THE PRINCIPALITY OF CATALONIA
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.
The superior enterprise and energy of the Catalans may be attributed less, I think, to racial differences than to historical and geographical causes. Far removed from the scene of the secular struggle with the Moor, and dwelling on the marge of the sea which was the principal commercial arena of the ancient and mediæval world, the people of Catalonia had from a very remote period opportunities for development denied to the inhabitants of every other part of Spain. The Moors were expelled from Barcelona at the beginning of the ninth century. Catalonia had thus a start of more than four centuries over Seville, and of six over Malaga—to say nothing further of the incontestable advantages of her geographical position.
Without wishing, it need hardly be said, to depreciate the progressive tendencies of the Catalans, I confess I am inclined to attribute them, not to any racial superiority over other Spaniards, but mainly to the causes I have indicated.
Catalonia thus bears witness to the aptitude of the Spaniard, for the most active forms of commercial and industrial life, to his ability to keep in the van of progress. The lead given by Barcelona will inevitably be followed by all the other towns in the kingdom, now that the special circumstances which retarded their development have been removed. In the most populous city of Spain I fail to recognise a miracle or the work of another people than the Spanish. I see instead the results of Spanish enterprise and capacity singular only in having had the opportunity to assert itself.
From the day—it was in the year 813—that the fleet of the Count of Ampurias gloriously defeated a Saracen squadron off the Balearic Isles, Catalonia has looked seaward. It was on the wave that the men of Barcelona found glory and riches. They were the rivals of the Pisans, Genoese and Venetians, and can boast a maritime history far longer and hardly less glorious than our own. It is recorded in one of the best historical works ever written, the “Memorias sobre la Marina de Barcelona,” by Don Antonio de Capmany y Palau, published in 1779. The learned author contrasts the naval eminence of Barcelona with that of other powers, and assigns the city a higher rank than England and Portugal. In the middle of the Eleventh century, laws regulating and favouring commerce and providing for the suppression of piracy were decreed by Count Ramon Berenguer II. In the year 1114, the third Count of that name assisted, with his own fleet, the Pisans in the reduction of the Island of Majorca; in 1147 Almeria was attacked and plundered by the allied fleets of Barcelona and Genoa; and in the following year another naval victory added Tortosa to the principality.
The conquests of the great King James of Aragon gave a great impetus to the commerce of Barcelona as well as to the development of arts and letters. The extension of the city’s relations to the Levant and Egypt led to the appointment of consuls in all the parts frequented by Catalans. A Maritime Code was promulgated in 1258, and soon became very generally adopted throughout the Mediterranean. A second time the hardy sailors of Barcelona drove the pirates from their nest in the Balearics, the islands this time remaining definitely annexed to the crown of Aragon. All the ships were furnished by the city on this occasion, and the King named as commander Ramon de Plegarnoás, a rich citizen, expert in naval affairs.
In the thirteenth century, Aragon (or in other words, as regards the sea, Barcelona) was the most formidable power in the Mediterranean. Her merchant princes competed successfully with the traders of Genoa and Venice, at the farthest ports of Egypt and Syria. King James when appealing to the States of Aragon for a subsidy to carry on the war against the infidel, reminded them that if Majorca were lost, Catalonia would lose the dominion and absolute power she exercised over the sea. Montaner, the Froissart of his nation, has bequeathed to us a stirring chronicle of the expedition (in which he took part) of the Catalans to Greece under the leadership of Roger de Flor. In the year 1332, Philip of France, when about to embark on the Crusades, was advised to entrust the management of the expedition exclusively to the Genoese and Catalans, these being provided with the best ships and seamen, and the most experienced in naval matters. As late as the year 1467, the Grand Signior found it expedient to pay an indemnity to the King of Aragon to secure immunity for his coasts from the persistent attacks of the dreaded privateers of Barcelona. It is with reason that Capmany attributes to the seamanship of the Barcelonese the extension of the power of Aragon over the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. Upon the consolidation of Spain at the beginning of the sixteenth century and the rise of the great modern States, the city was eclipsed as a sea power. Its merchants looked with little favour on the discovery of America, an enterprise promoted by Castile. Of the reception of Columbus here by the Catholic Kings, not one word is said in the archives of the city.
Soon after, Barcelona just escaped becoming the scene of a discovery almost as important as that of the New World. Here, says O’Shea, on January 17, 1543, a ship of 200 tons was launched, propelled by two wheels driven by steam. The inventor was Blasco de Garay, and the trial was successfully made in the presence of a royal commission. The King’s treasurer, one Ráongo, for some personal motive it is said, drew up a report unfavourable to the invention, declaring the ship made only six miles in two hours, and that the boiler was likely to burst. Perhaps this report was not ill-founded, for though Garay received a grant of 200,000 maravedis in addition to his expenses, he made no further progress with his invention. The fate of this and many other experiments with steam in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries seems to prove that our ancestors rather failed to recognise the necessity of any improvement in the means of locomotion, than wanted the skill to effect it. It will be remembered that Mr. Shandy thought that on economical grounds alone the inventors of mechanical means of transport should be discouraged. A useful invention with which the Barcelonese may fairly be credited, is marine insurance.