Catalonia & the Balearic Islands: an historical and desciptive account

THE SPANISH SERIES C A T A L O N I A & THE BALEARIC ISLES
THE SPANISH SERIES EDITED BY ALBERT F. CALVERT

& THE BALEARIC ISLES AN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIP- TIVE ACCOUNT BY ALBERT F. CALVERT, WITH 250 PLATES
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMX Printed by BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD Tavistock Street Covent Garden London




Every stranger who crosses the Pyrenees knows that Catalonia differs in many important respects from every other province in the kingdom. He has heard that the natives speak of going into Spain as if they lived outside of it; he knows that they speak a tongue different from the Castilian; that their enterprise and activity distinguish them favourably among King Alfonso’s subjects, and they have kept well abreast of every other European community. All this is true, and it would be easy to enumerate many other peculiarities. The tendency, however, is to exaggerate the points of difference between Spaniard and Catalan, and to lose sight of their fundamental affinity. The language of Catalonia, though not a mere dialect as some suppose, is as essentially Spanish as the Castilian. It was spoken by those Hispani who were driven out of Spain by the Saracens and returned in the ninth century to settle in the north-east corner of the country. Thus Catalan language and people were born in the very heart of the Peninsula and have since been confined to a portion of it only by political causes. There is, of course, no such essential difference between Catalans and Castilians as between Welsh and English, Bretons and French. Both are branches of the great Iberian family. If Catalonia were an independent State, it would be its affinity to Spain that would impress us most, and set us wondering, as we do in Portugal, how two countries so much alike could continue politically distinct.