Editing Catalonia (section)

=== Modern era ===
[[File:Cataloniae principatus 1608.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Principality of Catalonia]] (1608)]]
[[Ferdinand II of Aragon]], the grandson of Ferdinand I, and Queen [[Isabella I of Castile]] were married in 1469, later taking the title the [[Catholic Monarchs]]; subsequently, this event was seen by historiographers as the dawn of a unified Spain. At this time, though united by marriage, the Crowns of [[Crown of Castile|Castile]] and [[Crown of Aragon|Aragon]] maintained distinct territories, each keeping its own traditional institutions, parliaments, laws and currency.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Imperial Spain 1469–1716 |last=Huxtable|first=Elliott, J. H. (John)|date=2002|publisher=Penguin|isbn=0141007036|location=London|oclc=49691947}}</ref> Castile commissioned expeditions to the [[Americas]] and benefited from the riches acquired in the [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish colonisation of the Americas]], but, in time, also carried the main burden of military expenses of the united Spanish kingdoms. After Isabella's death, Ferdinand II personally ruled both crowns. By virtue of descent from his maternal grandparents, Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1516 [[Charles I of Spain]] became the first king to rule the Crowns of Castile and Aragon simultaneously by his own right. Following the death of his paternal ([[House of Habsburg]]) grandfather, [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor]], he was also elected [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor]], in 1519.<ref>{{cite web|last=Encyclopædia Britannica online|title=Charles V|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/107009/Charles-V|access-date=3 October 2012|archive-date=1 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001224341/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/107009/Charles-V|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Els segadors.jpg|thumb|''[[Corpus de Sang]]'' (7 June 1640), one of the main events of the Reaper's War. Painted in 1910]]
Over the next few centuries, the Principality of Catalonia was generally on the losing side of a series of wars that led steadily to an increased centralization of power in Spain. However, between the 16th and 18th centuries, the participation of the political community in the local and the general Catalan government grew (thus consolidating its constitutional system), while the kings remained absent, represented by a [[List of viceroys of Catalonia|viceroy]]. Tensions between Catalan institutions and the monarchy began to arise. The large and burdensome presence of the Spanish royal army in the Principality due to the [[Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659)|Franco-Spanish War]] led to an uprising of peasants, provoking the [[Reapers' War]] (1640–1652), which saw Catalonia rebel (briefly as a [[Catalan Republic (1640–1641)|republic]] led by the president of the Generalitat, [[Pau Claris]]) with French help against the Spanish Crown for overstepping Catalonia's rights during the [[Thirty Years' War]].<ref>Gelderen, Martin van; Skinner, Quentin (2002). [https://books.google.com/books?id=H1ZgD7vlFLYC&pg=PA284 Republicanism: Volume 1, Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe: A Shared European Heritage] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201016133313/https://books.google.com/books?id=H1ZgD7vlFLYC&lpg=PA284&hl=en&pg=PA284|date=16 October 2020}}. Cambridge University Press. p. 284. {{ISBN|9781139439619}}</ref> Within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia. Most of Catalonia was reconquered by the Spanish monarchy but Catalan rights were mostly recognised. [[Roussillon]] and half of Cerdanya was lost to France by the [[Treaty of the Pyrenees]] (1659).<ref name=pyrconditions>{{cite book|last=Maland|first=David|title=Europe in the Seventeenth Century|publisher=Macmillan|year=1991|edition=Second|pages=227|isbn=0-333-33574-0}}</ref>

The most significant conflict concerning the governing monarchy was the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] (1701–1715), which began when the childless [[Charles II of Spain]], the last Spanish Habsburg, died without an heir in 1700. Charles II had chosen [[Philip V of Spain]] from the French [[House of Bourbon]]. Catalonia, like other territories that formed the Crown of Aragon, rose up in support of the Austrian Habsburg pretender [[Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor]], in his claim for the Spanish throne as Charles III of Spain. The fight between the houses of Bourbon and Habsburg for the Spanish Crown split Spain and Europe.

The [[Siege of Barcelona (1713–14)|fall of Barcelona]] on 11 September 1714 to the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbon]] king [[Philip V of Spain|Philip V]] militarily ended the Habsburg claim to the Spanish Crown, which became legal fact in the [[Treaty of Utrecht]] (1713). Philip felt that he had been betrayed by the Catalan Courts, as it had initially sworn its loyalty to him when he had presided over it in 1701. In retaliation for the betrayal, and inspired by the French model, the first Bourbon king enacted the [[Nueva Planta decrees]] (1707, 1715 and 1716), incorporating the realms of the Crown of Aragon, including the Principality of Catalonia in 1716, as provinces of the Crown of Castile, terminating their status as separate states along with their parliaments, institutions and [[Public law|public laws]], as well as their {{not a typo|pactist}} politics, within a French-style centralized and [[Absolute monarchy|absolutist]] kingdom of Spain.<ref>Mercader, J. ''Felip V i Catalunya''. (Barcelona, 1968).</ref> After the War of the Spanish Succession, the assimilation of the Crown of Aragon in the Castilian Crown through the Nueva Planta Decrees was the first step in the creation of the Spanish [[nation state]].<ref>Simon, Antoni. [http://roderic.uv.es/handle/10550/34591 "Els orígens històrics de l’anticatalanisme".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220605094401/https://roderic.uv.es/handle/10550/34591|date=5 June 2022}}, páginas 45–46, ''L'Espill'', nº 24, Universitat de València.</ref> These nationalist policies, sometimes aggressive,<ref>{{cite book|isbn=978-8429723632|last=Ferrer Gironès|publisher=Edicions 62|language=ca|first=Francesc|pages=320|title=La persecució política de la llengua catalana|year=1985}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|isbn=84-7826-620-8|last=Benet|date=1995|publisher=Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat|language=ca|first=Josep|title=L'intent franquista de genocidi cultural contra Catalunya}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|isbn=9788418434983|last=Lluís|publisher=Base|language=ca|first=García Sevilla|pages=300|title=Recopilació d'accions genocides contra la nació catalana|year=2021}}</ref><ref name=":03">{{cite book|isbn=9788418849107|last=Llaudó Avila|date=2021|edition=7a|publisher=Parcir|location=Manresa|first=Eduard|title=Racisme i supremacisme polítics a l'Espanya contemporània}}</ref> and still in force,<ref>{{cite web|editor=Plataforma per la llengua|url=https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/pdf/novetats_legislatives_en_materia_linguistic02_1571310685.pdf|title=Novetats legislatives en matèria lingüística aprovades el 2018 que afecten els territoris de parla catalana |access-date=22 May 2022|archive-date=20 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020181407/https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/pdf/novetats_legislatives_en_materia_linguistic02_1571310685.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|editor=Plataforma per la llengua|url=https://plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/arxius/ambits-treball/Drets%20Ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstics/Novetats_legislatives_en_mat%C3%A8ria_ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstic-2019-ok.pdf|title=Novetats legislatives en matèria lingüística aprovades el 2019 que afecten els territoris de parla catalana |access-date=22 May 2022|archive-date=27 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220327162711/https://plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/arxius/ambits-treball/Drets%20Ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstics/Novetats_legislatives_en_mat%C3%A8ria_ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstic-2019-ok.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|editor=Plataforma per la llengua|url=https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/pdf/linguisticcossospolicials_1576579756.pdf|date=2019|title=Comportament lingüístic davant dels cossos policials espanyols|access-date=22 May 2022|archive-date=20 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020181419/https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/pdf/linguisticcossospolicials_1576579756.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> have been and are the seed of repeated territorial conflicts within the state. In the second half of the 17th century and the 18th century (excluding the parentesis of the Succession War and the post-war inestability) Catalonia carried out a successful process of economic growth and [[proto-industrialization]], reinforced in the late quarter of the century when Castile's trade monopoly with American colonies ended.