 1471 contemplated calling in the duke of Guyenne with a French army to expell them from the kingdom. Juan must have wondered whether his gamble on the Castilian crown would ever bear fruit.36 33 35 36

34 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxxvi. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 338–40. On 2 Oct. 1470, while in Dueñas, Isabel gave birth to her first child, the Infanta Isabel. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 279–93.

17 A Rebellion in Ruins While the king remained preoccupied with Navarre and Castile during the spring and summer of 1471, the edifice of Catalan resistance began to crumble. Even its ardent champions saw that the duke of Calabria’s death had destroyed their last hopes of victory. René could, and would, do no more.1 They could extract nothing more from their own ruined land. The time had come to consider how they might make their peace. Those less ardent, the time-servers, moved with the greater alacrity. Prominent among them was the wily bishop of Girona who had so recently been persuaded to embark on the high tide of Angevin success. In 1470 he had willingly agreed to represent the duke at the siege of Cadaqués; in 1471, by contrast, he repeatedly wriggled out of requests that he should lead a delegation to René and Louis. He remained instead in Girona, awaiting the opportune moment to change his allegiance. With the bishop was his nephew by marriage, Joan Sarriera. A minor noble of the Girona region, Sarriera well represents those who had from the beginning enthusiastically supported the rebellion. Prominent at the siege of Girona’s citadel in 1462, he had ever since fought against royalist forces in the north, so that when the Angevins took Girona in 1469 the bishop had no difficulty in persuading Jean of Calabria to appoint Sarriera captain of the city. That post brought him, like all his fellows in such positions, face to face with a chronic lack of the funds needed to sustain it. Inevitably that awareness drew him into clashes with the Generalitat and its local agents when he used strong-arm tactics to extract money and exchanged angry letters with the central authorities. By the end of 1470 the latter were complaining ‘your letters contain words not befitting a man such as you’.2 Differences sharpened in the following year to the point where the Generalitat baldly rejected his requests for more cavalry to 1 In a letter written from Angers on 24 Mar. 1471, but not delivered in Barcelona by the abbot of Ripoll until 9 May, René held out vague promises of a visit to Catalonia. No more was heard of this project. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 20, fo. 84. 2 ‘en vostres letres ha algunes peraules no convinents a tal home’. Tate, Joan Margarit i Pau, 56.

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protect the harvest and hold off enemy marauders, while the Bastard of Calabria ordered an investigation into reports that ‘some great treachery and evil would be committed by this gentleman Joan Sarriera’.3 By this juncture many other captains in the northern regions, of hitherto impeccable devotion to the Catalan cause, were coming round to Sarriera’s way of thinking. Prominent among them were Bertran d’Armendáriz (the hero of Lleida, Calaf, and Cervera), and Pere Joan Ferrer (nephew of the abbot of Montserrat and from 1467 captain-general of the Empordà). All around them they saw a country sinking into chaos, ruin, and despair. For ten years the Empordà had been the main theatre of war, the corridor through which tramped army upon army, all given to pillage and brutality whatever the cause they served; repeated changes of fortune had set town against town, neighbour against neighbour, creating a tattered patchwork of unchecked violence and vendettas. The diputats had to confess ‘that the inhabitants hardly know to whom they owe allegiance, and thus they attack and rob each other continually’.4 Their remedy, a new war tax on flour, decreed at the beginning of 1471, served only to exacerbate disaffection among these afflicted people. Sarriera capitalized upon their unrest by calling the syndics of the affected towns (Peralada, Castelló, Torroella, Sant Feliu, and Palamos) to a meeting in Girona; it rejected the impost out of hand. Without money the captains knew that the cause was lost. On all sides in the spring of 1471 defection hovered in the air. Pallars voiced his suspicions of Sarriera, accusing him of making overtures to the royalists under pretext of protecting the crops. The diputats, in a letter sent to René in March, warned that ‘on the coast or in some part of the Empordà a plot is afoot’.5 Plotting was indeed afoot, its centre Girona, and the chief conspirators Bishop Margarit and Sarriera. By late June their plans were far enough advanced for Juan to appoint his most seasoned counsellor, Luis Despuig, to settle the details. On 8 August Despuig felt sufficiently confident of his success and safety to visit Girona in person, a visit which led to a formal agreement signed in Zaragoza on 30 August by Sarriera, Armendáriz, and the bishop’s brother, Bernat Margarit. All the defectors, most especially the Margarit family, secured rich pickings in lands, offices, and revenues. It was to serve as a signal to other notable rebels that they had much to gain, and nothing to lose, by making their peace with the king. 3 4

‘per lo dit mossen Johan Çariera seria feta una gran traicio e malvestat’. Ibid. 5 Ibid. Ibid. 56–7.

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But some there were whose loyalty remained unshaken. Foremost among them ranked Hug Roger de Pallars, animated still by personal hatred of the Antequera dynasty rather than by faith in the pactista cause. His reappearance in the Empordà at this stage with a small force raised in his ancestral lands served only to antagonize local commanders; his strident, and well-founded, denunciations of their incipient treachery helped push them along that path. So bitter did the dissension become that it sparked a civil war within the civil war: Pallars in arms against Sarriera and Armendáriz; the Angevin regent championing the former, the Catalan diputats the latter. As a result the rebels’ military capacity in the Empordà lay paralysed throughout the summer and autumn of 1471. Elsewhere their commanders displayed a sorry lack of will and confidence. At Sarral, for example, with 600 ‘good horse’ (bons rocins) and 200 foot they faced an enemy numbering between 300 and 400 horse and 800 foot but were unwilling to risk any engagement unless furnished with at least another 600 infantry.6 Only in the very north of the province did the count of Campobasso and his fellow Angevin captains maintain an effective, if foreign, presence. The springing of the pact made in Zaragoza waited upon an offensive which Juan would launch as soon as he had collected a loan approved by the loyalist Generalitat on 26 August. By October all was ready for a decisive campaign. Abandoning earlier tactics of mopping up territory fortress by fortress, the king’s forces would strike to isolate Barcelona, the heart of rebellion, by land and by sea. Sarriera and Armendáriz had prepared the way by seizing the port of Blanes on 17 September; a few days later Despuig appeared to receive the surrender of Hostalric from its captain, no other than Sarriera. Barcelona’s communications with the north had been severed. Simultaneously Juan with 700 horse moved directly upon the capital; by 10 October he was camped near Martorell. On 11 October the dissidents threw off the mask; from Blanes the bishop of Girona, Sarriera, Armendáriz, Pere Joan Ferrer, Jaume Alemany, Bernat Margarit, and Bernat Senesterra dispatched a long letter to Barcelona justifying their change of allegiance; it came, almost certainly, from the bishop’s pen. A succession of self-seeking foreign monarchs had, they alleged, ruined Catalonia. Since Jean of Calabria died they had received nothing but false promises from René and his agents.7 Only a reconciliation with Juan could 6 Barcelona agreed to find 200 of these infantry, not, apparently, in any confidence that it would lead to a victory, but from fear that the army would otherwise retire to take up quarters near Barcelona, to the great detriment of the city. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 20, fo. 87, 17 May 1471. 7 In a separate letter of justification, Ferrer wrote, ‘car mort ell se es mostrat clarament esser morta la fi de sa empresa’. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 105.

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bring peace to the ravaged land.8 On the same day this letter was written, Despuig arrived in Girona to receive its submission on terms similar to those previously granted to other cities: a general confirmation of privileges and property; revocation of all acts of the Generalitat. To legitimize the surrender, Bishop Margarit summoned his chapter to the episcopal palace, over which he had already hoisted the royal standard. There he asked them to annul the oath of allegiance to the duke of Calabria on the grounds that it had been sworn under duress, and that the Angevins were no longer capable of defending Girona. The chapter, followed by the town authorities, acquiesced.9 From that moment the worm-eaten fabric of rebellion crumbled away. From Martorell Juan went on to take Sabadell on 17 October, Montmeló capitulated on 21st, followed by Sant Cugat del Vallès. Having thus drawn a noose tightly around Barcelona and, in the process, cut its water supply,10 Juan left his son Alfonso and the count of Prades to harry its despairing inhabitants, while he marched north to deal with the Empordà. Towns which had hitherto stoutly defied him offered no more resistance. It took only the threat of an attack, coupled with the offer of good terms, to open the gates of Sant Feliu de Guixols.11 Within the capital’s walls news of the great desertion, received on 13 October, had sown consternation. In the royal palace diputats and the Bastard of Calabria wrestled with the crisis. An embassy should leave post-haste for Provence with a final appeal to René: if he and the primogenitus did not come swiftly to its aid, the principality was lost. Against the ‘infamous betrayal’12 they could do little more than launch a furious invective, followed in November by a formal process of indictment which ended with a sentence of execution in effigy and a reward for the capture of Margarit and his fellows dead or alive. Criers proclaimed that sentence in the streets of Barcelona on 23 November. Effigies of the ‘Empordà seven’, a purse symbolic of Judas’s betrayal around their necks, were then publicly hanged. Who else might be contemplating treachery? Suspicion fell upon two great stalwarts of the revolution, the abbots 8

The text of the letter is in Tate, Joan Margarit i Pau, appendix 3. Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxxvii. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 344–5. 10 The city was consequently forced to rely upon mills worked by animals to grind its cereals, thus exacerbating an already serious bread shortage. Many of these mills, long out of use, were found to be in a rotten condition and in need of expensive repairs. A further crisis ensued when many inhabitants took to grinding corn in their homes, so avoiding the milling tax which was one of the few sources of revenue left to the municipality. 11 29 Oct. 1471. Sant Feliu’s council excused itself to Barcelona with the plea that many stronger places had resisted only to fall with great loss. AHB, Consell de Cent II. Deliberacions 20, fo. 162. 12 ‘infidelitat nephandissima’, in a letter addressed by the city of Barcelona to the cities still loyal to the cause. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 323 n. 7. 9

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of Montserrat and Sant Cugat; detained on 19 November, they were shipped to safe custody in Provence. The beleaguered city next summoned all its strength in a bid to break the royalist stranglehold. The action began on 25 November with a feint: sixty horsemen led by a French captain, Gracian de Guerri, made a sortie towards the enemy headquarters in Sant Cugat. When confronted by Alfonso of Aragon at the head of 300 cavalry supported by companies of foot, they fell back to the Torre de Fabregues, a fortification on the River Besos near Sant Adrian and close to the city walls. All the men Barcelona could muster—120 horse and 4,000 infantry—then surged from the Port Nou to begin a general action. In the opposing ranks appeared fresh contingents commanded by several of Juan’s most distinguished captains: Joan de Cardona, constable of Aragon, Bernat Hug de Rocabertí, castellan of Amposta, Gil de Heredia, and Martin de Lanuza. In a hand-to-hand struggle Alfonso drove his opponents back towards the river at Santa Coloma de Gramenet, until finally they broke and fled across the Besos in the direction of Badalona. The victors claimed to have killed 700 in the battle; more decisive still, they took some 3,000 prisoners, among them the principal foreign captains, Jacobo Galioto, Dionis de Portugal, and de Guerri. At a stroke the heart had been torn out of Barcelona’s resistance. Two days later Granollers capitulated.13 Had the royalist commanders wished, they might have stormed the rebel city or even marched in unresisted. But it was Juan’s intention that the conflict should end not in violence but with an overture for peace as more and more in the opposing camp became persuaded of the futility of prolonging their agony; the time was near when Barcelona would open its gates of its own free will.14 Accordingly, he summoned Alfonso with most of his men to join in the campaign against the Empordà, the only substantial part of the principality still outside his obedience; a small force on land and sea now sufficed to isolate Barcelona. To the north town after town had already scrambled to submit in the wake of Girona’s defection: early in November Calonge, Palamós, Palafrugell, Pals, Verges, Bellcaire, La Tallada, and La Bisbal all followed Sant Feliu’s example. Reinforced but slowed by bitter weather and stiffening 13

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxxvii. On 6 Nov. 1471 the city council had acknowledged that ‘almost all the peasants living in outlying parishes’ supported the royalists (‘tenen a lur favour quasi tots los pagesos habitants en les parroques foranes’). AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 20, fo. 167. Earlier, in instructions given to the embassy sent to René, they had described Juan’s policy towards this population as one of reconciliation through ‘bones paraules e fames’. Ibid., fo. 154. Within the city, those assigned to night patrol on the walls were refusing duty on the grounds that it was too cold. 14

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resistance, Juan pressed northwards to take Vilabertran on 7 January 1472 and, five days later, Figueres. These conquests gave him command of the roads along which must pass any aid sent from Roussillon to save Barcelona.15 Coinciding with the king’s offensive came a push through the central mountains organized by Verntallat; on 14 December the remensa captain celebrated his entry into Olot. Expectation that the remaining northern slice of the province might submit with little ado was confounded by a still considerable French presence. Calls on the larger, still defiant, towns—Perelada, Castelló, Torroella, and Besalú— to parley having met with no response, Juan accordingly turned his arms against them. They made encouraging progress. During February the castellan of Amposta stormed Espolla, a strategic point on the trans-Pyrenean route, while his companion in arms, the count of Prades, scored a significant victory near Torroella over the main body of French led by the count of Campobasso and Bofilo del Giudice. Sensing that the way now lay open to take control of the coastal plain, Juan threw himself upon Torroella which surrendered after a stiff resistance. He went on to consolidate his grip upon the Gulf of Roses by seizing Roses itself on its northern point (28 March). His next objective was Peralada, a strongly fortified little town uncomfortably close to Figueres, and seat of Jofre, viscount of Rocabertí, who had been in captivity since being taken prisoner at Calaf in 1465. At the beginning of April the royal army settled confidently around its walls. They suffered a rude awakening when, before dawn on 4 April, Campobasso with all his remaining strength (400 horse and 600 infantry) fell on the sleeping camp. Juan escaped by horse to Figueres wearing nothing more than a sheepskin doublet thrown over his nightshirt and leaving behind all his baggage; the rest of his army fared little better. Campobasso trumpeted a famous victory:16 among the booty he counted over 300 horses and more than 100 suits of armour. On the royalist side, to explain so dramatic a reversal, a story began to circulate that during the siege of Torroella a renowned captain, killed in the wars, had appeared to the king in a dream and admonished him not to risk any further operations because fate was against him. Juan had rashly ignored this ghostly warning.17 In the event it proved a hollow victory because, instead of being able to press home his advantage, Campobasso was obliged to send the bulk of his men to counter a rising 15 According to Calmette (La Question des Pyrénées, 180), Juan held a parliament in Figueres between 22 Jan. and 2 Feb. 1472. No record survives of such a gathering, so it was probably a hastily convoked assembly of regional representatives. 16 ‘Los havem romputs e fets fugir a qui més no podia’, he wrote to the Generalitat. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 173. 17 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xxxviii.

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against French rule in Roussillon. With the few that remained he withdrew to his base at Castelló until, on 20 June, the townsfolk rose, threw them out, and returned to their old allegiance. Juan by contrast, determined not to forfeit the initiative, reacted with extraordinary vigour. To quote Zurita, ‘he was so schooled in the perils and uncertainties of war that no setback could cause him to falter or be faint of heart, and he ventured his person as though he were in the full flush of youth’.18 Within a week he had renewed the siege of Perelada which on 19 May made its peace on the most generous of terms, including the freedom of its viscount without any form of ransom. Juan was ever more determined that the Catalans should see every advantage in returning to their allegiance and none whatsoever in maintaining a forlorn resistance. The futility of further struggle was driven home by the failure of Louis XI to deliver any of the aid he had so readily promised. A last flicker of hope had sprung up in March 1472 with a letter in which he assured René that 2,000 cavalry and 1,000 archers were on their way.19 The only fragment of this phantom host ever to appear was a small body of men smuggled into Barcelona by sea in the summer. Threats from Burgundy and England looming over France deterred him from committing an army beyond the Pyrenees, and when in May 1472 René’s grandson, Nicolas of Lorraine, titular primogenitus in Catalonia, made a pact with the duke of Burgundy (15 May 1472), Louis’ Angevin sympathies waned altogether.20 Even more strikingly, he appeared incapable of defending those Catalan territories he had appropriated in the name of France. News of Juan’s victories in the Empordà, combined with a recall of substantial numbers of French troops from Roussillon and Cerdagne, brought hostility to foreign occupation into the open in April 1472. An abortive plot in Perpignan was closely followed by successful risings in Elne, Llivia, and the Vallespir; many nobles from the most prominent families (among them the Oms and the Ortafà) raised the Aragonese standard over their castles. Most notable among these defectors was Bernat d’Oms, the man who had enjoyed Louis’ complete confidence, the man to whom he had 18 ‘. . . estaba tan ejercitado en los peligros y sucesos dudosos de la guerra que por nonguna adversidad se conocía desmayo ni flaqueza en su corazón, y de la misma manera aventuraba su persona como si estuviera en el hervor de su mocedad’. Ibid. 19 The text of the letter, dated 12 Mar. 1472, is in Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 180. Possibly it was this message that René’s ambassadors delivered to the Consell de Cent on 7 Apr. 1472. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 21, fo. 39. 20 Nicolas had been betrothed at an early age to Louis’s daughter Anne and had collected advance payments of her dowry; now he was seeking the hand of Duke Charles’s daughter Marie. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 336. Gaussin, Louis XI, 359.

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entrusted effective control of the province in partnership with a series of transitory French governors.21 Juan unhesitatingly seized the occasion; two of his most trusted captains, the castellan of Amposta and the count of Prades, were dispatched to aid the antiFrench forces around Perpignan; Pere de Rocabertí and the newly acquired Bertran de Armendáriz went to support the rising of local nobles in the mountains. By the summer, French authority did not extend beyond their principal fortresses and those areas of the plain where the governor, Antoine de Lau, was able to deploy the forces he had summoned from the Empordà. Even that tenuous hold was threatened when de Lau was ordered to take his troops by sea to shore up the tottering defences of Barcelona. Confident that the north was secure, Juan had already turned to the task of mopping up the remaining, isolated centres of resistance. Prospects of imminent victory were filling his coffers and swelling his ranks with those anxious to demonstrate loyalty or reap rewards.22 His opponents, by contrast, had lost all heart and offered scant resistance; Vic and Manresa, their remaining bastions outside Barcelona, capitulated on 5 and 8 June.23 The abbey of Montserrat had already fallen on 13 May. The moment had arrived to suffocate the last pangs of rebellion in the heart of Catalonia. Even as the king concentrated his forces to clear the northern regions, those left in watch around the capital had tightened their grip upon its suburbs. Having gained control of Pedralbes in April, they transferred their headquarters from San Cugat to its great monastery; and it was there that Juan established himself when in June he arrived to direct the final act in this long drama. Off the port hovered a menacing ring of sixteen ships and twenty galleys commanded by Bernat de Vilamarí.24 Trapped within this encircling fire were the faltering organs of rebel government (Generalitat and Consell), René’s helpless representative ( Jean of Calabria), and a fearful, restless populace. Mistrust of public opinion and a growing reluctance of its elected representatives to associate themselves with the actions of the governing clique had led to ever more infrequent and merely 21

Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 353–6. Conspicuous among these were the vassals of Joan Margarit. 23 That revolutionary stalwart, the Canon Planella, was accused of betraying Manresa and of writing letters urging other places to surrender. On appearing in Barcelona, he was briefly imprisoned by the locumtenens and then released amid loud protests from the counsellors. In Aug. they succeeded in having him dispatched to Provence. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 21, fo. 71, 4 Aug. 1472. 24 Barcelona had been under threat from the sea since the previous autumn when Juna’s conquest of all the ports to the north had allowed him to concentrate his naval power upon the capital, with dire consequences for its food supply. 22

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formal meetings of the full Consell; by 1471 all business had fallen into the hands of the restricted Council of Thirty and the executive counsellors. The ruling circle itself was fracturing, as manifested by a bout of fisticuffs which broke out in the palace on 29 May: ‘The pig is loose in the kitchen’25 ruefully commented that old stalwart of pactisme, Çafont. Such means of defence as could still be mustered lay in the hands of the count of Pallars, nominated grand constable by the Angevin regime in October 1471, and animated still by his inveterate hatred of the Antequeras. Throughout May he had fought stoutly to hold back the besiegers in the Pedralbes sector; on 13 May he even came close to burning their camp. But the fighting thinned his already shrunken ranks which he could replenish only with broken-spirited militiamen and the small body of French newly arrived from Roussillon under de Lau. Barcelona lacked not only fighting men; food too began to disappear from the markets as market gardens in the suburbs were lost and the enemy fleet cut off supplies by sea. A promise that ships hired from Genoa were bringing some relief was contained in a letter written on 4 June by the primogenitus Nicolas who, late in the day, had rejoined his grandfather in Provence. The Genoese duly appeared, and, after one failure to break the blockade, did succeed on 22 July in landing some wheat. It came when the city’s stocks could have lasted barely a month. Not only had it become well-nigh impossible to find vessels capable of running the blockade with adequate supplies,26 merchants too were loath to finance cargoes which might well be lost and for which the city could offer no sure guarantee of reimbursement. By August 1472 compulsion against merchants was being mooted along with measures to fix all food prices, requisition private stocks, and introduce rationing. A week before the Genoese brought temporary relief on the provision front, the royalists had gained control of Montjuich, the hill which towers above Barcelona and its harbour. The city seemed at Juan’s mercy, but his intention was still to refrain from an assault with the bloodshed and destruction it would entail. Given time, he firmly believed, the beleaguered citizens would 25

‘Lo porch anava per la cuyna.’ A Catalan proverb. Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 329. In Nov. 1471 it was proposed that the ships of the merchants Anglès and Setantí be dispatched, heavily armed and manned and in convoy, to load grain. At least two months passed before they sailed and when it returned in Apr. 1472 Setantí’s ship had suffered such a battering, whether from the enemy or the elements is uncertain, that it was judged unseaworthy. Anglès’s ship had presumably been lost for it disappears from the record. It subsequently became necessary to rely on small vessels which could carry little cargo. The Consell de Cent’s register of Deliberacions (no. 21) for 1472 records the city’s increasing desperation to find provisions and exercise control over the scant stocks available. 26

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voluntarily come to terms, and the foundation be laid for reconciliation between sovereign and subjects. Some of those citizens were already undoubtedly in clandestine contact, assuring him that they would soon find means to deliver Barcelona into his hands. So confident of that outcome was he, that he convoked a parliament to meet there in July. However, the arrival of the Genoese having eased the food crisis which might have served as a pretext for immediate surrender, the gathering had to be transferred to the monastery of Pedralbes where it assembled on 16 August. In his opening address Juan called on his subjects for a supreme effort to win a final victory. What he required, and obtained, was the services of 500 horse for two years in order to regain Barcelona and ‘other territories of the principality which are outside our obedience’.27 Since he expected Barcelona to capitulate at any moment and had no intention of storming it, the objective he had in mind can only have been French-held Roussillon and Cerdagne. Beyond the close of conflict in Catalonia began to loom the shadow of war with France. To the weight of land and sea encirclement upon Barcelona was now added fresh psychological pressure. It came in the form of papal and Burgundian delegations seeking to reconcile king and rebels.28 The papal party, led by Cardinal Rodrigo Borja, arrived in Valencia in June 1472 charged with the herculean task of uniting Spain against the Turks. Borja was also the bearer of a papal letter authorizing the archbishop of Toledo to legitimize the marriage of Fernando and Isabel, thus bringing to an end the saga of the false bull and three years of technical incest.29 Fernando, after a brief consultation with his father in the camp at Pedralbes, went in mid-August to meet the cardinal at Tarragona. Together they urged Juan to abandon Barcelona for a few days so that he might discuss with them and a newly arrived party of ambassadors from Burgundy the great matters that concerned them all, but he was unwilling to take his eyes off his prey and instead invited Borja and the ambassadors to join him at Pedralbes. Escorted by the archbishop of Tarragona, the cardinal accordingly went to Barcelona where he was lodged in Bellesguart, a summer palace of the kings of Aragon. His business with Juan took only a few days; his 27

Text of the speech in Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, appendix 31. The pro-Angevin Pope Paul II had been succeeded in August 1471 by Sixtus IV who, probably influenced by Cardinal Rodrigo Borja, gave his backing to the Antequera cause in Aragon and Castile. 29 Rodrigo Borja came surrounded by astounding pomp into these war-weary lands. ‘I neither wish to speak nor write of the dinner, the array of dishes and the festivity so as not to shame St Peter’, wrote Miralles, an eye-witness of the banquet given by the cardinal for the dignitaries of Valencia. Dietari, 344. Palencia is still more scathing in his lengthy denunciation of Borja’s pomp and venality. Crónica, ii. 79–80. 28

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attempt to deal with the embattled city led to a sorry fiasco. On 26 August the bishop of Assisi presented himself, in the legate’s name, before the gate of St Antoni asking in vain to be admitted. Renewing his efforts a few days later, he was seized and carried in a prisoner. It took the forceful intervention of the duke of Calabria to set him free. Borja tarried no longer; on 4 September he departed, leaving Juan to deal with these hardened souls. In his wake came the two Burgundian envoys.30 Playing on a former close acquaintance with the French captain de Lau, they sent him a letter through their herald. In it they urged the wisdom of forsaking the service of a reviled, discredited king of France for that of Aragon and its firm allies, Burgundy and Brittany, concluding with a veiled warning: ‘He who will not when he can, clearly will not be able when he wishes.’31 To the Angevin regent, Pallars, diputats, consellers, and city officials the herald carried other letters requesting audience for the ambassadors. Twice this was denied, as was a subsequent proposal for a meeting outside the walls.32 An exculpatory letter written to the Burgundians on 15 September by Jean of Calabria questioned their good faith, and insisted that any proposals they wished to make touching Catalonia must be addressed to its lawful sovereign, René of Anjou. This double rejection of outside mediation—papal and Burgundian— might be interpreted as a demonstration of unflinching resolve. In truth it masked an agonizing struggle between a knot of last-ditch diehards and a growing majority seeking an end to their nightmare. On the one side stood Hug Roger, count of Pallars, with a few faithful friends and retainers; alongside them, Jean of Calabria, his small entourage and de Lau’s French company. On the other were ranged most members of the ruling councils and the mass of the population. A bizarre accusation of treachery against Pallars signalled the start of battle between them. On 18 September, having listened to the charges of ‘certain dealings conducted with the enemy’,33 the council voted nem. con. for his imprisonment, an order changed at his own request to one of immediate expulsion from the city. Jean of Calabria, who could well understand what was afoot, employed what little authority he still possessed to aid Hug Roger, taking him into the royal palace, and refusing to cast him out of the city when he stood in danger of being captured, until mounting pressure from the councils 30

The main purpose of their mission was to secure Juan’s ratification of the 1471 treaty. ‘. . . quien no quiere cuando puede, razón era que no pudiese cuando quería’. Zurita, Anales, xviii, p. xli. 32 It appears that the letters were never presented to, or discussed by, the city council. 33 ‘cert tracte manejat ab los inimichs’. AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 21, fo. 86. 31

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forced him to smuggle the count out through the Porta Nova on 24 September. With him went any possibility that Barcelona might still choose to fight on.34 To precipitate the end, on the heels of Pallars’s expulsion, came the spectre of hunger. Hope had lingered that the Genoese might reappear; ships had been hired and their cargoes loaded, but on 6 October news came that Galeazzo Maria, duke of Milan, had ordered them home. After years spent dodging appeals from René and Louis for men, money, and ships, the duke had decided to throw in his lot with their visibly prospering enemies. The blow fell on a city already suffering strict rationing and with barely a week’s stock of grain left in its stores. The ground was thus well prepared for the surrender that came only ten days later.35 Late in the afternoon of 8 October Lluis Setantí, first counsellor, addressed a meeting of the full Council of a Hundred. Without Genoese aid, he declared, Barcelona faced starvation; a few small privateer vessels might run the blockade but could never deliver the amount needed to feed so great a city. Jean of Calabria recognized this and had assured him that Barcelona had amply proved its devotion. He then revealed that on his own initiative he had made contact with Juan to ascertain whether the king would accept a capitulation based upon an amnesty for all that had passed since the prince of Viana’s arrest. In reply, through his confessor, Gaspar Ferreres, Juan had made known his intention to display mercy and forgiveness to all. Setantí no doubt had in his possession a letter to that effect dispatched from Pedralbes on 6 October.36 In it Juan began by urging an end to war so that Catalonia and Barcelona might be raised from the ruin and desolation into which they had fallen. Should they submit, ‘we shall receive you and treat you as our children with all charity and love’, and, under solemn oath, ‘we shall forget everything that has passed’. But, should they reject his offer, he would use every means necessary to subdue the city by force.37 Convinced by these arguments, the council voted to begin immediate negotiations, which it entrusted to a committee of twelve. No time 34 The municipal council had insisted on placing its own guards around Pallars while he remained in the palace. An attempt to take him to Sitges aboard a brigantine was foiled by the appearance of two enemy galleys. Calabria’s efforts to secure an indefinite postponement of the expulsion met with fierce opposition. Ibid., fos. 86–91. 35 Although stocks of grain had fallen dangerously low and other foodstuffs, such as meat and oil, were scarce and costly, it does not appear that Barcelona had yet reached a stage where real hunger stalked its streets. 36 AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 21, fo. 92. The first steps towards negotiation had probably been taken as soon as Pallars was safely out of the way. 37 ‘. . . os recibiremos y trataremos como a hijos con toda caridad y amor . . . nos olvidaremos todas las cosas pasadas’. Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xliii.

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was lost; the committee, assisted by its legal officers, sat all day and night to draft the terms of capitulation which it presented to a full council on the following day. With little discussion the document was approved and carried to the king by his chaplain, Ferreres. Quite remarkably, Juan had left the initiative in this all-important matter to the hard-core rebels who were now at his mercy. He contented himself with returning the draft, annotated with amendments in his own hand, especially on points which concerned private rather than royal interests, and with the suggestion that Barcelona appoint persons to negotiate on the matters at issue. The committee duly nominated Setantí and his fellow counsellor Joan Mateu, a lawyer, for that purpose with the proviso that they must swear not to solicit or accept any favour or office for themselves.38 On the morning of 12 October these two came face to face with Juan and his advisers in the sacristy of the chapel of Nossa Senora de Jesus where they spent five hours in discussion. Negotiations continued over the following three days in the monastery at Pedralbes; each morning Setantí and Mateu made their way there under an escort of royal guards, took the midday meal at the king’s table, and returned to report to their colleagues in the evening. By 15 October all had been agreed; late that night the council approved the terms of surrender, ‘giving thanks to Our Lord God who, by His great mercy, has carried these affairs to so quiet and safe a haven’.39 It fell to Setantí and the other four counsellors to present themselves before Jean of Calabria the following morning in order to make a formal declaration that Barcelona renounced its allegiance to René. That done, Setantí and Mateu took horse to Pedralbes for the final act. Once the documents had been drafted, Juan summoned the prior of the monastery to bring the Gospels to his private apartment and, placing his hand upon them, swore to observe their content. To witness that oath he gathered around him, besides the plenipotentiaries of Barcelona and his vice-chancellor, a number of Catalan dignitaries: Joan-Ramon Folc de Cardona, count of Prades, Miquel Delgado, abbot of Poblet, Mateu de Montcada, Joan Margarit, bishop of Girona, Anton de Cardona, and Artal de Cardona, count of Golisano in Sicily. All then followed the king into the great hall of the monastery. Outside a large crowd from Barcelona had gathered eager to demonstrate its loyalty. As these repentant

38

AHB, Consell de Cent II, Deliberacions 21, fo. 94, 11 Oct. 1472. ‘dad lahor a nostre Senyor deu lo qual per sa gran clemencia ha volgut portar los affers a tant reposat e segur port.’ Ibid., fo. 94, 15 Oct. 1472. The terms of the agreement are summarized by Zurita, Anales, XVIII, xliv. 39

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subjects filed past, kissing the royal hand, Setantí and Mateu took their leave and rode back into a city lit by celebratory fires. The drama was done. The capitulation, it will be noted, had been negotiated in the name of Barcelona and the whole principality by the dignitaries of that city without any reference to the organs which since 1462 had claimed to represent Catalonia. Only briefly had Juan recognized their authority and, since Saportella had brought into being a rival Generalitat, he had rejected it altogether. Moreover, as his control extended over the greater part of the principality, the rebel Generalitat shrivelled until its membership was confined very largely to citizens of Barcelona. Hence by 1472 the only reason for including and reference to that phantom body in the capitulation was to solve the practical and juridical problems posed by its mere existence; Barcelona had conveniently assumed the authority to act in its name, and no one raised a voice in contradiction. Historians from Zurita to Vicens Vives have lauded the magnanimity of Juan’s treatment of Barcelona.40 That policy of forgiveness and reconciliation had, as we have seen, developed some years earlier as Juan reduced the major cities and towns one by one to his obedience. Rarely had he wreaked vengeance on the defeated, preferring instead to woo back rebellious subjects to their allegiance by demonstrating a readiness to pardon and confirm communal rights and liberties. It was indeed, as Vicens Vives insists, a path followed by few of his contemporary monarchs. His own daughter-in-law, Isabel of Castile, when sending her congratulations, looked forward to the ‘vengeance’ he would now be able to wreak on his enemies.41 The Capitulation of Pedralbes took the form traditional in dealings between Catalan subjects and their ruler, namely of articles proposed by the former and approved, modified, or rejected by the latter. Adherence to that formula made it easier for both sides to maintain the fiction that there had been no civil war, rebellion, or repudiation of the sovereign. So it began with an acceptance by Juan that Barcelona and the Catalans had acted in good faith when championing the cause of Charles; he held them accordingly to be ‘good, loyal and faithful vassals’ (buenos, leales y fieles vasallos), and would have that proclaimed throughout his realms. No word of their subsequent desertion to Enrique of Castile, Pedro of Portugal, and René of Anjou! To all he extended a general pardon for actions, criminal and civil, including high treason, and excepting only the count of Pallars who had violated the oath taken on his release from captivity. The Bastard of Calabria, de Lau, and all in their company were 40

Ibid. Vicens Vives, Els Trastàmares, 187.

41

Vicens Vives, Juan II, 350.

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granted safe passage with all arms and property. Next the king undertook to confirm, under oath, the Usatges and Constitutions of Barcelona, the acts of the Catalan Corts, the privileges and liberties of the principality, and, in particular, the privilege governing the municipal Taula which guaranteed the money, bullion, and jewels deposited there. He would also approve taxes imposed by the diputats during the war and all obligations arising from them. (Many prominent citizens had large sums at stake!) Barcelona’s request for the return of outlying towns and estates which had been under its control at the time of Charles’s death met with general approval save for a number of properties previously granted to the defunct queen, the king’s son Alfonso, the castellan of Amposta, and various adherents of the royal cause. Roses and Cadaqués in the Empordà returned to the Generalitat of Catalonia; Juan had indeed already put them under the jurisdiction of the loyalist Generalitat operating in Lleida. The awkward fact of the existence of two Generalitats, both now deemed legitimate, was overcome by a masterly compromise: they were merged into one, with six diputats instead of the statutory three until their term of office should expire.42 Much thornier, and the source of bitter litigation for years to come, was the provision that, with many exceptions, property and revenues should return to those who held them at the death of the prince of Viana. All still professing loyalty to René of Anjou were given one month to submit; those who preferred to leave Catalonia might depart within the space of a year taking all their goods. Finally, it was stipulated that the Capitulation be confirmed under oath not only by the king, but also by his sons, by the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Mallorca, and by a number of prelates and barons nominated by Barcelona. Only in the article which asked Juan to consider the fateful Capitulation of Villafranca as revoked did Barcelona offer amends for so prolonged a defiance. Saturday 17 October 1472 saw Juan reap the reward of this amazingly generous if, at the same time, wise settlement, when he entered Barcelona amid the delirious acclamations of a population many of whom, be it remembered, had long harboured sentiments of loyalty, and all of whom suddenly found themselves delivered from hunger and fear. A week later, in the great hall of the royal palace, he renewed the oath, taken when he had first entered Barcelona as king, to observe the laws and privileges of Catalonia. For a brief spell all could put 42 The loyalist Generalitat protested against this article as unconstitutional. To satisfy it Juan agreed that it alone should control the election of its successors. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, i. 435.

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aside thought of the toll that war had exacted and the price still to be paid for peace. Assured that further struggle was futile, and heartened by the clemency extended to Barcelona, all other centres of resistance hastened to make their submission. Barons and knights had been given a month, by the terms of the Capitulation, to do likewise. Many duly appeared at a ceremony organized in the palace on 7 November to swear homage before the king; chief among them were the three sons of the late duke of Gandia and Joan Torrelles, known as the count of Ischia. Royal commanders in the field—the admiral Vilamarí, Bertran de Armendáriz, and João Gonsalez—received the oaths of many others anxious to establish their loyalty beyond question.

18 The Lost Lands Juan’s readiness to forgive and forget, to embrace all those who had so long and bitterly fought against him, owed much to his desire to unite all Catalans against the detested king of France, usurper of Roussillon and Cerdagne. Never one to relinquish a title or territory, whatever the cost and however long the battle, Juan would not rest until he had won back those lost provinces. It was a cause equally dear to his Catalan subjects, victors and vanquished alike; none could accept an outcome that left their principality dismembered. Success looked assured. Insurrection against the French had already freed large areas of the counties. The formidable might of France, which Juan could never have combated alone, lay enmeshed in the coalition he had spent many years cultivating; England, Burgundy, and Brittany looked poised to fall in unison upon Louis, giving him no choice but to mass his land and naval forces in his northern provinces. In earnest of his determination, the rejuvenated septuagenarian spent a few days at the end of October taking stock of the situation in the Empordà, the base for any expedition to the north. He then returned to Barcelona to hold a parliament and complete preparations for the coming campaign, preparations which included a solemn procession through the city designed to excite public fervour. The Christmas celebrations ended, Juan left Barcelona on 29 December to join his army which had left a few days earlier under the command of the castellan of Amposta. They began their march northwards on 8 January 1473, crossed the Pyrenees unopposed and by 25 January were in Boulou. In Perpignan news of the king’s approach triggered premature, uncoordinated demonstrations by the well-to-do in the Place de la Loge and near the St Martin gate. These fizzled out when the mass of the population failed to respond to cries of ‘Aragon’ and de Lau’s troops cleared the streets (he had returned from Barcelona in October). But the French captain warned his sovereign that, had the whole city erupted, he would have been powerless to

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hold it, just as he had been unable to prevent large numbers of demonstrators escaping.1 His forebodings were soon fulfilled. On the evening of 31 January Juan’s army appeared under the walls, to be joined during the night by Bernat d’Oms and those who had recently fled the city. At 3 o’clock in the morning, the consuls, primed of what was afoot, opened the Canet gate, and the king made his way by torchlight through the narrow streets and a tumultuous crowd to a lodging already prepared.2 Over one hundred of the French garrison, caught unawares in their beds, were taken prisoner; the rest managed to take refuge in the castle. Throughout the two counties towns and villages spontaneously followed suit, so that within a few days nothing remained to the French but the fortresses of Collioure, Salses, Bellegarde, and Perpignan. In his preoccupation with greater menaces Louis XI had grievously underestimated the danger to his newly acquired Catalan provinces. Warnings of disaffection among the population went unheeded until Barcelona’s surrender and reports of Juan’s intentions convinced him that something must be done. A truce with Burgundy in November 1472 made it possible to begin gathering an army in the south, an army which initially he proposed to throw across the Pyrenees with the object of taking Barcelona, thus breathing new life into the Angevin cause and the civil war. Such were the orders given to his brother-inlaw, Philippe de Bresse, newly appointed governor of the counties. But by March 1473, when de Bresse had assembled his mercenary army of Germans, Swiss, and Savoyards and conferred with de Lau in Narbonne, a triumphant king of Aragon stood defiant in Perpignan. The odds, none the less, appeared to favour France: to the host under de Bresse was joined, in that same month, the force which had recently crushed Armagnac’s rebellion.3 A powerful army, perhaps some 30,000 strong, was thus assembled early in April with the mission of reimposing French authority over the counties and driving the king of Aragon from Roussillon. Juan nevertheless awaited the encounter in a seemingly confident spirit. Within Perpignan he had gathered his veteran captains with all the troops he could muster, including 300 archers furnished by Majorca. Around the 1

Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 348–59. In letters to Barcelona and Girona describing these events, Juan maintained that it had taken four hours to reach his lodging, so great was the press of an enthusiastic crowd. Ibid. 360 n. 1. 3 On 5 Mar. 1473 a force commanded by the cardinal of Albi had stormed the fortress of Lectoure and killed Jean d’Armagnac, so ridding Louis of a most troublesome vassal. 2

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French-held castle he had constructed a deep ditch, reinforced by a wooden palisade, thereby isolating the garrison and safeguarding the city from sorties. Artillery brought from Barcelona began to batter the castle walls. Nor did he fail to grasp the opportunity to rally Catalan patriotism to his banner; on 26 February letters went out summoning the Corts to meet at the end of March in the newly liberated city. But, before the customary delays in the opening of such an assembly had been overcome, the French army had crossed the frontier, thrust aside all resistance, and, on 21 April, laid siege to Juan himself and the delegates within the walls of Perpignan. Resisting pleas from his advisers that he transfer command to a subordinate, the king had insisted that his presence would inspire the defenders and, in earnest of his determination, took an oath before a great multitude in the cathedral of St Jean, swearing that he would not leave until all danger had passed.4 He demonstrated the same resolution in his opening address to the Catalan Corts gathered in the refectory of the Carmelite convent on 7 May: whatever hardships might come, he would share them; let his subjects venture all with an old man who would shrink from neither suffering nor danger; what he asked from them was the means to sustain the troops he had and to recruit more. The bishop of Girona, in reply, assured him of the assembly’s devotion and patriotism, but nothing could be decided by so sparse an assembly meeting under siege.5 Its deliberations could not begin in earnest until July when it moved to Argelès. There it quickly became mired in wrangles over settlement of those innumerable disputes occasioned by ten years of civil war, demanding that the king administer ‘justice’ to the aggrieved. It took until September to agree on an offer of £23,000 for the defence of the counties, at which point Juan prorogued it to reconvene in Barcelona later that year.6 The pactista spirit had manifestly survived the war undimmed. Juan’s resolve to stay put in Perpignan was not dictated solely by a sense of duty combined with warrior instincts; he knew that the great diplomatic machine, of which he formed part, was working hard to frustrate Louis. The allied offensive against France having still not materialized and a Burgundian incursion having ground to a halt, Charles the Bold, England, and Brittany had negotiated with France a truce (Brussels, 22 March 1473) which named 4

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, liii. Text of the king’s address in Albert and Gassiot, Parlaments, 218–20. Those present were the bishop of Girona, the castellan of Amposta, three abbots, nine members of the military order, and the syndics of Barcelona and Perpignan. The syndics of Barcelona immediately protested against the convocation of a Cort in Perpignan in violation of Juan’s undertaking, in the recent parliament at Barcelona, that he would, in accordance with custom, summon all such gatherings to the capital. 6 AHB, Consell de Cent XVI, Corts 1473. fo. 21. 5

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Aragon as a confederate covered by its terms. A Burgundian herald duly presented himself at Perpignan on 23 May, proclaimed the truce, and called upon the French commanders to desist from action against the king of Aragon. Doubtless aware that Louis was contesting the validity of the summons, de Bresse chose to ignore it in the hope that hunger would soon bring about Perpignan’s capitulation. With so many extra mouths to feed—the court, large numbers of soldiers, refugees from the countryside—stocks of food were nearing exhaustion despite some success in smuggling a few pack-horse loads under cover of darkness.7 Scenes of disorder multiplied around the ovens, public and private, still able to bake some sort of bread; horses, mules, and donkeys had to be slaughtered to sustain a small ration of meat. Nor was hunger the only ally working for the French inside Perpignan; they counted too upon a fifth column of influential sympathizers. To the house of one such they dug a tunnel through which an armed party entered the city under cover of darkness. All however were soon taken or killed because the king, anticipating such an attempt, had constructed counter-mines in every street and stationed guards in every quarter.8 Despite their privations, the besieged, among them the pick of Juan’s captains and men, mounted a spirited defence; frequent sorties inflicted sensible loss on the French; from the walls they maintained a harassing fire with crossbows and new-fangled firearms. Far more damaging to de Bresse’s ranks however were heat, disease, and hunger. Suffocated in the open by an exceptionally hot and early summer, they found that their systematic devastation of the surrounding countryside had destroyed the very crops that might have fed them; venturing further afield in search of supplies exposed them to crippling encounters with forces based in Elne and numerous local guerrillas. Pierres de Peralta, the ageing constable of Navarre, is said to have played a key role in harassing the French: his knowledge of their language enabled him to discover their troop dispositions by moving freely among them in the guise of a friar. In company with his fellow-countrymen, the brothers Bertran and Juan d’Armendáriz, and a small force of chosen cavalry he was thus able to spring surprise attacks which spread panic among the French. They even attempted to assault the main enemy encampment, with disastrous results for Juan d’Armendáriz and three companions who were captured and slaughtered by 7 The king’s son, Alfonso, organized this assistance from his base at Elne. Some reinforcements also managed to break through the besiegers’ lines, among them a hundred horse led by the Maça brothers from Valencia. Miralles, Dietari, 356. 8 Sánchez-Parra, Crónica anónima, ch. 73.

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the enraged defenders. Juan’s reaction was to order the execution of some of his prisoners, but he relented on pleas from the French that their officers had had no part in the killings, and that the laws of war would henceforth be strictly observed.9 A logistical crisis combined with diplomatic constraint to push the French commander into a full-scale assault. It was precipitated by the approach of a relieving army led by Fernando. Preparations to assemble an expeditionary force for Roussillon had begun in Castile well before the French laid siege to Perpignan. The ever-dependable archbishop of Toledo had contributed 200 horse, the Admiral Enriquez 70; with other volunteers, Fernando had mustered some 400 lances in Talamanca by the end of April. Much of May he had spent in Zaragoza bargaining for support from the diputados of Aragon who obliged with a hundred horse. Then, pausing only briefly in Barcelona, on 7 June he reached Girona, a place of bright and bitter memories. There he took the customary oaths as prince of Girona before hurrying on to Castelló d’Empúries. At this point it became necessary to call a halt in order that supplies, stragglers, and contingents from other quarters, including 300 from Valencia, might assemble with the main body. By 23 June all was ready to resume the march and on the following day the army crossed the Pyrenees by the trackless Coll de la Maçana in a howling gale. The weight of Castile had at last been thrown into the scales against France.10 The French had launched their attack on Perpignan at dawn on 19 June. It was preceded by a sortie from a tunnel inside the walls dug by the garrison still holding the citadel. At a signal, soldiers carrying ladders burst from the mine and threw themselves at the adjacent wall with the intention of opening a way to their comrades outside. They failed; alerted in time, the garrison overpowered them, killing many and taking the rest prisoners. That stratagem having miscarried, the columns ranged around the city battered in vain against its walls. Two days later came a still more stinging reverse in open battle. De Lau had planned to ambush an armed convoy bringing provisions to Perpignan, but instead found himself caught between troops sallying from the city and a force of local militia. In the ensuing rout de Lau, the seneschals of Toulouse and Poitou, and many more French captains were captured; large numbers of common soldiers, who had no ransom value, were put to the sword. De Bresse decided he could do no more; his army, though not inferior in numbers, was in no condition to meet that led by Fernando. Accordingly, on 9

Zurita, Anales, XVIII, liv.

10

Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 339–43.

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the very day the king of Sicily debouched from the mountains towards Elne (24 June), the French general fired his camp and fell back upon Canet and Claira; other units retired to the frontier at Salses. Juan’s great gamble had paid off: he had displayed all the qualities of a great monarch and commander in his defence of Perpignan; risking captivity and ruin, he had proved himself the champion of Catalonia. Castile, moreover, had at long last yielded the dividend promised his Catalan subjects in the succour brought by Fernando. Father and son met that same day between Elne and Perpignan, but postponed Fernando’s entry into the delivered city until 28 June when all was ready for a fitting display of celebration. With the prince came the cavalry and infantry which had passed the previous days widely dispersed in the villages around Elne because the exhausted countryside could not easily provision so large a host. Spending only a day in Perpignan, which still suffered from a great want of food, Fernando led his army northwards to the French frontier where he encountered a force commanded by that old antagonist Dionis of Portugal well entrenched, after the French manner, in an encampment behind a palisade and ditches. Unable to provoke a general engagement or advance further, he then returned to Perpignan and dismissed the bulk of his men; their pay had expired and fodder was scarce. His father meanwhile had been trying, without success, to take the castle of Perpignan.11 The antagonists had reached a stalemate which left them with no choice but to embark upon negotiations. De Bresse took the initiative, Juan readily followed, with the result that on 14 July in Canet his representative, the count of Prades, signed a truce valid until October. It left both parties in possession of the territory and fortresses they then held, with the right to provision and fortify them. Juan, established in Elne, ratified the truce that same day; Fernando, satisfied of his father’s safety, departed for Barcelona in order to organize supplies for the famished counties. Ample stocks soon began to flow in by land and sea, some from as far away as Naples, but how to provide for the long-term defence of those territories was a question that gave great anxiety to both Fernando and the king’s counsellors. It had quickly become evident that Louis XI was less than half-hearted in accepting the humiliation he had suffered. Even as de Bresse negotiated a truce, the king of France was dragooning his reluctant southern vassals into another army, 400 lances strong, destined for Roussillon. Nor had conclusion of the truce deterred him from dispatching 11

Sánchez-Parra, Crónica anónima, chs. 75 and 76.

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advance units, under the command of Louis de Crussol, governor of the Dauphiné, on the pretext of replenishing de Bresse’s depleted forces. Bypassing Perpignan and Elne, they struck towards Argelès where, in clear violation of the truce, they battered the town into surrender. They next tried to seize Palau del Vidre, only to suffer a decisive check at the hands of its redoubtable captain, Bertran d’Almendáriz. Another setback followed early in August when de Crussol himself met his death in a minor skirmish. Roussillon was living up to its reputation as ‘the graveyard of the French’.12 In a further manifestation of bad faith Louis sent another force, composed mainly of Gascons, striking imprudently into the heart of the Pyrenees with the intention of penetrating the Vall d’Aran and so diverting Aragonese attention from Roussillon. With the advantage of surprise they initially overran the valley and gathered much booty but were then drawn into an ambush and totally defeated by a militia band from the neighbouring county of Ribagorça organized by its lord, the ubiquitous Alfonso of Aragon. All the French captains, among them three seneschals, were taken prisoner and large numbers of the foot soldiers killed.13 No one believed that these latest setbacks would long deflect Louis from his Pyrenean goals. Accordingly Fernando, echoing arguments pressed upon him in Barcelona, urged his father to reconvene in that city the Corts earlier inaugurated in Perpignan, hoping that the upsurge in patriotic fervour sparked by the recovery of the lost Catalonian counties would yield the resources required for their defence.14 Better still, with the backing of the Corts, a way might be found to reach a settlement with Louis: furthermore he will have as much as he wants to be able to recover the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne peacefully and by agreement. And however much the Catalans might spend for that purpose, they believe they will spend much more in an all-out war. In the last resort, there is no doubt that the matter will have to be settled by agreement, (otherwise) in addition to the great expenditure would ensue the loss of many lives which could not be avoided.15

12

‘le cimetière aux Français’. Calmette, La Question des Pyrènèes, 207, quoting the contemporary French chronicler, Thomas Basin. 13 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, lix. 14 The authorities of Barcelona had striven mightily to ingratiate themselves with Fernando, seeing in him another primogenitus who might serve their purposes. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 346–51. 15 ‘. . . mas aun haurá quanto querrá para poder pacificamente y por medio de concordia cobrar los dichos condados de Rosellón y Cerdanya. E por mucho que los cathalans en ello despiendan, creen mucho más despender en guerra guerreada, y a la postre non se dubda las cosas haverse de quitar por concordia, y allende los grandes gastos, quedará la pérdida de muchas personas que excusar non se pueden.’ Ibid. 349–50.

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At bottom lay the conviction, expressed in an earlier letter from Fernando (16 July), that Aragon ‘had not the power to resist the king of France’.16 Without mincing words, the city put the matter bluntly to Juan in a resolution agreed on 26 July: he should have an aid of £23,000, but only on condition that he transferred the Corts to Barcelona and allowed them to debate domestic as well as military problems. The old war-horse of a king, however, saw things very differently and refused to leave Roussillon when the French were patently building up their strength for a renewed attack and the truce had barely two months to run. He called instead (27 July) on his sons to rejoin him forthwith to meet the challenge posed by de Crussol. But he called almost in vain because the Castilian, Aragonese, and Valencian contingents assembled in June had all dispersed. The archbishop of Zaragoza did return to Elne early in August, but he brought with him hardly more than the men of his household. Fernando, having failed to persuade his father to leave Perpignan, decided that he could best aid him by raising funds and contingents elsewhere. He left Barcelona on 2 August, hoping to coax them from the deep pockets of Valencia. Marooned in Perpignan, the king again appeared to be in some peril, and not only from the French, for his recent ordeals had so strained his aged frame that he succumbed to an illness which threatened his life. The news brought Fernando galloping back to Barcelona, but yet again death passed Juan by to seize instead upon yet another of his foes, on this occasion the French commander, de Crussol. More providentially still, Louis XI showed readiness to convert the brief truce into a treaty, for the good reason that he had no immediate hope of raising another army for action in Roussillon and some fear that Fernando might reappear with force sufficient to sweep the French from all their footholds in that province. Negotiations accordingly got under way with Pere de Rocabertí, newly released from French captivity, and Jean de Lude acting as plenipotentiaries. Within the brief time at their disposal they drafted a treaty which, at Juan’s insistence, took as its basis the pact of Bayonne which a decade earlier had first brought Louis’s armies across the Pyrenees to his rescue. The treaty, while recognizing Aragonese sovereignty in the disputed counties, was, as Louis doubtless appreciated, a recipe for future conflict: Juan renewed his undertaking to pay the king of France 300,000 écus, with the two contested counties pledged as guarantees; pending that settlement, they were to come under the control of a governor chosen by Louis from a list submitted by the king of Aragon. Castles held by the French would meanwhile remain in their 16

‘. . . no era potente a resistir al rey de Francia’. Ibid. 345.

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hands with captains selected by Juan from a French list. Neither monarch might enter the territories or interfere with the authority of the governor whose power would be buttressed by 400 cavalry paid by Aragon. All other troops must withdraw from the counties. Should the promised sum be paid within the stipulated space of one year, Juan was to regain full sovereignty in the counties; nothing was said as to the consequences of an all-too-likely failure to meet that deadline. Concluded in Perpignan on 17 September 1473, the treaty was ratified by Juan on 10 October, by Louis on 10 November; the choice of governor fell upon Pere de Rocabertí, that of captain of the French garrisons upon de Lude.17 At the end of September Juan, fully recovered, had taken leave of his faithful city, Perpignan, after confirming all its existing privileges and granting some new in recognition of the heroic service it had rendered to his crown. He then made his way to Barcelona where a triumphal reception awaited. Seated on a carriage drawn by four white horses, flanked by a host of nobles and civic dignitaries, he entered by the Sant Daniel gate and, amid clamorous acclamation, proceeded to his lodging in the bishop’s palace. All were aware nonetheless that these were the premature trappings of victory: the trans-Pyrenean counties had been neutralized, not regained, and little time remained to gather either the money for their redemption or else the means to recover them by force of arms. Expectation that Juan intended to strain every nerve to raise funds against either eventuality had been raised by appeals addressed to all his states before he left Perpignan. It was anticipated that he would lose no time in reconvening the Corts in Barcelona, Fernando was charged with seeking aid from the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon; there was even talk of a royal fund-raising visit to Majorca. However, progress did not match these expectations: not until 20 December was the king able to open the Catalan assembly in the cathedral of Barcelona with an address in which he declared his desire to give Louis his money, in order to avoid further war, and to devote himself instead to justice and recovery in Catalonia.18 All he had managed to extract by February 1474 was a modest grant towards paying the arrears of his troops in Roussillon.19 As for Fernando, after being detained for several weeks by sickness in Tortosa, he reached Zaragoza only at the very end of October, too late to gather the Aragonese Cortes before the Christmas festival which, with his father’s leave, he intended spending with Isabel in Castile. The prospects of cajoling the states 17

The articles are summarized by Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, 373–6. AHB, Consell de Cent XVI, Corts, 1473, fo. 28: ‘no volents mes subintrar en pratiches de guerra’. 19 His address to the Corts on 21 Feb. 1474 in Albert and Gassiot, Parlaments, 215–18. 18

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of Valencia into further financial sacrifice were beginning to look exceedingly dim. Great effort was therefore invested in diplomacy as the alternative weapon against French machinations in the belief that the much-heralded AngloBurgundian onslaught on France—nothing less than a renewal of the Hundred Years War—was about to remove all threat from that quarter. In that spirit Juan renewed his alliance with Burgundy on 15 November 1473. Neapolitan aid he sought to ensure through negotiations to marry his daughter Juana to either King Ferrante or his son Federico. Brightest of all was the hope that dawned fleetingly in Castile: Fernando, Isabel, and Enrique IV celebrated the New Year festivities together in Segovia amid every sign of cordiality; if that gathering signalled an end to the succession crisis, then those Castilian hosts which had played a large part in saving Roussillon in 1473 might again appear to challenge the might of France.20 What he could not hope to do was to extract from his exhausted kingdoms the sums needed to buy off Louis XI, always on the doubtful assumption that Louis intended to release his prey at any price; Fernando had been ingenuous in allowing Barcelona to convince him otherwise. Proceedings in the Catalan Corts and soundings in his other states soon brought Juan face to face with realities on that score. But in the belief, mistaken as it proved, that he held the French king over a diplomatic barrel, he dispatched a magnificent embassy charged with securing either the cancellation or a great reduction in the debt, and hence a renunciation of French claims on the counties, on the grounds that Louis had repeatedly violated the Bayonne agreement. Two veterans of the civil war, the count of Prades and the castellan of Amposta, supported by a seasoned diplomat, Arnau Roger de Pallars, bishop of Urgell and patriarch of Alexandria, were to lead the delegation. Their train, intended to demonstrate that Aragon had not exhausted its wealth and power, is said to have numbered over 300 richly caparisoned horsemen. This cavalcade left Barcelona on 4 February 1474 without the patriarch who vainly awaited a safeconduct. The machinations of his kinsman, Hug Roger, may have had something to do with this. Louis had his own reasons for seeking to undermine the embassy; to his castellan in Roussillon he wrote: ‘They want to deceive us; instead we shall show ourselves cleverer than they are.’21 20 Zurita, Anales, XVIII, lxiii. The Crónica anónima (432) maintains that Enrique was only concealing his resentment against Fernando and Isabel. How faction struggles in Castile, rather than Enrique’s personal inclinations, governed the outcome of these encounters is well explained by Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 365–70. 21 Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 213. For the embassy, Zurita, Anales, XIX, i.

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Which way the wind was blowing quickly became clear. Once past the frontier, they observed ‘more preparations for war than for festivals of peace’22 and in Montpellier their protest to the governor of Languedoc against a ban on trade with the Catalan territories, a ban which violated the Treaty of Perpignan, met with no response. In Paris, while the royal council erected another stone wall against their arguments, they were repeatedly denied audience with the king. Convinced that they could make no headway, they left Paris on 12 May but had gone no further than Lyon when they found themselves detained for several weeks on Louis’ orders. It was late July before they were permitted to resume their journey and then only to be put under arrest again in Montpellier. For two months Juan received no word from his ambassadors—Louis took care that all communications were intercepted—but he knew well what was afoot. Warned of the military movements under way near the frontier, he had spent some days in the Empordà at the end of February 1474 putting his defences in order. Attention had also to be paid to the provisioning and fortification of Perpignan where the French garrison were strengthening the castle and extending their field of fire. By May all pretence of adhering to the treaty had been thrown to the winds. With reports of the diplomatic fiasco in Paris came rumours that Louis had sworn to make himself master of the counties. Nor was clear evidence of his intention wanting: 400 lances and 4,000 infantry were gathering in Narbonne; within Roussillon his troops were destroying growing crops; off the coast at Canet, scene of an abortive land attack, French vessels were intercepting supplies for Perpignan. Juan took vigorous countermeasures, including the stationing at Elne of 500 Neapolitan men-at-arms sent by his nephew Ferrante. On 9 April he ordered the expulsion from Perpignan of all French nationals and any others of suspect loyalty. With summer came the storm. On 14 June a formidable French army crossed the frontier in the guise of a force fighting for the Angevin cause; thus did Louis try to wriggle out of a flagrant treaty violation, but little attempt was made to conceal its true mission. Its commander (de Lude) had learnt the lessons of the previous year, so, instead of tying himself down in a siege of Perpignan, he swept round the city to cut its supply links with the sea. Within a week the French had advanced to the gates of Elne.23 Simultaneously, the fiery count of Pallars, ensconced since his expulsion from Barcelona in his ancestral 22

‘. . . por todas partes había más provisiones de guerra que de fiestas de paz . . .’ Ibid. A letter, dated 19 June, in which the consuls of Perpignan notified Barcelona of the French progress is in Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 216. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 363–5. 23

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Pyrenean lands, mounted diversionary raids with 800 Gascon mercenaries into the mountain valleys and against the estates of his Cardona enemies. To complete Juan’s tale of woes, civil war once more erupted in Navarre between the Beaumont and Agramont factions. It took the invaders barely a fortnight to make themselves masters of Roussillon up to the Pyrenees. Garrisons which resisted were put to the sword; ‘whoever became a prisoner lost his life’.24 Against the onslaught only Elne and Perpignan, isolated by land and sea, stood firm. At this crucial moment Juan was laid low with fever. At the end of April he had announced his intention of taking himself to the Empordà and transferring the Corts to Girona in readiness for the expected French invasion; the Treaty of Perpignan, it will be remembered, prohibited him from entering the disputed counties. But the sickness which struck him soon afterwards made it impossible for him to stir from Barcelona when the crisis came. He was even too weak to sign the proclamation Princeps Namque (19 June) mobilizing the militia of Catalonia against the invader. His illness undoubtedly dampened the response to that call from a people already crippled by a universal warweariness and the exhaustion of its material resources. It took the personal pleas of a monarch, miraculously back on his feet in July, to galvanize the municipalities into some semblance of action. All realistic hope was focused upon Fernando to whom both the king and Barcelona directed anguished appeals. Unhesitatingly he promised to come to the rescue, only to find that his Castilian allies did not respond to his call as they had done a year earlier. The key figure, as always, was the archbishop of Toledo. Increasingly alienated from Fernando and Isabel by their reluctance to accept his tutelage or accord him supremacy in their council, in August he sent a messenger to Juan to complain that his services had not been worthily appreciated and went on to declare that henceforth ‘he had decided to consider himself entirely free [scil. of all obligation to the king of Aragon]’.25 The consequence of this spectacular turnabout was that Fernando arrived in Zaragoza on 16 August unaccompanied by a Castilian army. Rather than suffer the embarrassment of having him enter Catalonia without a substantial force, his father ordered him to remain in the Aragonese capital until he had gathered at least 200 lances. That proved no easy task; not until 29 September did he reach Barcelona.

24 ‘. . . el que era prisionero perdía la vida’. Zurita, Anales, XIX, iii. From its outset the war in Roussillon had witnessed a degree of ferocity rarely seen in the earlier phases of the conflict. 25 ‘. . . avía deliberado de se poner en entera libertad . . .’ Zurita, Anales, XIX, iv.

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Fortunately for Juan, the French offensive slackened during these summer months while Perpignan and Elne were still defending themselves vigorously.26 But this threatened to be but a temporary respite for Louis was reported to be massing a yet more formidable army at Narbonne—900 lances, 10,000 infantry, and a great train of artillery. In the ports of Provence was gathering a large fleet of ships and galleys to support the land forces. That the French king was resolved to annex the counties lay beyond all doubt; whether he intended to achieve his end solely by force was brought into question when, in October, he presented through Pierres de Peralta a proposal to betroth Fernando’s infant daughter, Isabel, to the Dauphin with the counties as her dowry. Instead of playing for time, Juan and Fernando, conferring together in Barcelona, rejected the project out of hand, declaring that it was the Aragonese custom to give money, not provinces, as dowry. At the same time they threw down the gauntlet to Louis by asserting that they had no intention of paying the sum he was demanding as the price for renouncing his claims on their territory.27 Their seemingly rash defiance rested partly upon the earlier French failure to seize Elne and Perpignan, together with Juan’s assessment of the defensive capabilities of fortresses in the Empordà.28 A further reason to believe they might weather the storm had come with the news that their arch-enemy in Castile, Juan Pacheco, marquis of Villena, had died on 4 October, thus bringing the coveted crown more nearly within their grasp. In that mood of confidence the council-of-war meeting in Barcelona sent Gascon, Navarrese, and Italian reinforcements to Elne; Fernando returned to Zaragoza so that he might keep close watch upon Castile and endeavour to prise some aid from the Aragonese Cortes; Juan departed to direct the defence of Catalonia from Castelló d’Empúries; Fernando’s half-sister, Juana, was to ensure continued support from Naples by marrying its widowed king, Ferrante.29 All this optimism was swiftly blown to the winds. Defying the rigours of winter, the French army gathered at Narbonne crossed the frontier on the first day of November 1474. Its strategy, in line with that adopted in June, was to isolate Perpignan completely by seizing Elne, the base from which it had been

26 Zurita went so far as to claim that ‘within that county [sc. Roussillon] the king’s power equalled that of the enemy’. Anales, XIX, viii. 27 Ibid., ix. 28 He had made a tour of inspection there and around Girona in Sept. 1474. 29 It had earlier been proposed that Juana should marry Ferrante’s son, Federico, but it was now apparent that the Neapolitan king was seeking a Burgundian match for Federico. In the mean time, at Catalan insistence, Juana was to preside over the Corts in Barcelona.

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succoured during the previous siege. Against such overwhelming odds drawn around them in an impenetrable circle the defenders of Elne were helpless. Having endured a month of continual attack and bombardment, they surrendered at midday on 5 December. Captains and men from Valencia, Aragon, and Naples were allowed to march away; the Catalans were taken prisoner, among them Bernat d’Oms who was shortly afterwards beheaded as a traitor to the king of France.30 Following that success, a French column, forcing its way through the pass at El Portús, took the town of Figueres against token opposition, probably with the intention of blocking any attempt to relieve Perpignan rather than of launching an invasion of Catalonia. Juan stood well-nigh defenceless before the storm. Appeals to his subjects did bear some fruit: in December the Aragonese Cortes, under pressure from Fernando, offered to raise 200 men-at-arms and 300 light horse to serve for four months; the Catalan Corts in the same month approved a levy of 20 sous on every household in place of feudal service and general mobilization under Princeps Namque. But however much they strained their resources, worn away by more than a decade of war, they could not come near to matching the power of France—a fact of which Juan had always been aware. Only with the aid and alliance of other powers, which he had assiduously and skilfully cultivated, could he stand against Louis XI. At this crucial moment that supporting network disintegrated. In Castile the death of Villena had not resulted in an end to faction and universal recognition of Fernando and Isabel’s claim to the throne; rather it had precipitated a wild scramble for his lands and offices, thus throwing yet another apple of discord among the high nobility. Hard on the heels of that upset came the death of Enrique IV on 12 December 1474, tidings of which reached Fernando with a letter from the archbishop of Toledo, warning that he must at once return to Castile. On 19 December he sped away from Zaragoza to claim a crown and, so he assured an anxious father, return with a great army to recover Roussillon. Instead he soon found himself enmeshed in another bitter civil war which dashed all immediate prospect of Castilian arms coming to the rescue of Aragon.31 Juan’s other hope of salvation, an Anglo-Burgundian descent on northern France, had also vanished. Although Charles the Bold had in July 1474 signed the Treaty of London in which he and Edward IV sketched out a partition of France, he had already 30 Rumour had it that the Neapolitans had undermined the defence by calling for surrender. Zurita, Anales, XIX, xi. De Valera, Memorial, ch. 98. A detailed account of the siege in Palencia, Crónica, ii. 149–50. 31 Suárez, Fernando, 47–50.

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turned his ambition towards a different goal: elevating his duchy into a kingdom. To achieve that end he needed to cultivate the man who could confer the crown, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III; to weld his would-be kingdom into a territorial whole, he embarked on a campaign of conquest in the Rhineland, and, in order to free his hands in that direction, extended his truce with Louis XI to May 1475.32 Pleas for help from Aragon raised nothing but words. As for England, Edward IV could not contemplate an invasion of France without the support of Burgundy or Brittany, and he was struggling to raise the money for an expedition. The enterprise would have to be postponed to another year; not until July 1475 would Edward land at Calais. Louis now had time enough to finish his business in the south, provided that he restricted his ambitions to the two counties and did not become embroiled in a wider conflict beyond the Pyrenees. Strangling Perpignan into surrender proved no easy task. Its inhabitants, though cut off by land and sea from every avenue of aid, displayed greater resolution in resisting the French than had any Catalan city or town against Juan.33 But the besiegers knew that they had only to maintain a tight blockade until hunger did its work. Legends grew up of citizen suffering and heroism. One told of a mother with two sons; when one died, she gave his flesh to the other so that he might survive.34 Away from legend, the name ‘rat eaters’ long afterwards stuck to the people of Perpignan in remembrance of the straits to which they were reduced.35 As winter passed, Juan had to accept that he could not find the means, either military or diplomatic, of saving the city. To such straits was he reduced that his trek to Castelló d’Empúries in mid-January had necessitated pawning a fur cloak from the royal wardrobe to pay for the hire of mules. Once there, having awaited in vain the arrival of troops promised by Aragon and Barcelona, he made a last, desperate attempt to relieve Perpignan by dispatching across the Pyrenees the few companies at his disposal under the command of Rodrigo de Bobadillo. They failed to break through the French lines, and even had they succeeded they would have found themselves in the same trap of hunger. It was, finally, at the king’s command that Perpignan surrendered on 10 March 1475. The French leaders, anxious to bring their campaign to a speedy end, agreed to generous terms which did not please 32 R. Vaughan, Charles the Bold (London: Longman, 1973). Schnerb, ‘Burgundy’, in New Cambridge Medieval History, vii. 450–5. 33 The defence was directed by Galcerán de Requesens, governor-general of Catalonia. 34 Zurita, Anales, XIX, xx. 35 Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 217. Zurita, more prosaically, has them eating horse-flesh as a last resort (Anales, XIX, xx). One thousand are said to have died of hunger.

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their master.36 Determined that there should be no repeat of the popular revolt against French rule, Louis instituted a regime of harsh repression; as a result, thousands fled south to seek refuge in Catalonia. Distinguished historians, among them Calmette and Vicens Vives, have suggested that Juan sacrificed Perpignan and the counties in order that his son might take the throne of Castile. That interpretation sits ill with the facts, for it assumes that he might otherwise have found the means to defend those territories against Louis’s patent determination to annex them. Nothing in the chronicle of events which had unfolded since 1462 gives any cause to believe that he could have done so without the assistance, direct or indirect, of foreign powers, foremost among which stood Castile. Placing his son on the Castilian throne was not a prize secured at the cost of Roussillon and Cerdagne, it was, rather, a necessary step towards their recovery and subsequent security. Immediate relief from that quarter was not, however, in prospect. At a meeting of his council held in Segovia on 18 January 1475 Fernando had won agreement to send no fewer than 2,000 lances to Catalonia, but it was an empty gesture; none of the force at his disposal could be diverted from the civil war looming in Castile. Whether from bodily weakness or in an ultimate display of vacillation we do not know, but on his deathbed Enrique had made no written will nor, despite much urging by his confessor, had he uttered the name of his chosen successor.37 The way was thus left open to those, led by Pacheco’s son the new marquis of Villena, who championed his daughter Juana as heir to the throne to push ahead with the projected alliance with her uncle Afonso V, king of Portugal. Their clear purpose was to oppose the Castile–Aragon partnership, represented by Fernando and Isabel, with an alternative which would immediately bring into play the considerable military and material resources of Portugal. A long struggle was in prospect, one in which the omens for Fernando and Isabel were not favourable. Aware, after the fall of Perpignan, that he could not unaided continue the war, Juan reconciled himself to a six-month truce with France. If he nursed any hopes that, on its expiry, he would be able to renew the contest, they became increasingly dim as the year advanced. Edward IV did launch his invasion of France in July 1475, but only to find the duke of Burgundy unprepared to cooperate; left in the lurch, the king of England signed a treaty with Louis in 36 He must, however, have been satisfied that the city was obliged to acknowledge his sovereignty. The surrender of Perpignan led to the release of the Aragonese ambassadors held in virtual captivity since May 1474. 37 Zurita (Anales, XIX, xiii) summarizes contemporary chroniclers’ accounts of Enrique’s last hours.

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August. Brittany too made peace, followed in September by Charles the Bold who committed himself to a nine-year truce. Juan’s diplomatic arsenal had suddenly been blown to smithereens. Castile offered him little better cheer. Open hostilities had broken out there in May 1475 when Afonso of Portugal’s army crossed the frontier to champion Juana’s cause and, by marrying her, take the Castilian throne. Louis XI, free of anxiety in the north, found himself able to contemplate either an overwhelming attack upon Catalonia or an operation to support Juana and Afonso in the battle for the Castilian succession. He rightly calculated that the surest route to uncontested possession of the counties and, possibly, a much larger slice of Aragonese territory, lay through Afonso’s triumph over Fernando. In September, hard on the heels of the Burgundian truce, he accordingly made a pact with Portugal, promising Afonso aid in Castile and envisaging the partition of Aragon between them.38 Juan, conversely, pinned all his hopes of averting disaster upon the victory of Fernando and Isabel. Almost every day his letters bearing advice crossed with those from his son keeping him up to date with events unfolding in Castile. Material aid he could furnish only on the most modest scale: troops from Valencia, led by the governor, attacked the marquis of Villena’s lands; four galleys patrolled the Guadalquivir River; a few siege engines. Much more significant was the arrival in November 1475 of Alfonso of Aragon, sent at his brother’s request to take command of the Isabeline forces. He brought with him only fifty lances and a hundred light horse, but his military experience and reputation, gained in the Catalan wars, put him head and shoulders above his opponents and did much to turn the tide in Castile.39 So anxious was he to be as near as possible to the scene of action in Castile that early in August Juan declared his intention of leaving Catalonia for Aragon. However, he had still to complete his preparations when, in the middle of that month, several companies of French troops, defying the truce, crossed the Pyrenees and took the small town of Sant Llorenç de la Muga, west of Figueres, which other invaders had occupied earlier in the year. Was this a manœuvre designed to distract the king of Aragon from intervention in Castile, or did it herald a full-scale invasion of Catalonia when the truce expired? Having no means of reading Louis’s intentions, Juan took the 38

Vicens Vives, Juan II, 370–1. Alfonso also resumed the office of master of Calatrava, a dignity of which he had been deprived by Enrique IV although he never ceased to use the title, and in which he was now confirmed by Fernando and Isabel. Juan had intended that he should take with him 100 lances and 250 light horse, but was unable to raise that number (Cortiella i Òdena, Una ciutat catalana, 380). 39

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precaution of ordering the veguer of Barcelona to call out all the militia of the principality, only to have the Catalan Corts question the measure as overreaction to a relatively minor incursion. The kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, preoccupied with particularly virulent outbreaks of noble-inspired violence, exhibited still less readiness for another round of hostilities with France. The Aragonese Cortes, which had been continued in Zaragoza by his sister Juana after Fernando’s departure, proved so recalcitrant that it had to be dissolved. In Valencia the Corts ended unfruitfully for the crown when illness forced Juan’s son, the archbishop of Zaragoza, to bring it to a close.40 Catalan scepticism as to the reality of a French threat seemed justified by the events of the autumn of 1475: no more raiders came over the mountains and Louis agreed to prolong the truce to July 1476. Instead, violence of a different kind came to plague these long-suffering lands. There had gathered under French protection in Sant Llorenç a motley band of Gascons, Castilians, Navarrese, and Catalans, the detritus of armies whose only aim was pillage. In February 1476 they launched a series of raids into the Empordà, seized the castle of Pontós and so cut the road between Girona and Figueres. Another more formidable band of marauding adventurers led by Luis de Mudarra, a captain who had faithfully served Juan until his pay ran out, were ranging as far afield as Vic, Granollers, and Sant Cugat during January. They went on to fortify themselves in Igualada from where they struck far west to take Tremp and Talarn. Fears grew that they might make common cause with the count of Pallars, still hovering in his mountain redoubt. These audacious raids across the principality came to an end only at the close of May 1476 when, through the intervention of the Corts, Mudarra and his men agreed to leave the country in return for a promised payment of £7,000.41 Mudarra and his like had, almost certainly, acted independently of France. However, their exploits had cruelly exposed Juan’s weakness and signalled to Louis that an invasion of Catalonia might meet with little effective opposition. The spring of 1476 saw French armies seemingly menacing all the northern 40 Sánchez Aragonés, Las Cortes de la Corona de Aragón. The archbishop, Juan of Aragon, died on 19 Nov. 1475. Never having taken holy orders, his tenure of the archbishopric had been that of an administrator. His death deprived his father of one of his most able and trusted servants. 41 Included in that sum was compensation for his horses which had been slaughtered to feed Perpignan during the siege. There is some doubt whether Mudarra received any money because on 13 July 1476 the Catalan Corts offered Juan £7,600 on certain conditions, among them the cancellation of the payment to Mudarra. The Corts further resolved that anyone committing robbery, by land or sea, on the pretext of waging war should be outlawed. Ibid. 524. AHB, Consell de Cent XVI, Corts. 1476, fo. 159.

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borders of Spain from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. But only on one front could they gather the numbers needed for a large-scale operation; Louis had to choose between invading Catalonia and going to the aid of Juana and Afonso in Castile. Like Juan, he came to the conclusion that the decisive struggle would be waged in Castile and deployed his armies accordingly to the west. He nonetheless dispatched a subsidiary force of 300 lances and 400 infantry into the Empordà in June. They took Vilanova de la Muga and subsequently the fortresses of Vilaür and Marza i Pedret, raising fears for the safety of Girona. Until late in August they continued to forage far and wide against feeble resistance, causing great destruction to the harvest. The small garrison left in Vilanova (80 horse and 200 infantry) were able to ravage at will, ‘as though they had been a thousand strong’.42 Their depredations extended as far as Foixà, Rupià, and Madredmanya, again uncomfortably close to Girona. In response to these acts of aggression, some Catalan lords launched raids into Roussillon and Cerdagne from their castles in the Pyrenees. They represented their actions as reprisals against the French but they were hardly better than freebooters and almost all their victims the hapless natives of those counties. Despite all this bellicose activity, the truce between France and Aragon remained nominally in force throughout the summer of 1476 and was renewed for a further three months from 11 July. The French troops wreaking havoc in the Empordà were supposedly freelancers aiding Catalan dissidents in a continuing struggle against the king of Aragon, and it suited Juan to fall in with a fiction which averted an open breach with Louis. Catalans there undoubtedly were in these roving bands. One of their leaders was Ramon de Planella, for long a notorious stalwart of Catalan feuding and subsequently a staunch champion of the insurgent cause. His presence aroused well-founded suspicion that he was plotting with those of like sympathies in that troubled territory where the embers of civil war had patently not been extinguished. Nor could royal authority do anything to suppress the anarchy which reigned in a region where its writ no longer ran. For more than a decade armies had tramped and fought across the Empordà, tearing the fabric of society to shreds. All the old civic and family enmities and feuds now burst forth unrestrained. From his castle in Foixà, Juan de Salcedo was devastating the lands of his Sarriera enemies and their allies, the fortress of Torroella de Montgrí served as a base for similar depredations by the Ponç family; the town of La Garriga preyed on the inhabitants of Castellò who in turn aided the outrages perpetrated by those in 42

‘. . . como si fueran mil de caballo’. Zurita, Anales, XIX, xlix.

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Vilanova de la Muga. Llevià, the stronghold of Salcedo’s cousin, and Casavells were turned into robber dens working in league with the foreign soldiery holding Pontós. Travel through the mountains by the Portús pass became hazardous in the extreme thanks to the brigands in the castle of Requesens who robbed and held to ransom any who dared venture on that road. A stain of reciprocal violence had spread throughout the Empordà. From its midst the baron of Cruïlles sent a lamentation to the counsellors of Barcelona: ‘Some are feuding, others warring, others uttering threats and laughing at any who take it ill. Cursed be the ill-fortune that permits such acts, that allows us to be thus ruled and governed that we have so little fear of king or God.’43 To his brother the captain of Girona wrote: ‘the land is ruined . . . everything is in chaos’.44 In the central Pyrenees the endemic conflict between Beaumonts and Agramonts rumbled on its customary violent course, giving rise to fears that it would open the way to a French attack.45 But it was in the west that Louis had decided to concentrate his strength in support of his Castilian allies. Operations began in March 1476, immediately ran into stubborn Basque resistance on the frontier, then ground to a halt in a fruitless two-month siege of Fuenterrabia. French intervention had, in any case, come too late; the battle of Toro, fought on 1 March 1476, had turned the tide irrevocably against the king of Portugal who in June abandoned Castile. A second attempt on Fuenterrabia having come to nothing, Louis, too, gave up the struggle and agreed to a threemonth truce which came into force on 7 September 1476. Although another year was to pass before peace finally settled upon Castile, Fernando and Isabel could henceforth feel assured of victory.46 The salvation which Juan had so long awaited from Castile had arrived at the very last moment, just when French incursions and internal lawlessness threatened to reignite civil war and reduce Catalonia to ashes. In Barcelona reigned a deep pessimism over the ability of a frail, aged king to save the principality from destruction; he seemed, rather, to have abandoned it, with royal authority delegated to the Princess Juana and even the powers of governor in the hands of a 43 ‘Los uns bandolegen, los alters garregen, los alters bravegen de paraula e riuhen-se d’aquells qui prenen mal.—Maleyta sia la fortuna qui tals actes consent que axi siam regits e governats e tan poca temensa ajam de rey ni de S[enyor].’ Sobrequés i Vidal. La guerra civil, ii. 61. Despite these sentiments, Cruïlles himself resorted to piracy in the following year. 44 ‘la terra es perduda . . . tot va a regne solta’. AHB, Consell de Cent XVI, Corts, 16 Sept. 1476, fo. 170. 45 Zurita, Anales, XIX, xv, xxxix. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 444–6. 46 Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 408–40. Suárez, Fernando el Católico, 47–60. Idem, Los Trastámara, 215–22. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, ii. 358–60.

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subordinate. Eyes turned instead to the son who must soon succeed him. Fernando had indeed taken pains to manifest his concern for the fate of Catalonia in a regular correspondence with its capital; repeatedly he gave assurances that he intended to join his father in dealing with its problems as soon as he might safely absent himself from Castile. But that he would soon be free of Castilian concerns looked doubtful because, although Afonso of Portugal had withdrawn from the fray, many great nobles were persisting in their defiance or were seizing the opportunity to pursue ancient vendettas. The burden of bringing peace and order to the Crown of Aragon therefore rested still upon Juan’s bent shoulders. The perennial problems of Navarre had kept him hovering in that region for most of the summer, with occasional excursions to Zaragoza in the hope of extracting some aid from the Cortes of Aragon, and in the constant expectation that Fernando would soon join him to remedy the ills of Catalonia. When it became clear that Fernando could not prudently leave Castile, the two agreed to meet in Vitoria at the end of August. In Juan’s train went powerful Catalan voices—the count of Prades, Joan Margarit, and four delegates from Barcelona. Their deliberations ranged, of course, over the whole Iberian and international scene, with Catalonia not, apparently, occupying centre-stage. A joint appeal was addressed to the Catalan Corts asking for 300 horse to ensure the safety of Girona,47 but it was the explosive situation in Navarre which caused them to suspend their talks in order that Fernando might go there in person. When in September they resumed their meeting in Logroño, Catalonia became very much more the focus of their anxieties. Reports had come that King Afonso of Portugal with a powerful fleet had appeared at Collioure. Having been worsted in Castile, he had, it seemed, turned his attentions to Aragon. He would, so rumour had it, lead 500 lances from Roussillon. (In truth, he was already far away, vainly soliciting Louis’ assistance to pursue his Castilian ambitions.) At the same time came reports of a French army massing in Narbonne, of new attacks in the Empordà, and of Louis’ intention to attack Barcelona during the winter. All presaged an imminent threat to Catalonia. In response, the two monarchs gave assurances that all the armed might of Castile would soon be deployed against any such aggression:48 they further promised that Fernando would come to wind up the Aragonese Cortes in Zaragoza and that Juan would likewise bring the Catalan 47 Juana delivered this request to the Corts, meeting in Cervera, on 16 Sept. It was granted, with most unusual dispatch, on 20 Sept. Sánchez Aragonés, Las Cortes, 516. 48 Assurances contained in a letter from Fernando to Barcelona, 24 Sept. 1476. Vicens Vives, Fernando II, 462.

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Corts to a conclusion, an undertaking which implied the satisfaction of grievances. However, no timetable was attached to this programme and it quickly became clear that their immediate priority was to settle Castile and Navarre. Vicens Vives’s comment on these proceedings—that ‘the future of Catalonia was subordinated to the advantage of all Spain’49—fails to acknowledge that the other states of the peninsula were in no better case than the principality. Had a great French army, with or without the king of Portugal, fallen upon the Catalans, there is no reason to doubt that Fernando would have lived up to his promise; it was very much in his own interest as future king of Aragon to prevent Louis from gaining a foothold south of the Pyrenees. But no such onslaught did materialize; no more than 60 horse and 300 foot struck through Pallars and Andorra, followed in December by a similar number sent to reinforce the garrison at Vilanova. In these circumstances it was left to a group of northern nobles led by Álvaro de Madrigal (captain of the threatened Castelló d’Empúries), Joan Sarriera, and Joan de Vallgornera, to seek some means of mastering the chaos that had engulfed that region. Meeting in Castelló in November 1476, they realized that the only solution lay in the organization of an adequate fighting force and that this required funds which the Corts were failing to find. They referred the problem to Juan in Zaragoza, only to have it thrown back with the advice that they should themselves look to the defence of the Empordà, using the revenues of the Generalitat if need be. Whereupon they summoned a regional meeting of estates in Girona under the presidency of Joan Margarit in January 1477 and, by its authority, proceeded to appropriate those revenues. The outcome was not an effective fighting force but a furious denunciation of this Girona ‘parlament’ by the Catalan Corts, in face of which Juan had to claim that he had been misunderstood. The count of Prades and the governor of Catalonia had to be sent to resolve the dispute.50 While they laboured at that task a French incursion up to the very walls of Girona drove home the inanity of Catalan parochialism and legalism. Unopposed the invaders swept south as far as Caldas de Malavella where they burnt one of its defensive towers with all its defenders and then exacted a ransom from the terrified population. From there they turned back in leisurely fashion towards the Empordà, levying tribute as they went. All this the French represented not as an outright act of war but as a reprisal for raids by Catalan border barons into Roussillon. The combination of military and political crises served, however, 49 50

‘El futuro de Cataluña quedaba subordinado al beneficio de toda España.’ Ibid. Zurita, Anales, XX, ii.

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to convince Juan that Catalonia could not, or would not, see to its own internal and external defences. Although still persuaded that France posed no imminent threat, he accordingly hired a hundred lances for two months which he dispatched into the troubled provinces under the command of a minor royal, Felipe de Aragon, a bastard son of the prince of Viana. In earlier times the appearance of such a personage might have risked rekindling the embers of Catalan separatism, but those days were now well past. Operating from Figueres, this young man and his small army sufficed to flush the French out of their base at Vilanova de la Muga, restore a semblance of order to the region, and put the other French stronghold, at Pontós, under siege. In June 1477 its defenders agreed to evacuate the castle on payment of 800 florins. Thus was the truce with France renewed and the Empordà cleared of foreign intruders. Why had Louis XI broken off so long and bitter a struggle in this tame fashion? If one accepts that his ultimate aim had always been the acquisition of Roussillon and Cerdagne, it may be argued that he was now convinced that Juan had no hope of recovering them and could safely be left for his few remaining years mired in the problems of Catalonia. In the longer term, Louis needed to look to his relations with the next king of Aragon through whom he must endeavour to rebuild the old understanding between France and Castile. A more immediate reason for disengaging from war on the southern frontiers of France was the golden opportunity presented by the defeat and death of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, in the battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Immediately Louis bent all his power towards the conquest of Burgundy and Flanders, prizes immeasurably richer than anything he could hope to wrest from his Spanish neighbours with whom he gladly extended truce after truce until, on 9 October 1478, he secured a renewal of the Franco-Castilian alliance. Throughout this passage of diplomacy, Juan had no choice but to follow in his son’s footsteps, protesting all the while that he would never surrender his title to the counties. ‘He would not do it even if he were given two hundred and fifty times the price of as many Roussillons. He valued honour above life and kingdoms, and in that mind meant to go to the other world if in his lifetime he could not recover them.’51 He was particularly incensed by a proposal, emanating from France and canvassed in the Castilian court, that the counties be put in the hands of the king of Naples (now his son-in-law) until such time as arbitration should resolve the issues in dispute between himself and Louis. 51 ‘. . . él no lo haría si le diese docientos y cincuenta cuentos de más de lo que valdrían otyros tantos Rosellones. Que él estimaba en más la honra que la vida y los reinos; y con aquella opinión se entendía ir al otro mundo si en sus días no se pudiesen cobrar.’ Zurita, Anales, XX, xvi.

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He said he would not entrust his honour to any man in the world, even to the king his father if he were still alive; this was a proverb always employed by his great-grandfather, the good king Enrique. He would rather this land were lost to his enemy with no fault on his part, as was then the case, than have it given into the hands of another who might dispose of it at his will.’52

Nonetheless he had to face the harsh reality that he had, at that juncture, no choice but to lay down arms in the hope that further turns of fortune’s wheel might offer an opportunity to redeem the lost lands and his honour. A peace treaty being out of the question, he authorized his captains to bring hostilities to an end with an extended truce. With Hug Roger de Pallars still doggedly defending his lands from the castle at Sort, they concluded a truce to run for twelve months from 1 April 1478.53 On the Roussillon front it proved more difficult because Juan had no control over the frontier barons who were taking advantage of the general chaos to raid and loot in French-controlled territory. An initial agreement made in June with Bofillo del Giudice, Louis’s governor in Perpignan, broke down when these Pyrenean warlords continued their depredations, provoking reprisals from the other side. A similar fate befell a second truce agreed in July. From his mountain stronghold at Rocabruna a certain Bac persisted with plundering forays led by his son Callar. Louis is said to have quipped that he would put no faith in anything signed by the king of Aragon unless it also bore the signatures of King Bac and King Callar. Measures were taken to lay hands on Bac, even to assist del Giudice in reducing his castle (a confession that the royal writ no longer ran in these regions), but it fell to the Castilians, negotiating an extension of their own truce with France, to insist that Aragon be included, as it was in the later peace treaty signed in October 1478.54 There remained the phantom conflict with René of Anjou which was ended by a truce of indefinite duration made on the very day of Juan’s death 19 January 1479.55 52 ‘. . . decía que no dejaría en persona del mundo ni aun del rey su padre si viviese, su honra, y que éste era proverbio que siempre usaba el buen rey don Enrique su bisagüelo, y quería más que aquella tierra se perdiese en poder de su enemigo sin falta suya como lo estaba entonces que no fuese a dar en poder de otri que pudiese disponer della a su voluntad.’ Ibid. XX, xix. 53 Santiago Sobrequés, Els barons de Catalunya, 197. 54 55 Zurita, Anales, XX, xix. Ibid., xxix.

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PART III FERNANDO THE CATHOLIC

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19 The Monarch Triumphant Through the last two years of the old king’s life control of events was visibly slipping away into the confident grasp of his son. Fernando continued nevertheless to show his father every mark of respectful devotion and struggled to keep their often divergent views on a common course. It was to consult upon their relations with France, the torments of Navarre, and the conduct of their Neapolitan relative that they agreed to meet on the Aragonese frontier early in 1479. Juan had intended to travel by way of Tortosa and the River Ebro but, before he could take leave of Barcelona, he fell ill and within a few days died in the bishop’s palace, ‘more of old age than from sickness’.1 He had lived eighty tempestuous years. With amazing tenacity he had fought for ten of those to impose his will on Catalonia and, for the last six years of his life, to no avail to escape the consequences of that fatal bargain with France. Juan’s single-minded pursuit of the latter quest had meant that Catalonia remained upon a war-footing, governed, or more often misgoverned, by regional captains, and that scant attention had been paid either to the issues which had provoked civil war or to the grave consequences of that conflict. A tired mind and body, however undaunted, lacked the will and vision to engage with so vast an array of problems; redeeming the lost counties served, in some measure, as an excuse to push them aside. His heir, widely hailed as the coming saviour of Catalonia, remained caught in the turbulence of Castile and unable to do more than offer advice by letter or messenger. Nor did the Catalan Corts, convoked in the dramatic setting of Perpignan in 1473 and continued in other cities to the end of the reign, play a constructive role. Partly this was because the king saw them primarily as an instrument for financing his wars, but, above all, because the old rivalries and divisions resurfaced with all their familiar virulence. A recognition that these dissensions were paralysing the Corts led in October 1477 to the creation of a commission forty-five strong (fifteen from 1

‘. . . más de vejez que de dolencia . . .’ Zurita, Anales, XX, xxvii. Vicens Vives, Juan II, 384–6.

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each estate) to which the full assembly entrusted all its powers for a period of three months in the hope that it might break the deadlocks.2 The commission achieved nothing, leaving the Corts to lapse into a state of hibernation, awaiting the arrival of new life with a new king. Among the great issues left unresolved by this paralysis of authority loomed large the remensa question. After wrestling with it inconclusively at the outset of his reign, Juan had left it in suspension since 1462, pleading the overriding demands of war. Although he could claim that he was never subsequently free of those demands, the end of internal conflict in 1472 brought renewed clamour from both sides for a resolution. And yet, for the king, the way forward was no clearer than it had been in pre-war days. Verntallat’s victorious remensas had done him sterling service and expected a due reward,3 so, too, did many of their adversaries such as Joan Margarit, bishop of Girona and lord of wide stretches of the Montana. His fellow lords, impoverished by a decade of war, expected nothing less than the recovery of their revenues and the settlement of arrears accumulated since the outbreak of hostilities. Their prospects did not look bright. On taking possession of Olot in 1471, Verntallat had approved a total exemption from all feudal dues and services for the peasants of the Montana; Juan had found it prudent to do no more than make the measure dependent on a future general settlement. A judgement could only come from the crown and must inevitably alienate one party or the other; Juan had neither the will to deliver a judgement nor the authority to impose it. He was far from achieving that ‘authoritarian monarchy’ which Vicens Vives maintains was the immediate outcome of the civil war.4 What he could do, without venturing into a judicial quagmire, was to heap rewards of a material and honorific nature upon individual remensa leaders, most especially upon Verntallat who in 1474 received the title of viscount of Hostoles with an estate in the Vall d’Hostoles west of Girona. Some have represented this as a cynical device to bring the most prominent remensa into the seigneurial camp and so alienate him from his followers. There is no evidence that Juan harboured any such design; if he did, 2 Juan had asked for the appointment of such a body when he met the Corts in Barcelona in July 1477. In Oct. illness prevented him confronting the Corts which was informed by his doctor that an attack of gout and pains in his chest had confined him to bed in great pain and in danger of death. AHB, Consell de Cent XVI, Corts. 3 During the war years the king had assured them of his resolve to administer justice in their case; e.g. in a letter to Verntallat written in 1464: ‘as for the other matters [the mals usos], do not worry about them at present, for they [the remensas] should be satisfied with what justice decides’. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 112. 4 ‘monarquía autoritaria’. Ibid. 108.

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it failed in its purpose for Verntallat remained a champion of the peasant cause until Fernando imposed a settlement many years later.5 Unlike their leader, the remensa masses reaped little reward for their loyalty and sacrifice. They were required to surrender all the fortresses they had occupied in the king’s name, a measure which might have been inspired by mistrust or by a need to restore property to its erstwhile owners. More worrying to the peasants was the threat to their de facto exemption from feudal dues won at Olot in 1471. When Verntallat issued a proclamation of the same tenor at Constantins in 1475 it was swiftly disavowed by the monarch with a warning that his pre-war ruling still stood: only the mals usos had been suspended, all other dues and services must be punctually rendered. Having tasted liberty for a whole decade, the peasantry rebelled against a return to the uncertain status which had been theirs before 1462. Their resentment boiled over into violence during 1475. The trouble, which began in Corçà, had its origins as far back as 1444 when the town bought its freedom from the bishop and chapter of Girona and was incorporated into the royal desmesne. In 1465 a cash-strapped king sold the jurisdiction back to Bishop Margarit for 17,000 sous, a transaction which had no immediate effect because Corçà was at that time in the opposing camp. Once the conflict had ended, Margarit tried to reconcile its inhabitants to ecclesiastical jurisdiction by offering to reimburse the sum they had earlier paid to escape it. His chapter, however, which had never recognized the 1444 transaction, refused to pay a sou and, to make matters worse, strove to recover arrears of dues from the beginning of the civil war. Infuriated by such treatment, the townspeople rose on 19 March 1475, seized the castle with Verntallat’s assistance and held it against the forces of Bishop Margarit for three weeks.6 It required a force of 2,000, a large train of artillery, and the presence of Alfonso de Aragon to bring them to submission. And far from cowing peasant unrest, that episode sparked further agitation, including demands for a reformed sagramental or militia open to all vassals of the king and church; in other words, an armed peasantry. His enemies saw Verntallat’s hand in all of this but his was more a supportive than a guiding spirit. Juan had reacted to the tumult with a mixture of coercion and exhortation; the church of Girona with the excommunication of its recalcitrant peasants (6 April 1475). Neither was effective. In the following year remensas seized Sant Llorenç de la Muga and Pontós, both possessions of the Girona chapter, while guerrilla bands attacked 5 6

Ibid. 110–11. Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. 343–4. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 115.

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its minions on the road to Barcelona. Fernando, in his capacity as primogenitus, muddied the waters still further by declaring in the spring of 1476 that all places under Verntallat’s jurisdiction were exempt from all dues, thereby creating a free remensa zone in the Montana. In this atmosphere of violence, uncertainty, and simmering discontent the reign of Juan II came to its end. His successor tried initially to hold on to the course pursued by the monarchy since the Interlocutory Sentence of 1455: in effect, the indefinite suspension of the mals usos and indefinite postponement of a final sentence which must create bitter resentment in one of the parties. Within those limits, Fernando’s early measures favoured the remensas but his first encounter with the Catalan Corts in 1480 drove him into a very different path. All three estates united to demand, as the price of a very substantial aid (£300,000), the full restoration of remensa obligations to their lords. In response Fernando declared the 1455 sentence, and hence the suspension of the mals usos unconstitutional; the only crumbs of comfort offered to the remensas were his declaration that a final judgement still rested with the crown, the continued right to form syndicates to press their case, and a forlorn effort to solve the problem by way of compromise between the parties. A further sop thrown to them in August 1483 in the form of permission to hold meetings, raise funds, and appoint syndics to pursue their campaign against the mals usos—in effect a resuscitation of Alfonso’s pre-1455 policy—served only to exacerbate noble and clerical suspicion of royal motives.7 Some remensas, influenced by Verntallat and other moderates, kept to the tortuous path towards reconciliation and the distant prospect of justice;8 others found an uncompromising voice in a demagogic leader, Pere Joan Sala, a former lieutenant of Verntallat.9 Unrest mounted in the Girona and Empordà regions during August 1484, manifested in unauthorized gatherings and placards affixed to the doors of churches and public buildings threatening any who attempted to exact rents and dues. The locumtenens’ reaction was to organize punitive operations against Sala and all remensas withholding payments authorized by the decree of 1481, a reaction which led to the rout of the 7 Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 119–30, 137–41. Many Catalan historians maintain that Fernando’s motive in making this concession was to extract from the remensas the 60,000 florins still owing of the 100,000 promised to Alfonso. Vicens Vives disagrees, seeing it as evidence of Fernando’s fundamentally pro-remensa stance. All agree that the locumtenens, Enrique de Aragon, to whom Fernando had entrusted this balancing act, leaned far towards the proprietors being himself a great landowner in northern Catalonia. 8 In Nov. 1484 those of this persuasion elected nine syndics to present their grievances direct to the king. 9 Ibid., ch. 5, ‘La guerra de Pedro Juan Sala’.

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officers charged with that task by Sala’s irregulars near Mieres in the Empordà on 22 September 1484. A second remensa war had erupted, with Sala promising freedom from every feudal obligation, and the lords of northern Catalonia resolved to reimpose the full burden of peasant servitude. Don Enrique’s call upon local authorities to suppress what he termed ‘the revolution’ proved as ineffectual as earlier measures against disorder in the same regions. To the cry of ‘Sala, Sala, Long live the king, Long live the king’ (‘Sala, Sala, Visca el Rey, Visca el Rey’), the small remensa army, battle-hardened by long years of combat, roamed almost at will, taking many small towns, threatening Vic, and even venturing a full-scale attack upon Girona on 14 December 1484. Although that stroke failed, the revolt took on a still more menacing aspect as Sala’s nephew, Bartolomeu Sala, raised the remensas of Vic and the Vallès region north of Barcelona. With the problem on its doorstep, the capital’s authorities displayed far more concern than hitherto but, conscious of how their behaviour in 1462 had unleashed a catastrophe and distrustful of the common people, they hesitated to do more than appeal to the king to intervene. There, as elsewhere in the principality, suspicion was growing that the remensas had, as they often claimed, a secret understanding with their monarch. For Fernando, far away in Seville preparing for his encounter with the kingdom of Granada, the remensa rising awoke painful childhood memories; those same peasants had come to the rescue of himself, his mother, and the crown itself in their extremity. His instinct was to tread the tightrope towards an acceptance of royal arbitration by both parties, a solution agreed by syndics representing the moderate remensas with a concord signed in Seville on 8 January 1485, while, at the same time, ordering the condign chastisement of rebels and authorizing, if need be, the revocation of the concessions granted in 1483. The arrival of these provisions in Barcelona came only a few days after another remensa triumph uncomfortably close to the capital—Bartolomeu Sala’s victory over the city’s veguer at Montornès del Vallès (4 January 1485). Don Enrique and his council unhesitatingly seized the moment to proclaim the revocation, to disavow negotiations which the governor Requesens de Soler had been conducting with Pere Joan Sala, and to summon all the forces at their disposal that they might crush the insurrection.10 Of the concord neither side 10 The long-established sympathy of the Requesens family for the remensa cause inclined the governor to a mediatory role with, one may assume, the king’s blessing. At the same time Fernando was negotiating with the remensa syndics in his court; those negotiations resulted in the abortive Concord of Jan. 1485 which envisaged abolition of the mals usos in return for a payment to the lords of five pounds from each peasant household. At that moment he believed he had found a way out of the remensa quagmire.

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took heed: the proprietors taking it as proof that Fernando was hand in glove with the remensas, Sala and his chiefs seeing that it went nowhere near fulfilling the extravagant hopes with which they had filled their followers’ heads. The war would continue and the Salas struck first. On 3 February their combined forces stormed and sacked Granollers. Four days later the formidable count of Prades and his son, the constable of Aragon, reached Barcelona accompanied by the cavalry which was to give the locumtenens a decisive advantage over the remensas. Even in face of these setbacks and Sala’s subsequent occupation of Sabadell and Terrassa, Fernando stuck to his conviction that the agrarian problem could, ultimately, only be settled by way of an agreed arbitration. Under intense pressure from his authorities in the principality he had, however, to give Enrique authority to do whatever he deemed necessary to quell the revolt. On 1 March 200 horse and 700 infantry furnished by the nobility, the clergy, and Barcelona, and commanded by the constable of Aragon, marched out to confront Sala. After quickly recovering Sabadell and Granollers, where on 10 March they inflicted a heavy defeat on the remensas, the constable’s army, reinforced by the Bandera of Barcelona, brought Pere Joan Sala to battle a little to the north of Granollers on 24 March. The remensas fought bravely but were no match for cavalry; half died or were taken prisoner, among the latter Sala who, four days later, was executed in Barcelona. So perished this charismatic demagogue who had been, in Vicens Vives’s words, ‘both the idol and the terror’ of large parts of Catalonia.11 Remensa defiance did not perish with the meteoric figure of Sala; it continued among the fastnesses of the Montana and Pyrenees, and even in the environs of Barcelona where Bartolomeu Sala, donning his uncle’s mantle, sacked Montcada at the end of June.12 But the peasants were divided between these militants still pursuing a maximalist agenda and moderates hoping to arrive at an agreed settlement. The latter found a spokesman in Verntallat and champions in Requesens and the king himself. Throughout the storms of February and March the governor had persevered in his attempts to have the concord accepted. Fernando, on learning of Sala’s overthrow, wrote to Enrique again urging a policy of compromise: 11

‘. . . a la vez, el ídolo y el terror . . .’ Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 208. Ibid. 223. Many other places were seized or attacked during the summer of 1485, including the castle of Anglès near Girona and the monastery of San Feliu de Guixols. In Oct. Sala took the castle of Castellbell, near Montserrat, killing the owner, then burning and looting the buildings. What particularly concerned the authorities was the sympathy, often open support, towards these acts of violence displayed by the population at large and even municipal officials. 12

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for the settlement of these differences . . . lies not solely in the punishment of the peasants, which as is right should be duly executed, but also in establishing a firm and clear legal basis for the payment of dues to be rendered from this time forward, so that they (sc. the disputes) may never again arise and may be extinguished for ever.13

Even remensa proprietors were by now anxious for some settlement which would, after so many tempestuous years, guarantee them the payment of their rents and dues; to that end they were ready to come to an agreement on abolition of the mals usos, but nothing more. Against this background of continuing violence and mistrust the king’s envoys struggled with little success to steer the parties towards the elusive goal—a formal pledge to accept royal arbitration.14 It took the dispatch of another, more prestigious and non-Catalan figure, Don Iñigo López de Mendoza, in October 1485 to drive the process forward.15 With such vigour did Mendoza throw himself into the task that within a month he had secured from a remensa assembly acceptance of arbitration, a pledge to hand over no fewer than fifteen castles seized in the preceding months, and the election of delegates, among them Verntallat, to present their case before the king. The nobility and clergy, too, he had earlier brought into line, although the counsellors of Barcelona continued to call stridently for harsh repression of the peasantry; ‘we are without king or law’ (‘sens rey e sens ley’) they lamented.16 Delegates of the nobles, clergy, and peasants began arriving in the royal court during January 1486 to put their case and followed its peregrinations until, in April, it settled in the monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe in Extremadura, far removed from the passions of Catalonia. There, on 21 April 1486, was promulgated the long-awaited royal judgement on the issues which had sown civil war among the Catalans. And a royal judgement it undoubtedly was, for while the work of consultation and drafting fell largely upon the shoulders of Alfonso de la Cavalleria, vice-chancellor of Aragon, the inspiration came from a king who had a deep, personal knowledge of the problems and a resolve to settle them. The essential element of the Sentence of Guadalupe was the abolition of 13 ‘Ca la conclusion de aquestas differencias . . . no solamente consiste en el castigo de los dichos pageses, que es razon se faga debitamente, mas ahun en poner ley cierta y determinada sobre la paga de los derechos que deven fazer daqui adelante, porque en ningun tiempo mas susciten y sean extinctas para siempre.’ Ibid. 214. 14 Fernando sent Luis Margarit, a nephew of the bishop of Girona, and a royal secretary, Jaume Ferrer, to join Requesens in these negotiations. 15 Mendoza, count of Tendilla, ‘was a man of exceptional political and military talents’. H. Nader, The Mendoza Family (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1979), 152. 16 Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 249.

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the six mals usos and a long list of other exactions laid upon the remensas, so guaranteeing the peasant personal freedom, the right to dispose of his moveable goods, and the right to move when he pleased. Equally important, he was secured in possession of his land against payment of an annual rent to the landowner who retained the freehold. Thanks to these measures the Catalan peasant had won his freedom centuries before most of his fellows elsewhere in Europe. All this did not come without a price: he was to compensate his lord at the rate of 10 sous for each of the mals usos to which he had been subject and the whole remensa community was to pay the lords £6,000 for loss sustained during the recent upheavals. Nor did the crown ignore its own interest in these acts of rebellion: all peasants, whether remensa or not, were to pay a fine of £50,000 over ten years as punishment for acts in which all were alleged to have participated.17 Some seventy individuals, notorious for their excesses, were condemned to death.18 War-weariness eased the path towards implementation of the Sentence in Catalonia. Most peasants and landholders accepted it in a spirit of resignation rather than enthusiasm. But peace did not return immediately to this tortured countryside; bands of desperadoes, grown hardened to a life of banditry, continued their depredations, often with the connivance of the localities in which they operated. Also, those condemned to death in the Sentence had little to lose by carrying on a guerrilla warfare until in 1488 a general amnesty reduced their number to twelve.19 Thereafter a hard core of outlaws continued, for a time, audacious attacks upon officials and landowners20 but they were no longer able to arouse the peasantry with their inflammatory slogans; deprived of popular support, they succumbed to a vigorous police operation mounted by the authorities in the autumn of 1489. With the extension of the amnesty to the last survivors of the condemned, peace finally returned to a people who had known none for three decades. It took until the end of the century to discharge all the financial burdens arising from the sentence. As the last echoes of the remensa struggle died away, a new era of prosperity opened to the 17

At the same time, Fernando cancelled the debt of 60,000 florins which had been hanging over the remensas since the days of Alfonso the Magnanimous. The two sums were roughly equal. 18 Zurita, Anales, XX, lxvii. Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 256–64. Freedman, Origins of Peasant Servitude, 192–4. J. Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 159–60. 19 Several fled to Roussillon; attempts to have them extradited proved fruitless. Many others, however, were arrested and executed. 20 In July 1489 a band led by Goxat sacked and burnt the house of Joan Pere de Cruïlles in Caldes de Malavella to cries of ‘Death to all gentlemen’ (‘Muyren, muyren gentilshomens!’). Vicens Vives, História de los remensas, 308.

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wealthier peasantry of Catalonia; for the rest the Sentence made little material difference. Whereas the end of civil war had resuscitated the agrarian problem in a form almost unchanged from that which had existed before 1462, urban conflict, as exemplified by the struggle between Busca and Biga, emerged fundamentally altered in nature. The onset of war had seen popular support for the Busca cause harshly repressed and its leadership violently purged. Surviving Busca notables had fled into the royalist camp, followed over time by many moderates from the Biga ranks. Dissension in the representative bodies had met with equally firm treatment, with the result that the Consell de Cent rarely assembled during the final years of the conflict. Political life was stifled as power accumulated in the hands of hard-line Bigas. The Capitulation of Pedralbes brought back many prominent exiles to Barcelona, but not all. And not only patricians had fled; thousands of others— artisans, craftsmen, tradesmen, professionals—had sought refuge and fortune elsewhere as war destroyed the city’s economy and their livelihood. Most did not return and emigration continued apace in the aftermath of war. The population of Barcelona sank to 20,000, a level not touched since the thirteenth century.21 Amid such depression and depopulation pre-war civic politics could find no place. Although the most prominent figure in this era, Jaume Destorrent, was the brother of the Busca leader executed in 1462,22 he led a municipal government largely unaffected by the old antagonisms; the urban aristocracy, as a class, were intent only on salvaging what they could from the wreckage of their fratricidal strife. The result was the emergence of a closed oligarchy of citizens and merchants whose members were to be found almost permanently and profitably ensconced in all municipal offices and councils.23 An ordinance of November 1479 consolidated their grip upon the city by restricting membership of the two orders to those whose families had for many generations been active in government and to any who might be admitted by a majority vote. Only a handful of aspirants ever jumped this hurdle. Towards the crown the oligarchs displayed a prudent submissiveness, determined as they were to avoid the collisions which had so recently brought ruin upon them. 21

Vicens Vives, Els Trastàmares, 191. For the multiplicity of civic offices occupied by Destorrent see Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la ciutat de Barcelona, i. 145–6. He was also a boss of the butchers’ ‘trust’ which kept the price of meat artificially high. Ibid. 252. 23 In practice, the active nucleus of the oligarchy consisted of no more than ten citizen and six merchant families. 22

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Small wonder that such a group lacked both will and authority to tackle the dire financial crisis which threatened the city. Heavy borrowing over many decades had accumulated a crippling debt which saw the municipality fall ever further into arrears with its annuity payments (eighteen months by 1482, two years in 1483) and forced to withdraw all funding from such institutions as the Hospital of Santa Creu. In such an atmosphere corruption flourished and proposals to remedy the situation by raising additional revenue, as through a contribution from the clergy, or by reducing the burden, for example by cutting interest rates or reducing salaries,24 met with a predictably negative response. One calamity which could not be laid at the oligarchs’ door was the appearance in Barcelona of the new inquisition. The diocese of Barcelona had had its own inquisitor, appointed by Rome at the city’s request, since 1459. He had found little to do. In 1484 the authorities learned, to their consternation, that Fernando intended to remove this local worthy and impose on Catalonia in his place the inquisitorial system established in Andalucia in 1480. Their anxiety arose from the knowledge that the target of this inquisition was the alleged persistence of Jewish religious practices among converted Jews (conversos) and from the experience of the havoc which its activities had already wrought in Castile and Valencia: large numbers of conversos, bulwarks of commerce and administration, had fled in fear. Not only would the introduction of such an inquisition to Barcelona violate laws and privileges, it would also, they protested, inflict further grievous harm upon the economy of a city already in dire straits. The king of France was already offering refuge to any fleeing unmerited persecution.25 Their arguments made no impression on Fernando who in May 1484 confirmed the appointment of two inquisitors for Barcelona and subsequently rejected the counsellors’ vehement protests. The spiritual health of cities and subjects must, he maintained, if need be take precedence over their material well-being. With the pope they were equally unsuccessful. On 6 February 1486 Innocent VIII revoked all earlier commissions to inquisitors within the Crown of Aragon and named Torquemada inquisitor for Barcelona 24

Some modest reductions were agreed in Aug. 1483; significantly they did not touch the salaries of the five counsellors. Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la ciutat de Barcelona, i. 262. 25 In Dec. 1485 a ship left Barcelona carrying more than 200 conversos with all their property. Another sailed in Jan. 1486 ‘with the greater part of those who remained’. According to the counsellors the year had seen more than 500 families take flight, a figure doubtless exaggerated for the king’s benefit. The remensa rising and the city’s commercial decay would also account for the exodus of craftsmen as well as conversos. Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la ciutat de Barcelona, i. 385. The fugitives’ fears were justified for, once established, the inquisitor forbade them to leave the city. E. Fort i Cogui, Catalunya i la Inquisició (Barcelona: Editorial Aedos, 1973). H. Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965).

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with powers of delegation. For some months more the counsellors fought on until, abandoned by the clergy and officialdom, those elected in November 1486 decided that the time had come to accept the inevitable; the days were past when a proud city could defy a king. On 5 July 1487 Torquemada’s nominee, the Castilian Alonso Espina, made his entry into the city, an event boycotted by the Diputació and the counsellors. By December he was ready to parade through its streets his first clutch of fifty penitents, and soon his reach extended throughout Catalonia. Barcelona did not, in the event, suffer as badly as other cities in the number of its victims: the inquisition tribunal there confined its heretic-hunt almost exclusively to the conversos—most of whom had fled;26 in eighteen years it executed thirty-eight and imprisoned one hundred and forty-nine. But Fernando’s unflinching insistence on imposing the new inquisition undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to an ailing community which had looked to him for salvation. Five years later he completed the task of purification (it would now be described as ethnic cleansing) with the edict expelling all unconverted Jews: 3,000 were driven from Catalonia. Did the king, as alleged by many writers of the nationalist school, harbour an animus against Catalonia because of its rebellion?27 Assuredly not against all Catalans, large numbers of whom had loyally supported him and his father. Cardona, Montcada, Requesens, Vilamari are names which were to figure prominently in future service to the new monarchy. The principality’s institutions —Corts, Generalitat, the municipality of Barcelona—were another matter; manipulated by an oligarchy, they had drawn swords against the crown and brought it perilously close to disaster. Although guaranteed an existence by Fernando’s oath to observe the Catalan laws and constitutions, they could not expect anything but rigorous scrutiny and a heavy royal hand. Perennial divisions among the oligarchy assisted Fernando in taming Catalonia’s institutions. So it was that vociferous complaints from Barcelona against the management of the Generalitat gave him the occasion, in 1488, to suspend the election of diputats and appoint his own nominees headed by the Castilian abbot of Montserrat. Two years later the same medicine was applied to Barcelona with a royal decree cancelling the annual elections of counsellors and officials, 26 Vicens Vives (Ferran II i la ciutat de Barcelona, i. 424) thinks the best estimate of those who fled before the Inquisitor entered Barcelona to be 480. It is unclear whether this figure refers to whole families or to heads of families; in the latter case the total would be approximately 2,000; the counsellors claimed the number to be 3,000. 27 e.g. A. de Bofarull i Brocà, Historia crítica civil y ecclesiática de Cataluña, 9 vols. (Barcelona, 1876–8).

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putting the outgoing council members under house arrest and nominating men of the king’s own choosing to form the executive council. Its leader was to be the omnipresent Jaume Destorrent, its members ‘a kind of municipal party, aristocratic and royalist’ gathered around him.28 Municipal offices, too, became the exclusive preserve of that same faction which thus achieved total domination over the city. Twice more the king imposed the party’s nominees upon Barcelona until during the course of his residence there in 1493 he restored a form of elected government modified to favour the aristocracy of ciutadans (citizens): its representation in the Consell de Cent was increased by 50 per cent to forty-eight and it was given a majority of three seats on the fiveman executive council. Fernando had decided that a class which had formerly been the heart and soul of opposition to the crown could, in this new world, be trusted to serve its interests. The new balance also reflected a marked increase in the influence of this citizen aristocracy—reinforced by an influx of military families from the rural areas29—against that of merchant and artisan classes undermined by economic collapse. Reform of the city’s government was completed in December 1498 by introducing the system of appointment by lot for all its institutions and offices.30 One is not surprised to discover that Jaume Destorrent had a large hand in drawing up the initial lists of those entered in the ballot, although the king did insist on the inclusion of many who had shown themselves hostile to his party. He also decreed that the military be treated as ciutadans in the allocation of offices.31 Subsequent additions to the lists were only to be made by the counsellors on the death of a candidate and subject to royal approval;32 those who proved too awkward could always be excluded. For another two hundred years the government of Barcelona was to remain in the hands of this tightly restricted circle. The Biga ethos had 28 ‘. . . una espècie de partit municipal, aristocràtic i realista’. Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la ciutat de Barcelona, ii. 101. The king expressly authorised Destorrent to pack the Consell de Cent with jurats drawn from this faction. Ibid. 134. In 1491 Destorrent’s influence grew still further with his appointment to the office of Regent of the Chancellery. Català i Roca and Gala i Fernàndez, ‘Tres consellers en cap de Barcelona imposats pel rei (1490–1492)’, CHCA, XVII, iii. 161–74. C. Batlle, ‘Vida i institucions polítiques (segles xiv i xv)’, Història de Barcelona, 3. 29 The remensa troubles of the 1480s had seen a new wave of impoverished gentlemen of military status flocking into Barcelona where they sought to mend their fortunes by alliance with the wealthy bourgeoisie. 30 This practice had been imposed on many smaller towns earlier in the century with the object of mitigating factional strife, e.g. Vic in 1450. 31 The blending of the two elements into a single urban aristocracy was carried further in 1510 when Fernando conferred the privileges of knighthood upon all 94 honoured citizens. 32 Another important feature of the 1498 reform was the inclusion of the ‘military’ resident in Barcelona in the order of citizens.

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triumphed, not as master but as lackey of the crown.33 Shortly afterwards the same system of lot was introduced into other cities: Lleida (1499), Manresa and Balaguer (1500), Cervera (1501), and Tortosa (1506). In order to justify their interventions in Barcelona’s affairs Fernando and his partisans had repeatedly cited the urgent need to bring order to the city’s finances. Plans for reform, stalled during the 1480s, were indeed forced through by Destorrent in 1491—only the clergy managed to escape making a contribution—resulting in savings of 500 pounds a month which were to be used exclusively to redeem the existing municipal debt of 40,000 pounds over a period of twelve years. That goal they achieved together with a surplus on the annual budget which made possible some reductions in the additional taxes heaped on the citizens over many decades. In this more favourable fiscal climate the population began to rise: a census of 1496 recorded 5,700 households, another in 1503 nearer 6,000, and this in spite of severe epidemics which had killed 3,744 in 1490, and 2,700 in 1501. New buildings arose to embellish the city, not, be it noted, public edifices, but the mansions of powerful men—clergy, officials, and merchants. Following the interlude of direct royal nomination, the practice of election by lot was applied in 1493 to the Generalitat with consequences similar to those observed in Barcelona: partisan politics in its old form disappeared and, through his ultimate control over the lists of eligible candidates, the king held that hitherto formidable institution in check. It nonetheless retained its function as the watchdog of Catalan laws and liberties, and, like the reformed regime in Barcelona, managed to bring its finances into order.34 Although not directly subjected to reform in the manner of the municipalities and Generalitat, the Catalan Corts was affected by the changes imposed on those other institutions. Election of syndics representing the major cities and towns was determined by lot and hence subject to a degree of state control. As for the military order, the crown’s most resolute opponents in its ranks had been eliminated by the civil war. The most implacable of all, Hug Roger, count of Pallars, had submitted to Fernando in 1480 only to become embroiled with his Pyrenean neighbours four years later in such a manner that in 1491 the king 33 Vicens Vives (Els Trastàmares, 218) well characterizes the oligarchy as ‘A group with few pure ideals (as often happens after great revolutionary earthquakes), too fearful of the past not to consolidate the present, with an inevitable tendency towards conformism and lassitude’ (‘Un grup amb pocs ideals purs (això sol esdevenir-se després dels grans terratrèmols revolucionaris), amb molta temença del passat per a no consolidar el present, amb una inevitable tendència al conformisme i a la lassitude’). 34 Ibid. 229–30.

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stripped him of lands and title.35 Sterile feuding continued as before to absorb the energies of many of the minor nobility, but an increasing number found an outlet for their ambitions in the military apparatus of the Spanish empire. Royal influence over ecclesiastical appointments ensured that the clerical order in the Corts posed no threat; the affair of the inquisition demonstrated that the clergy was no more able than other Catalan institutions to stand against the royal will. Proof of the changed relationship between crown and Corts may be found in the brief duration of those held during Fernando’s reign: the first, and longest, lasted only twelve months, subsequent Corts much less. In previous reigns sessions had dragged on for years in bitter acrimony and often without any conclusion. Now the Corts did their business with dispatch and delivered the expected subsidies. Extracting money for his continual wars was indeed a prime consideration in Fernando’s dealings with Catalonia. Its post-civil war financial and economic exhaustion had diminished its wealth to the point where it contributed less than any of his other states to the Granada war; Barcelona managed to send nothing more than a few hundredweight of gunpowder. Hence the king’s pressing concern to see the principality put back on its economic feet. His chosen weapon was the familiar strategy of protectionism bolstered by reform of the coinage, action against a plague of pirates, both nationals and foreign, and a restoration of Catalan consuls in the Levant. Some ground was regained especially in textile manufacture thanks, in large measure, to a relaxation of guild control, but the volume of production and commerce at the end of the century had recovered to only half the levels attained during the reign of Alfonso. Rivals, domestic and foreign, had entrenched themselves in the spaces vacated by Catalans. Capital and skills fleeing to Valencia had helped give that city the economic primacy once enjoyed by Barcelona. Genoese and French ships now carried the freight which had sustained Catalan fleets before the civil war destroyed them. Rival merchants had taken over their export markets and secured control of vital imports such as fine wool; Catalan weavers were reduced to making inferior, cheaper cloth. Even within Catalonia economic recovery owed much to the reappearance of foreign merchants, among them the Rosembachs, German printers who set up presses in Barcelona, Montserrat, Perpignan, and Tarragona. Finally, note must be taken of a 35 The county was given to the son and heir of the faithful count of Cardona. After spending some years of exile in France, Hug Roger sought another confrontation with his old enemies in Naples. Taken prisoner by Fernando’s general, the Gran Capitan, he was taken back to Spain in 1503 and died shortly afterwards in the castle of Xativa.

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fundamental shift in Catalonia’s economic orientation brought about by the shrinking of its Mediterranean commerce and an increasing reliance upon Castile for its vital supplies of grain; trade, as well as politics, was binding the principality to its mighty neighbour.36 What the Catalans had most resented in the reign of Alfonso—his absenteeism and his transfer of the seat of government to a foreign city, Naples—they had now to accept as something fixed and inescapable. During his long reign of thirty-seven years Fernando visited Catalonia only six times, spending a total of three years there. A people which had proudly insisted that it be governed by no one less than king, queen, or heir apparent had to submit to the rule of a royal cousin (Don Enrique of Empúries) or, worse still, to mere nobles. Fernando went a little way to close this gap between himself and subjects by creating, in 1494, the Council of Aragon, a body which was to be always in attendance upon him in order to deliberate on matters touching his hereditary states, but of the five regents who composed it, only one represented Catalonia, and he was a jurist chosen by the king.37 One other great Catalan issue had been bequeathed to his son by Juan II: the question of the lost counties, Roussillon and Cerdagne. No more than his father would Fernando renounce one tittle of his territorial rights, as he immediately made plain by styling himself ‘count of Roussillon and Cerdagne’. Any military action was, however, out of the question while Catalonia remained in turmoil and a Portuguese pretender still threatened Castile. The possibility that France might voluntarily return the counties surfaced briefly in 1483 when Louis XI, on his deathbed, appeared to countenance it in order to purge his conscience.38 If Louis truly had such an intention, the regents acting for his son, Charles VIII, quickly backtracked. A frustrated Fernando assured the Corts of his Aragonese states meeting at Tarazona in December 1483 that he remained resolved to win back the counties and invited their cooperation, but he was by then fully committed to the war against Granada which absorbed all his resources for another ten years.39 36

Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la ciutat de Barcelona, ii. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, ii. 521–3. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 71–2. 38 Louis was brought to this state of mind by a Neapolitan hermit, Francesco di Paolo, summoned to the dying king because of his reputation for sanctity. For the likelihood that he had been briefed on the question of the counties see Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées, 231–2. Gaussin, Louis XI, 435–6. 39 All that could be done during this interval was to put pressure upon France through an alliance with Maximilian of Austria and Henry VII of England in support of Breton autonomy, a policy which came to grief in 1491 with the marriage of Anne of Brittany to Charles VIII. Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 248–9. 37

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The fall of Granada in 1492 might have brought the formidable power of Spain to bear against France had it not coincided with Charles VIII’s belated escape from the tutelage of the regent, his sister Anne of Beaujeu. While the latter had refused to surrender the counties as the price of peace with Fernando and Isabel, her brother, dazzled by the lure of Italian glory, was resolved to make the sacrifice.40 Cautious soundings made early in 1492 led to open negotiations, begun in Narbonne in July then transferred to Figueres where a preliminary agreement was concluded on 23 August 1492. It declared that Charles would surrender his ‘legitimate’ possession of the counties in return for a treaty of peace and alliance, and a face-saving undertaking by the Spanish monarchs to submit, if requested, the issue of legal right to the territories to binding arbitration. A final pact was delayed for some months by a tussle at the French court between those urging the Italian adventure and those who, for reasons of policy or self-interest, opposed the surrender of territory. The balance having swayed in favour of the former party, a definitive deal, almost identical to the Figueres terms, was struck in Barcelona in January 1493. Even then the transfer of the counties ran into such delays over Charles’ attempts to extract explicit guarantees that Fernando and Isabel would not oppose his Italian project that a war on the Pyrenees began to look more probable than one beyond the Alps.41 Only in July did the king of France decide to break the deadlock; within a month his envoy had settled the last details with the Spanish monarchs in Barcelona; on 13 September 1493 Fernando and Isabel made their triumphal entry into Perpignan amid wild popular rejoicing nothing dampened by pouring rain. Those who had no cause to celebrate were the Jews and the many Catalans who had fled there to escape the inquisition; again they had to tread the path of exile. Less than a hundred years after Fernando of Antequera first set foot on Aragonese soil his grandson had brought to triumphant fulfilment the ambitions nursed by the junior branch of the Trastàmares: he had placed himself on the Castilian throne; he had brought together Castile and the Crown of Aragon; he had completed the Reconquista; he had brought Catalonia to heel. 40 On the death of René of Anjou’s only surviving nephew, Charles duke of Maine, in 1481, Provence together with the Angevin claims to Naples (and Aragon) had passed to Louis XI and hence to Charles VIII. The young king of France found himself surrounded by a clamorous crew of Neapolitan exiles, Italian malcontents, and Angevin veterans all urging him to cross the Alps, a venture which would be impossible without first making a secure peace with Spain. J. S. C. Bridge, A History of France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), i. 41 In anticipation of such an outcome Fernando moved troops into the Empordà and had his admiral Vilamarí muster a fleet off the coast. Calmette, La Question des Pyrénées.

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In the new Spanish state of the Catholic monarchs the Aragonese component, with a population of no more than a million, inevitably weighed less than its Castilian partner, numbering over four million.42 The principality of Catalonia, wrecked by civil war, suffered a disproportionate decline in importance and influence. Had it sustained its dominant role within the Crown of Aragon and in the commerce of the western Mediterranean, it would have remained a major focus of economic and political power. Had it not thrown down the gauntlet to its ruler and so forced him into endless foreign embroilments, Juan might never have found his way into the Castilian alliance. Blind arrogance43 matched with political recklessness and military ineptitude had toppled Catalonia from its proud eminence and left it condemned to centuries of provincial obscurity. 42 As many historians have argued (e.g. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 72), the structures evolved to govern the Aragonese empire were extended to the greater dominions of Spain, but the Crown of Aragon derived no benefit therefrom, rather it became a still more junior partner in the imperial scheme of things. 43 Carrère writes of ‘l’egoisme dels rendistes’ which ‘costà a Catalunya un llarg eclipsi’ (‘egoism of the rentiers’ which ‘condemned Catalonia to a long eclipse’), Barcelona, ii. 417. Vicens Vives’s verdict: ‘El Principat, que havia consumit les seves forces en la contesa política del segle xv, era una ombra del que havia estat dos segles abans’ (‘The Principality, which had consumed its strength in the political struggle of the fifteenth century, was but a shadow of what it had been two centuries before’). Els Trastàmares, 243.

Bibliography PRIMARY SOURCES Barcelona boasts two archives holding rich documentation for the fifteenth century: they are the Archivo de la Corona de Aragon and the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona. The first is the repository for the records produced by the royal administration; in addition it houses the records of the Diputació del General de Catalunya. The second is the archive of the municipality of Barcelona where are to be found the registers of the governing councils and municipal offices as well as an abundance of letters received and dispatched by the city. For details of their holdings see J. E. Martínez Ferrando, Guia del Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón (Madrid, 1958) and Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona: Guia (Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, n.d.). The archival sources drawn upon for the present work are as follows. Archivo de la Corona de Aragon Cancillería Real. The registers Curiae, Secretorum, Itinerum, Pecunie for the reigns of Alfonso V and Juan II, including those relating to the years during which Queen Maria and Juan acted as locumtenentes for Alfonso. The reference numbers of the registers cited are given in the footnotes. Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona In the section Consell de Cent: Registre de deliberacions, Lletres closes, Lletres comunes originals and Corts. Rich veins of material remain to be exploited in these archives, as they do in the records of other Catalan cities, in particular Girona, Lleida, Tortosa. Those of Perpignan would also repay investigation. DOCUMENTARY PUBLICATIONS The nineteenth-century archivist Próspero de Bofarull y Mascaró launched an ambitious project which aimed to publish what he deemed to be the most important documents in the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón. His son and successor, Manuel de Bofarull y de Sartorio, pursued the enterprise, with the result that nine volumes relating to the civil war appeared under his editorship between 1860 and 1864. Colección de documentos inéditos del Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón, xviii–xxvi (Barcelona, 1860–4) is an invaluable source of material for this period.

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Other useful collections of documents include: Calmette, J., Louis XI, Jean II et la révolution catalane (1461–1473) (Toulouse: Privat, 1903), pièces justificatives, 413–581. Coll Juliá, N., Doña Juana Enriquez, lugarteniente real en Cataluña, 1461–1468, 2 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1953), ii, apéndice documental, 241–439. Durán i Sanpere, A., and Sanabre, J. (eds.), Llibre de les Solemnitats de Barcelona, i. 1424–1546 (Barcelona: Institució Patxot, 1930). Madurell Marimón, J. M., Mensajeros barceloneses en la corte de Nápoles de Alfonso V de Aragón (1435–1458) (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1963). Manual de Novells Ardits, vulgarment apellat Dietari del Antich Consell Barceloní, i. 1390–1446; ii. 1446–1477 (Barcelona, 1892–3). Martínez Ferrando, J. E., Pere de Portugal, ‘Rei dels Catalans’ vist a través dels registres de la seva cancelleria (Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 1936), appendix, 177–255. Sobrequés Callicó, J., Catálogo de la cancillería de Enrique IV de Castilla, Señor del Principado de Cataluña (lugartenencia de Juan de Beaumont, 1462–1464) (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1975). CHRONICLES The greatest of the Aragonese chroniclers is undoubtedly Jerónimo Zurita who, as royal archivist in the sixteenth century, had full access to the records, including some which have since disappeared. A comparison of his account with extant documents shows that he was both scrupulous and exact in his use of them. I have used the most recent edition, Anales de la Corona de Aragón, ed. A. Canellas Lopez, v–viii (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico’, 1980–90). To avoid problems for those using other editions, references are given to the books and chapters into which Zurita divided his work. The only noteworthy Catalan chronicle of the fifteenth century is the Dietari del Capellá d’Alfons V el Magnànim, ed. M. A. Cabanes Pecourt (Zaragoza, 1991). This work is now attributed to Melchor Miralles, a royal chaplain who for many years accompanied Alfonso V in his Italian campaigns. From 1466 he settled in Valencia where he assiduously jotted down in his diary events of local and national significance. Castile was much better served by its chroniclers, most of whom paid close attention to events in the neighbouring Aragonese territories because of the impact these had upon Castile. All were drawn into the internecine struggles of the Trastámara family thereby colouring their narratives with a partisan bias for or against the contending parties. Alonso de Palencia stands foremost among those championing Juan and Fernando

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against Enrique. His Crónica de Enrique IV, 2 vols. (Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 257–8; Madrid: Atlas, 1973–5) is valuable as an eye-witness account of many of the events recorded. Also pro-Juan is the Memorial de diversas hazañas: Crónica de Enrique IV, by Diego de Valera, ed. J. de M. Carriazo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1941). Parts of his narrative are clearly borrowed from Palencia. Another Castilian chronicle favourable to the Aragonese cause is the recently published Crónica anónima de Enrique IV de Castilla 1454–1474, ed. M. P. Sánchez-Parra (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 1991). Enrique finds his stoutest, though not uncritical, champion in his chaplain, Diego Enríquez del Castillo. His Crónica de Enrique IV, ed. A. Sánchez Martín (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1994) relates events through the eyes of the Castilian court. Guillaume Leseur, a courtier in the service of Gaston, count of Foix, was the author of a chronicle entitled, Histoire de Gaston IV, comte de Foix, ed. H. Courteault, 2 vols. (Paris, 1869). It contains a useful account of Gaston’s campaigns in Catalonia. SECONDARY SOURCES An excellent bibliographical survey covering all the states of the Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth century may be found in Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, ii. For Catalonia there is the bibliography in Batlle, L’expansió baixmedieval. For the civil war there is little but the lists of sources cited by Calmette, Louis XI, Jean II, and Sobrequés i Vidal, La guerra civil, ii. In addition to works noted above, the following are cited in footnotes. Abulafia, D., ‘L’economia mercantile nel Mediterraneo occidentale: Commercio locale e commercio internazionale nell’età di Alfonso il Magnanimo’, CHCA XVI (Naples: Paparo, 2000), ii. 1023–46. Adroer i Tasis, A. M., and Feliu i Montfort, G., Història de la Taula de Canvi de Barcelona (Barcelona: Caixa de Barcelona, 1989), 36 et seq. Albert, R., and Gassiot, J., Parlaments a les Corts Catalanes (Barcelona: Editorial Barcino, 1928). Alzina, J., et al., Història de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca: Moll, 1982). Atti del primo congresso storica Liguria-Catalogna (Bordighera: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1974). Aurell, J., Els mercaders catalans al quatre-cents: Mutació de valors i procés d’aristocratització a Barcelona (1370–1470) (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 1996). Azcona, T., de., Isabel la Católica: Estudio crítico de su vida y su reinado, 3rd edn. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1993). Batlle, C., La crisis social y económica de Barcelona a mediados del siglo xv, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1973). —— Barcelona a mediados del siglo xv: Historia de una crisis urbana (Barcelona: El Albir, 1976).

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—— ‘Colaboradores catalanes de Alfonso el Magnánimo en Nápoles’, CHCA, IX (Naples: Società Napoletana di Storia Patria, 1978), ii. 58–79. —— ‘Vida i institucions politiques (segles xiv i xv)’, Història de Barcelona, iii., ed. J. Sobrequési Callicó (Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1992), 273–312. Black, A., Council and Commune: The Conciliar Movement and the Council of Basle (London: Burns & Oates, 1979). Bofarull i Brocà, A. de, Historia crítica civil y ecclesiástica de Cataluña, 9 vols. (Barcelona, 1876–8). Borja de Riquer, J. (ed.), Història de la Diputació de Barcelona, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Diputació, 1987). Bridge, J. S. C., A History of France from the Death of Louis XI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), i. Calmette, J., La Question des Pyrénées et la Marche d’Espagne au Moyen-Age (Paris: Janin, 1947). Camarena Mahiques, J. (ed.), El Compromiso de Caspe (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando el Católico’, 1971). Camps i Arboix, J., Verntallat, cabdill dels remensas (Barcelona: Aedos, 1955). Carrère, C., Barcelone centre économique à l’époque des difficultés: 1380–1462 (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967). Catalan trans. Barcelona 1380–1462: Un centre econòmic en època de crisi (Barcelona: Curial, 1977). Català i Roca, P., and Gala i Fernàndez, J., ‘Tres consellers en cap de Barcelona imposats pel rei (1490–1492)’, CHCA XVII (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2003), iii. 161–74. Cirici, A., L’art gòtic català: L’arquitectura al segles xv i xvi (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1979). Comines, P. de, Mémoires, ed. J. Calmette, 3 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1924). Cortiella i Òdena, F., Una ciutat catalana a darreries de la baixa edat mitjana: Tarragona (Tarragona: Diputació Provincial de Tarragona, 1984). (Les) Corts a Catalunya: Actes del Congrés d’història institucional (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 1991). Cruselles, E. and J. M., ‘Valencianos en la corte napolitana de Alfonso el Magnánimo’, CHCA XVI (Naples: Comune di Napoli, 2000), i. 875–98. Cuadrada, C., La Mediterrània, cruïlla de mercaders (segles xiii–xv) (Barcelona: Dalmau, 2001). Desdevises du Dézert, G., Don Carlos d’Aragon, prince de Viane, étude sur l’Espagne du Nord au XVe siècle (Paris: Colin, 1889). Domènech i Montaner, L., La iniquitat de Casp i la fi del comte d’Urgell (Barcelona: Llibreria Verdaguer, 1930). Dufourque, C. E., L’expansió catalana a la Mediterrània occidental, segles xii–xv (Barcelona: Edicions Vicens Vives, 1969).

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Index Abbeville, Treaty of 209 Abiabar, Cresques 195 Afonso V, king of Portugal 153, 154, 175, 194, 241, 242, 245, 246 Agramonts 45, 91, 237, 245 agriculture Catalan 4, 10 Valencian 6 Agulló, Joan 119 Aids/subsidies 18, 24, 29, 43, 44, 52, 77– 8, 170, 183, 189, 203, 206, 256, 266 Albret, Amanieu d’ 139, 140 Alcalá de Ebro 144 Alcañiz 144, 179 Alcántara, military order 14 Alcover 159 Alfonso V, king of Aragon passim 16, 68, 72–9, 80, 116, 176, 267 Alfonso, bastard son of Juan II, Master of Calatrava 75, 242 n. 39 in Castile 242 and civil war 89, 132, 155, 158, 166, 169, 170, 185, 188 – 91, 196 n. 8, 204–6, 213–14, 224, 229 n. 7, 232, 255 Alfonso of Castile, brother of Isabel and Enrique 80, 165– 6, 184, 198 Almeida, Juan de 164 Almogàver, Joan 132 Altariba, Bernat Guillem d’ 66, 156 Amer 169 Amposta 167–8, 170–1, 174 castellan of, see Rocabertí, Huc Andalucia 197, 262 Andorra 247 Angers 177, 178 Anglès 164 Anglesola 145 Anjou, dynasty 18, see also René Isabelle, duchess of 24 Anne of Beaujeu, regent of France 268 Antequera, dynasty 12 n. 6, 20, 21, 27, 68, 79, 193, 194, 212

Aragon, kingdom 5, 45, 90, 105, 126, 146, 158, 163, 167, 234, 240 disorder 75, 243 economy 5 population 5 architecture 5 Argelès 228, 232 Armagnac, Jacques d’, duke of Nemours 139 Jean V d’, count of 182, 186, 187, 188, 192, 204, 227 Armendáriz, Bertran d’ 164, 211, 212, 217, 225, 229, 232 Juan d’ 229 Ávila 193, 198 Balaguer 118, 122, 136, 265 Bandera, Barcelona militia 118, 146, 158, 258 banditry 102 Banyoles 125, 181 Barbera 159, 162 Barcelona 20 –2, 24, 27– 8, 234, 262 arsenal 5 Busca and Biga chs 5 & 7, 82, 100 –1, 261 and Charles of Viana 83, 89 end of civil war 212–23 government 17, 47, 57, 82, 97, 261, 263–4 guilds syndicate 81 Inquisition 262 –3 and Jean of Calabria 182, 186, 207 and Juana Enriquez 96, 98 opposition to war 189 and Pedro of Portugal 155, 156, 157, 162, 169 plague 167, 265 population 3, 132 n. 24, 261, 265 relations with Fernando 232 n. 14, 237, 246, 264 and remensas 33, 34, 37, 38, 102 repression 149, 175, 181, 186, 261

Index siege 130–3 Taula de Canvi 5, 147, 188, 224 textile industry 10, 56, 58, 59 trade 4, 93, 146, 166, 179 Bascara 122, 180 batlle of Barcelona 58, 100 n. 57 Bayonne 141, 151 Sentence of 141–2, 158, 178 Treaty of 105, 233, 235 Beaumont family 45, 104, 129 n. 18, 161, 205, 237, 245 Jean de 53 n. 11, 89, 90, 91, 92, 128 locumtenens in Catalonia 129, 133, 134, 135–6, 137, 138, 140 n. 11, 143–4 and Pedro of Portugal 155, 159, 160, 163 Louis de, constable of Navarre 190 n. 38 Belchite 139 Belloch, Joan de 167 n. 51, 171, 172 n. 63 Benedict XIII, pope 11, 12, 16, 17, 26, 30 Berga 168, 190 Besalú 103, 113, 125, 156, 165, 169, 180, 196, 197 Biga chs. 5 & 7, 73, 86, 87, 90, 92, 98, 149, 150, 261, 264 Blanche, d. of Juan II 76, 80 n. 2, 97 n. 51, 104 n. 65, 139 n. 9, 165 n. 44 Blanche, queen of Navarre 22 n. 17, 45 Blanes 212 Bobadilla, Rodrigo de 191 bombards 119, 132, 166, 172, 180, 182 Boquet, Pere 135 n. 33 Borja, Rodrigo, cardinal 219 –20 Boulou 121, 226 Bresse, Philippe de 227, 229, 230, 231 Brittany, duke of see François II Burgo de Osma 200–1 Burgundy 152, 154, 161, 165, 204, 209, 216, 219, 220, 226, 227, 235, 248 Busca chs. 5 & 7, 73, 81–2, 98, 116, 149, 150, 261 Cabrera, Bernat Joan de, viscount of Cabrera and count of Mòdica 37, 90, 113, 116 Cadaqués 206, 208, 210, 224 Çafont, Jaume 48, 58, 59, 60, 80, 81, 83, 96, 99, 100, 207, 218 Cagliari 7

279

Calaf 190 battle 163 – 4, 187 Calahorra 179 Calatayud 133, 200 Caldas de Malavella 247 Campobasso, count of see Monforte Camprodon 125, 162, 168, 174, 197 Canet 121, 125 n. 5, 231, 236 Capitulation of Vilafranca 91–2, 98, 100, 110, 118, 128, 142, 148, 173, 175 Cardenas, Gutierre de 194, 200, 201 Cardona, family 116, 263 count of 19, 37, 50 Guillem de 123 Huc de 123 Jaime de, bishop of Urgell 148 Joan de, constable of Aragon 133, 214, 258 Joan-Ramon Folc de, count of Prades 92, 119, 135, 145, 148, 159, 162, 163, 164, 169, 196, 213, 215, 217, 222, 231, 235, 246, 247, 258 Miquel 141 Carrillo de Acuña, Alonso, archbishop of Toledo 84 n. 14, 136 n. 36, 138, 139 n. 9, 140, 141, 142, 158, 165, 184, 193, 209, 230, 237, 239 and marriage of Fernando and Isabel 194, 195 – 6, 198, 219 Caspe, Sentence of 12, 17, 153, 176 Castellar de la Muntanya 145 Castelldasens 119 Castellfollit de la Roca 102, 103, 125 n. 3, 145, 196 Castelló de Farfanya 136 Castelló d’Empuries 3, 147– 8, 165, 175, 181, 185, 188, 211, 216, 230, 238, 240, 247 Castile 12, 14, 20, 21, 23, 104, 129, 161, 165, 192, 209, 230 civil war 179, 184, 239, 241, 242, 267 Castro, Jofre de 123 Ivany de 156 Leonor de 162, 165 Cavalleria, Alfonso de la, vicechancellor of Aragon 259 Joan 62 cavalry 118, 119, 129, 148, 161, 162, 175, 184, 190, 258

280

Index

cens 30 censos 11, 113 n. 13 Centelles, family 12 Cerdagne 105, 138, 139, 151, 169, 177, 219, 241, 267–8 Cervelló, family 11 Guerau Alemany de 89, 124, 146 n. 33, 164 Cervera 118, 143, 145, 148, 155, 158, 159, 162, 164, 172, 190, 191, 199, 265 siege of 166–7 trade 3 Cervià de Ter 181 Ceuta 153, 154 Chacón, Gonzalo 194 Charles VII, king of France 76 Charles VIII, king of France 267, 268 Charles of Viana 45, 53, 67, 79, 126, 128, 150, 155, 164, 174, 221, 223 cult of 94–5, 96, 100, 117, 132, 178 locumtenens in Catalonia 93 – 4 and succession crisis 82–3, 84, 85 –91 Charles, duke of Berry (1446 – 65), duke of Guyenne (1469–72) 140, 194 n. 4, 198, 202, 205, 209 Charles, duke of Burgundy 192, 228, 239–40, 241, 242, 248 Châtel, Tanguy du 200, 204 clergy 26, 31, 74, 115, 156, 265, 266 Collioure 4, 105, 227, 246 Colomers 133 Conomines, Pere de 132 Consell de Cent Jurats 17, 40, 42, 47, 49, 55, 57, 82, 85, 88, 147, 160 n. 30, 185, 189, 218, 221, 261, 264 Consell Representant lo Principat de Catalunya 87, 89, 92, 97, 98, 99, 102, 109 and Pedro of Portugal 156, 161 and remensas 103, 114–15 and war 121, 124, 125, 127, 147, 151, 169, 170, 204, 217 Consolat del Mar 42 n. 7, 49 Constitutions of Catalonia 18, 37, 40, 51, 52, 88 Copons. Joan de 127, 128 –9, 141, 151, 152 n. 2 Corçà 255 Cordoba 193 Corsica 7, 17, 22

Cortes, of Aragon 12, 24 n. 24, 84, 87, 96 n. 50, 163, 170, 175, 179, 183, 184, 188, 190, 196, 234, 238, 239, 243, 246 general 21 n. 12, 24, 202 Corts, of Catalonia see also Generalitat 14, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 32, 35, 44, 45, 50, 52, 58, 59, 92 n. 34, 224, 228, 232, 234, 237, 239, 243, 246, 247, 253 – 4, 256, 263, 265, 267 delegations to Naples 37, 38, 51, 53 – 4, 79 in Lleida 84, 85 – 6, 104 session 1454 – 8 72 –9 Corts, of Valencia 17–18, 27, 170, 183, 190, 243 Cossa, Gaspar 208 Council of Aragon 267 Council of Basle 26 Crexells, Bertran 34, 35 Crown of Aragon 5, 7, 18, 128, 140, 153, 268, 269 Cruïlles, family 65 – 6, 116, 156 Bernat-Gilabert de, baron of Cruïlles 124, 147, 156 n. 17, 164, 187 n. 31, 245 Marti-Guerau de 124, 125 Crussol, Louis de 232, 233 Cuenca 136 Cueva, Beltran de la, marquis of Ledesma, Master of Santiago 138 n. 1, 165, 197 currency problems 10, 11, 41, 56, 74 Delgado, Miquel, abbot of Poblet 90, 92, 116, 222 Desplà, Miquel 131 Francí 160 Despuig, Lluis, Master of Montesa 117, 121, 129, 141, 148, 166, 170, 187, 190, 211, 212, 213 Destorrent, Jaume 261, 264 Desvalls, Francí 186 devaluation 41–2, 48 Dionis, de Portugal i de Eça 207, 214, 231 Diputació 14 –15, 34, 36, 58, 72, 81, 86, 90, 92, 93, 100, 102, 109, 127, 173, 204, 263 military preparations 110 and remensas 115 in Tarragona 149

Index diputats 35, 36, 56, 166, 167, 203, 207, 211, 212, 213, 224, 263 Dueñas 201, 209 Dunois, Jean 196, 197, 204 Dusay, Ramon, canon of Barcelona 126 Joan Galceran 132 Galceran 132 Guillem Pere 132 Ebro, river 156, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 175 Eça, Pedro d’ 155, 156, 158, 164 Edward IV, king of England 139, 173, 179, 192, 204, 209, 239, 240, 241 Elne 216, 229, 231, 233, 236, 237, 238, 239 Els Prats de Rei 163, 164, 167, 180, 182, 190 Empordà 32, 63, 64, 114, 145, 146 n. 33, 147, 159 n. 26, 165, 181, 183, 185, 190, 199, 202, 206, 211, 212, 213, 214, 226, 238, 243, 244, 247, 248 Empuries, county 36, 58, 103, 165, 169 peasants of 115 England 152, 169, 179, 196, 204, 209, 216, 226, 228 Enrique IV, king of Castile 45, 77 n. 12, 78, 80, 84 n. 14, 90, 92, 94, 104 n. 67, 126, 141–2, 165 n. 44, 239, 241 civil war in Castile 166 lord of Catalonia 127–9, 133, 136, 140, 143, 153, 223 and marriage of Isabel 198, 202 and Navarre 133 n. 27, 158, 179 succession question 193, 205, 209, 235 Enrique, son of Fernando I of Aragon 14, 20, 23, 154 Enrique, infante of Aragon 180, 196 n. 8 locumtenens in Catalonia 256 n. 7, 257, 258, 267 Enríquez, family 165, 209 Alfonso, admiral of Castile 184, 198, 230 Erill, Roger d’ 123 Espina, Alonso 263 Esplugues 159 Estella 142, 158 Felipe de Aragon, illeg. son of Charles of Viana 248

281

Fernando, son of Juan II 76, 78, 80, 84, 88, 95, 128, 166, 170, 184, 219, 232, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 246, 256, 268 against French in Catalonia 182, 187, 189, 190, 198 in Barcelona 96 –100 expedition to rousillon 230 –1 first campaign 163 – 4 in Girona 109, 120 and Inquisition 262 –3 king of Aragon 263, 267 king of Castile 241, 268 king of Sicily 189, 192 marriage 193, 194 –201, 219 recovery of Roussillon and Cerdagne 267– 8 relations with Barcelona 264 and remensas 256 – 60 Fernando I of Trastámar, king of Aragon 11, 12, 14 –16, 17, 18, 72, 153, 268 Ferrante, king of Naples 80, 126, 168, 177, 178, 180, 191, 192, 204, 209, 235, 236, 238, 248 Ferrer, Vicent 12 Antoni Pere 160 Pere Joan 171, 211, 212 Ferreres, Gaspar 221, 222 Ferry de Lorraine, count of Vaudemont 183, 186, 188, 190 feuding 66 –7, 188, 244 –5, 266 Figueres 122, 215, 239, 248, 268 Flix 168, 175 Florence 192 Foix, family 188 Gaston de, count of Foix 53 n. 11, 104, 136, 140 and count of Pallars 69 and Navarre 76, 78, 91, 94, 133 n. 27, 140, 179, 183, 184 –5, 205, 208 relief of Girona 105, 119, 122 siege of Barcelona 129 –33 and Vic 64, 65 Fonolleda, Arnau 28, 38, 50 Forès 162 Fraga 84, 87, 89, 90, 91 François II, duke of Brittany 179, 188, 192, 196, 228 Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor 240 Frederico, count of Luna 19 n. 9 Fuenterrabía 140

282

Index

Gaeta 25 Galeota, Giacomo 208 Galioto, Jacobo 206, 214 galleys 89 n. 28, 98, 180, 199 Castilian 129 French 130, 132, 238 Neapolitan 168, 191 Gandesa 168 Gascons 3, 70, 169, 232, 237, 238, 243 Gelida 162 Generalitat 28, 32, 50, 118, 154 n. 9, 156, 162, 203, 206, 210, 212, 217, 223, 224, 247, 263, 265 Genoa 4, 17, 23, 24, 25, 77, 161, 179, 204, 218 Giovanna II, queen of Naples 18, 19, 23 Girona 137, 147, 181, 185, 206, 210, 211, 213, 230, 244, 246, 247 bishop of 34, 36 civil unrest 61–4 electoral reform 64 Força 113, 114, 117, 118, 120, 122 and peasant unrest 102–3, 109, 255, 256, 257 population 61 sieges 130 n. 21, 145, 181–3, 184, 187, 191, 196–7 trade 3, 4, 32, 61 Giudice, Bofillo del 180, 181, 215, 249 Granada 257, 266, 267 Granollers 130, 174, 214, 243, 258 Guadalupe, Sentence of 259 – 60 Guimerà 159 Guissona 145, 200 Hijar 133, 139 Juan de 133, 136, 139, 144, 160 Luis de 139 n. 7 honoured citizens (ciutadans honrats) 33, 40, 41, 42, 55 Hospitallers 168 Hostalric 113, 116, 130, 184, 189, 212 Igualada 123, 137, 155, 157, 162, 166, 243 Illa, family 11 Pinós i Fenollet, Galceran de, viscount of Illa-Canet 36, 50, 121, 125 Innocent VIII, pope 262 Inquisition 262, 268

Isabel of Castile 80, 83, 85, 91, 94, 140, 193, 223 and Louis XI 209 marriage 194 –201 princess of Castile 193 and succession 193, 235 Isabel, d. of Fernando and Isabel 238 Isabel, d. of Jaume of Urgell 153 Isabel, duchess of Burgundy 154, 173 Jaime de Aragon 139, 144, 160 Jaume II, king of Aragon 7 Jaume, count of Urgell 11, 12, 15 –16, 76, 153, 164 Jean of Calabria, son of René of Anjou 177, 179 locumtenens in Catalonia 181, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 196, 197, 199, 204, 206 –7 Jean, illeg. son of Jean of Calabria, regent in Catalonia 207, 210, 212, 213, 217, 220, 221, 222, 223 Jean de Lorraine 204 Jews 3, 118, 119, 167 n. 51, 262, 263, 268 João of Portugal 194 Jouffroy, Jean, cardinal of Albi 197, 198, 205, 227 n. 3 Juan II, king of Aragon blindness 163, 165, 176, 178, 195 Castilian marriage 192 – 6, 200 –2 and Charles of Viana 53, 75 – 6, 82, 83 –92 end of civil war 212–23 first campaign in Catalonia 117–23, 134 –5, 137 and France 192, 235 – 6, 241 n. 36 king of Navarre 154, 185, 205, 269 last years 245 –9, 253 locumtenens in Aragon 45, 52, 59, 62, 63, 66, 77, 78 preparations for war 104, 112 relations with Castile 158, 165, 192 and remensas 254 –5 and René of Anjou 178, 192, 208 siege of Amposta 167– 8, 170 –1 siege of Barcelona 129 –33 siege of Cervera 166 siege of Lleida 158 –9 struggle for Roussillon and Cerdagne 226 – 41, 248

Index Juan II, king of Castile 16, 20, 45, 49, 154, 200 n. 13 Juan de Aragon, archbishop of Zaragoza, illeg. son of Juan II 148, 168, 184, 185, 233, 243 Juana Enriquez, queen of Aragon 80 n. 1, 92, 136, 166, 170, 184, 187, 195 and Charles of Viana 84, 85, 87, 90 –1 in Girona 109–22 and Louis XI 141–2, 158 regent/locumtenens in Catalonia 95–100, 163 war in Catalonia 129–31, 158 –9, 180 Juana of Portugal, queen of Castile 165 n. 44 Juana, illeg. d. of Juan II 138, 158, 184, 238, 243, 245 Juana (la Beltraneja) d. of Enrique IV 165, 194, 202, 205, 209, 241, 242 justice 30, 35 La Bisbal 165, 214 La Junquera 122 La Llacuna 131 Lanuza, Ferrer de 141 n. 12 Martin de 214 La Palma d’Ebre 148 La Roca del Vallès 134 La Tallada d’Empuries 185, 214 Lau, Antoine de 217, 218, 220, 223, 226, 227, 230 Leonor, countess of Foix 53 n. 11, 76, 80, 184, 205, 208 L’Espluga de Francolí 136 Levant 4, 27 Lleida 88, 89, 96, 119, 133, 145, 155, 172, 190, 191, 203, 265 Corts in 84, 86 siege of 156–9 trade 3 Llivia 216 Logroño 246 Los Toros de Guisando 193 Louis XI, king of France 94, 97, 104 –5, 114, 130, 137, 177, 178, 242, 262 and Castile 140, 197, 242, 244, 245, 248 and Catalonia 141, 151–3, 186, 187– 8, 196, 204, 207, 216 and Navarre 133 n. 27, 205 n. 22 opposition in France 192 and Roussillon and Cerdagne 227– 41, 248, 267

283

Louis III, duke of Anjou 11, 19 n. 7, 22, 23, 176 Lude, Jean de 233, 234, 236 Luna, family 11 Álvaro de 20, 21 n. 11, 49 Madrigal 198, 199 Álvaro de 247 Mahon 171 Majorca 5, 6, 7, 38, 42, 44, 45, 83, 126, 171, 227, 234 mals usos 30 –1, 34, 35, 36, 37, 51, 54, 79, 81, 93 – 4, 101, 150, 254 n. 3, 256, 259, 260 Manresa 148, 162, 167, 173, 175, 217, 265 Margaret, d. of René of Anjou, queen of England 179, 204 Margaret, sister of Edward IV 173 Margarit, family 185, 191, 211 Bernat 63, 191, 211, 212 Joan, bishop of Elne 29, 73, 75 bishop of Girona 101, 110 n. 5, 115, 125, 182, 191, 197, 210, 211, 212, 213, 222, 228, 246, 247, 254, 255 Luis 259 n. 14 Maria, queen of Aragon 19 n. 6, 22, 23, 24, 25, 43, 49 and Barcelona 48, 50 and count of Pallars 69 –70 and remensas 31 n. 3, 34, 35, 38, 39, 51 and Vic 65 – 6 Marimon, Joan de 118, 123 n. 41 Joan Bernat de 160 Marseille 19, 177 Martin, king of Aragon 11 Martorell 131, 162, 212 Mateu, Joan 222, 223 Mayans, Joan 109 Medes, islands 191 Medinya 122 Mendoza, family 196 n. 7, 200 Iñigo López de, count of Tendilla 259 Juan Hurtado de 136, 144 Ruy Diaz de 136, 144 Mercader, Perot 35 – 6 Milan, duke of, see Sforza, Galeazzo Maria militia see also Bandera Catalan 21, 121, 125, 146, 188, 199, 237, 243 of Lleida 119 of Perpignan 121

284

Index

Minorca 126 Molins de Rei 44, 90, 162 Monforte, Cola Gambatesa, count of Campobasso 206, 208, 212, 215 Montagut 145 Montana, region 113, 125, 254, 256, 258 Montblanc 3, 115, 136, 187 n. 30 Montcada 37, 130, 132, 137, 159, 258 Montesa, Order of 144 Montjuich 132, 218 Montlhéry, battle 165 Montmeló 130, 213 Montpellier 236 Montserrat, abbot of 31–2, 151, 160, 214, 263 monastery 84, 162, 217 Montserrat, Cosme de, bishop of Vic 115 Moors 3, 6 Mora d’Ebre 133 Morella 90, 91 Mudarra, Luis de 243 Naples, kingdom 16, 18, 22 n. 15, 23 n. 19, 24, 26, 27, 80, 161, 231 city 16, 19, 27, 73, 189, 267 Narbonne 119, 227, 236, 238, 246, 268 Navarre 22, 45, 53 n. 11, 75, 77, 83, 90, 91, 97, 104, 133 n. 27, 140, 160, 161, 179, 205, 208, 237, 246 Navarro, Anton 144 Navata 145 Nicolas of Lorraine, marquis of Pont-àMousson 207, 216, 218 Ocaña 194, 198 Olmedo, battle 184 Olot 125 n. 3, 162, 168, 169, 180, 196, 197, 205, 215, 254, 255 treaty of 104 Oms, family 216 Berenguer d’ 121 Bernat d’ 216, 227, 239 Carles d’ 121 Ortafà, family 216 Pacheco, Juan, marquis of Villena 136 n. 36, 138, 139 n. 9, 140, 141, 142, 165, 184, 194, 198, 202, 238, 239 Beatriz 184, 193 pactisme 14, 228 Palamos 162, 174, 175, 211, 214

Palau del Vidre 232 Palau-Saverdera 162, 165 Palencia, Alonso de 196 n. 7, 199, 200, 201 Pallarès, Francesc 97, 101, 135 n. 33 Pallars, family 11, 68 Arnau Roger de, bishop of Urgell 70, 235 Arnau Roger de, count of Pallars 39, 68 –70 Hug Roger de, count of Pallars 99, 110, 113 n. 11, 116, 117–22, 129, 131, 145, 146 n. 30, 158, 178 n. 5, 208, 211, 212, 218, 220, 223, 235, 236 –7, 243, 249, 265, 266 n. 35 Paris 236 parliament 86, 88, 149, 161, 170, 180 –1, 183, 196, 215 n. 15, 219, 226 Pau 162 peasants 9, 10, 35, 37, 38, 93, 254, 260 insurrection 101, 103, 109 –10, 255, 256–60 Pedralbes, monastery 217, 219, 222 Capitulation of 223 – 4, 261 Pedro, infante of Portugal, lord of Catalonia ch. 14 175, 176, 177, 179 n. 8, 180, 223 Pedro of Aragon 19, 20 Peralada 124, 211, 215, 216 Peralta, Pierres de 141, 170, 184, 193, 229, 238 Pere III, king of Aragon 7 Perellós, Francesc de, viscount of Roda 164 Perpignan 37, 43, 105, 116, 121, 125, 137, 139, 167, 216, 234, 236, 237, 238, 268 consols 113, 227 sieges 226 –31, 240 trade 3, 4 Philip, duke of Burgundy 154, 169, 179 Piera 174 Pinos, Francesc de 160 plague 9, 60, 167, 175, 265 Planella, Ramon de, canon 125 n. 6, 217 n. 23, 244 Pere de 171, 172 Poblet, abbot of 90, 92 and see Delgado, Miquel Ponza, battle 23 population 3, 9, 10 Portugal 154, 161, 175, 194

Index Prades, count of 92, 102 Princeps Namque 157, 186, 237, 239 Puigcerdà 139 Pujades, Matteu 28 Rebolledo, Rodrigo de 135, 187 redemption, peasant 32, 34 –9, 53, 81 remensas 22, 30, 34, 35, 37, 51, 52, 55, 74, 93, 98, 101, 109, 115, 150, 254, 255–60 pro-royalist forces 112 René, duke of Anjou 24, 69, 176, 206, 224, 249 king of Aragon 177, 199, 207, 208, 210, 213, 216, 220, 222, 223 king of Sicily 189 Requesens, family 263 Berenguer de 159 Bernat de 159 Galceran de, arrest 90, 92, 93 and conflict in Barcelona 43, 44, 46, 47, 55, 56, 58, 59 and Corts 79, 86 and count of Pallars 70-1 governor of Catalonia 81, 82, 85, 87 locumtenens in Catalonia 49, 50, 52, 74 and remensas 33–4, 35, 36, 38, 39, 51, 52 Requesens Dessoler, Galceran 143, 240 n. 33, 257, 258 Reus 3 Ribagorça, county 204, 232 Ripoll 156, 162, 169, 174 abbot of 182 Rocabertí, family 116 Bernat Huc de 168, 170, 171, 184, 187, 190, 196 n. 8, 214, 215, 217, 224, 226, 228 n. 5, 235 Jofre de, viscount 121–2, 145 n. 28, 161, 164, 187 n. 31, 215 Pere de 125, 130 n. 21, 145, 147, 156, 161, 169, 180, 181–2, 185, 191, 217, 233, 234 Rohan, Jean de 140, 141 Roses 120, 180, 215, 224 Rotllan, Melchior 132 Roussillon 97, 105, 119, 121, 125, 138–9, 151, 169, 177, 179, 191, 199, 216, 219, 226, 237, 241, 247, 267– 8 Rubinat, battle 122–3, 124, 130

285

Sabadell 37, 174, 213, 258 Sacosta, Pere Ramon, master of Rhodes 168 sagramentals 32, 63, 74, 255 Sala, Bartolomeu 257, 258 Pere Joan 256, 257, 258 Salses 121, 227, 231 Sampsó, Francesc 63, 116, 117 Sánchez, Guillen 201 San Pere Pescador 180 Santa Coloma de Queralt 123, 130 Santamaria, Garcia de 174 Santa Maria de Guadalupe, monastery 259 Sant Andreu 130, 132 Santa Pau 103, 109 Sant Celoni 130 Sant Cugat del Vallès 213 Santdionis, Narcis de 62 Santes Creus 167 Sant Feliu de Guixols 114, 211, 213 Santiago, Order of, see Cueva, Beltrán de la Sant Joan de les Abadesses 156, 162, 169, 188 Sant Joan les Fonts 145 Sant Jordi Desvalls 181 Sant Llorenç de la Muga 242, 243, 255 Sant Martí d’Empúries 187 Sant Mori 180 Sant Pere de Galligants, monastery 62, 63 Saportella, Bernat 149, 160, 203, 223 Sardinia 4, 7, 17, 18 Sarral 212 Sarriera, family 244 Joan 210 –11, 212, 247 Savoy, duke of 178 Schism, papal 11, 26 Segovia 129, 241 Sescortes, Francesc 181, 186 n. 27 Setantí, Lluis 221, 222, 223 Seville 193, 257 Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, duke of Milan 178, 179, 192, 208, 221 sheep rearing 4 shipping 5, 25 Sicily 4, 18, 23, 82, 126, 163, 189 Sicilian Vespers 7, 18 Silva, Fernão da 167, 169 João de 169 silver coinage 41–2, 48 Sirvent, Jofre 47 Siurana 165

286

Index

Sobrequés i Vidal, Santiago 131, 146, 147, 150 Solsona 148 spingards 118 syndicates, remensa 31, 32, 34, 37, 44, 51, 52, 113, 256, 257 in Barcelona 43, 46, 48, 49, 55, 57, 81, 85, 87, 98–9 Tamarit 134 Tangier 153, 154 Tarazona, bishop of 126 Tarragona 3, 137, 148, 180 archbishop see Urrea, Pedro Ximenez de as royalist capital 135, 149, 160, 161, 163, 170, 187, 188 siege 134–5 Tàrrega 118, 119, 123, 136, 145, 148, 158, 162, 165, 189 taxes 147, 156 Terrassa 37, 258 textiles 4, 10, 44, 56, 266 Torquemada, Juan de 262, 263 Torregrossa 136 Torrelles, Joan, count of Ischia 208, 225 Torres, Juan de 136, 145, 146 n. 30, 148 Torres de Segre 156 Torroella de Montgrí 129 –30, 211, 215, 244 Tortosa 3, 4, 90, 133, 136, 139 n.7, 148, 159 n. 26, 162, 167, 171–3, 174, 265 captain, see Belloch, Joan de trade 3, 4–5, 18, 25, 44 Trastámara, dynasty 13–14, 16, 17, 40, 128, 176, 177, 193, 268 Tudela 80, 205 Tunis 23

Valladolid 198, 200, 201 Vall d’Aran 232 Vallespir 216 Valls 3 veguer of Barcelona 58, 100, 102, 116, 243, 257 Venice 192 Verges 129, 133, 185, 214 Verntallat, Francesc 112 –14, 125, 145, 156, 162, 191, 206, 215, 254 as viscount of Hosteles 254, 255, 256, 258, 259 Vic 3, 113, 169, 173, 190, 199, 217, 243, 257 civil strife 64 – 6 chapter 109 Vicens Vives, Jaume 97, 103, 137, 223, 241, 246, 254, 258, 269 n. 43 Viladamat 187, 190, 191 Vilafranca del Penedès 92, 131, 133, 135, 148, 155, 160, 163, 205 Capitulation of 91–2, 128, 142, 224 Vilafranca d’Empúries 3 Vilamarí, family 263 Bernat de 98, 120, 130, 156 Bernat de, son of above 170, 191, 206, 217, 225, 268 n. 41 Vilanova de l’Aguda 145 Vilanova de la Muga 244, 245, 247, 248 Vilarodona 167 Vinyes, Antoni 44, 45 – 6, 47 Visconti, Filippo Maria, duke of Milan 23, 24 wages 9, 10 wool 4, 5, 59, 266

Ulldecona 162, 166 Urgell, bishop 58 Urrea, family 12 Lope Ximénez de 189 Usatges of Barcelona 51, 88, 172, 224

Xativa, castle 90, 164 n. 41, 167 Ximénez de Arévalo, Juan 138 Ximénez de Urrea, Pedro, archbishop of Tarragona 36, 87, 92, 99, 100 –1, 102, 116, 134 –5, 159, 170, 172, 219

Vaca, Pere 187 Valencia, kingdom 6, 7, 27, 28, 32, 105, 126, 144, 146, 148, 158, 167, 170, 188, 234, 243 city 6, 21, 90, 116, 132, 148, 166, 170, 199, 219, 266

Zaragoza 6, 64, 87, 90 –1, 133, 136 –7, 144, 158 n. 24, 163, 189, 195, 237 Archbishop, see Juan de Aragon Zurita, Jerónimo 128, 131, 134, 149, 190, 191, 207, 216, 223