Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/486

 CATALONIA

428

CATALONIA

clergy: the letter of St. Jerome "ad Nepotianum suum" (Rome, 1740) and St. John Chrysostom's work on the priesthood (De Sacerdotio, Rome, 1740 >. His (rare) historical treatise on the reading of the Gospels at Mass, its origin, ancient usages, etc. ("De codice Evangelii", Rome, 1733; see "Ada erudit. Lips. ". L735, 497-99) is yet highly appreciated by all Iiturgists. He belongs also among the best historians of the oecumenical councils by reason of his edition of their decrees, which Father Hurler calls a very learned (plane docta) work, "Sacrosancta concilia cecumenica commentariis illustrata" (Rome, 1736- 49). Finally, he offers no slight interest to the ecclesiastical scholars of the New World because of his new edition (Rome, 1753, 6 vols, in fol.) of Car- dinal d'Aguirre's "Collectio maxima conciliorum Hispaniae et Novi Orbis", i. e Mexico and South America (first published at Rome, in 1693).

Hurter, Nomenclator ; Thalhofkr, Liturgik, (Freiburg, 1883),!, 102; Buchberger, Kirchl. Handlex. (Munich, 1906),

Thomas J. Shahan.

Catalonia, a principality within the Spanish Monarchy, occupying an area of 12,414 square miles in the north-east corner of the Iberian Peninsula. The name is derived either from the compound Goth- Alania, referring to the occupation of that region by the Goths and Alans, or from Gothaland, or from Cata- lanos, supposed to have been the name of an indig- enous people identical with Ptolemy's Catalauni, or, according to others again, from Otger Catalo, a hero of the Eastern Pyrenees who vanquished the Saracens about the year 756. The principality forms a right- angled triangle, of which the least side lies along the Eastern Pyrenees, the greater leg of the right angle forming the boundary of Aragon, while the hypote- nuse of the triangle is represented by the Mediterra- nean coastline. Thus Catalonia is bounded on the north by France (the ancient province of Roussillon) and the little independent republic of Andorra, on the west by Aragon, on the south-west by Valencia, and on the east by the Mediterranean. Its surface slopes gently from the Pyrenees down to the sea-coast on t he one side and the basin of the Mediterranean on the other, the eastern portion being drained directly into the Mediterranean by the Ter and Llobregat rivers, the western by the Noguera and Segre into the Ebro. Of these rivers, only the Ebro is really navigable in any part of its course, though the Segre is used as a waterway for timber and the produce of the upland country.

According to the census of 1900, Catalonia had a population of 1,960,620 — an average of about 157.25 to the square mile. Its climate, somewhat cold in the north-east, is generally very temperate, the olive and fig being cultivated throughout, and the orange in the maritime regions, which compare in beauty with the most celebrated portions of Greece and Italy.

History. — Peopled, according to the most prob- able opinion, by Iberian races, Catalonia was from the earliest ages invaded by foreign settlers, the Greeks in particular founding the colonies of Rhodon (Rosas) and Emporion (Ampurias) on the beautiful Gulf of Rosas. The Carthaginians left no traces of their presence in Catalonia, although Hannibal marched across it; but the Romans, conquerors of Carthage, making I hemselves mast its of the country, founded its civilization and it.:- language. The Catalan language, a neo-Latin dialect, differs from Castilian chiefly in the absence of doubled vowels and in the suppression of the unaccented syllables which follow an accent (e. g. temps, for Castilian tiempo, "time"; foe for fuego, "fire"). Catalonia forms pari of the Roman Hispania Tarraconensis and Citerior, and the Country is still full of Roman remains. It next Formed the first State established by the Goths in

Spain, Astolfo having set up his court at Barcelona.

When the Arabs took possession of Spain the lot of the Catalans was particularly hard, since their country, lying directly in the path which the Emirs followed on their victorious expeditions into Gaul, found it impos- sible to begin such a struggle for independence as t lie Asturians and the Aragonese had begun. But after the conquest of the Mohammedans by Charles Martel, and their expulsion from Gallia Narbonensis, the Catalans could lift up their heads among the recesses of the Pyrenees, where they gathered under the leadership of Quintillian, an independent chief in the district of Montgrony. Soon Charlemagne began his expeditions into Catalonia (77S), conquering Gerona, Barcelona, Ausona (the modern Vich), and I'rgel. Louis the Pious, son and successor of Charlemagne, formally undertook the conquest of Catalonia, which, under the name of Marca Hispanica (the Spanish March), he entrusted to Borrel. This district was ruled by dependent counts from S01 to S77, and in the latter year this dignity was made hereditary by the Diet of Quercy, Wilfrid the Hairy beginning a dynasty of counts who in a short time became independent. Wilfrid set the boundaries of his dominions at the rivers Segre and Llobregat, and founded the monas- teries of Ripoll and Montserrat, the two centres of Catalan national life.

Wilfrid was succeeded by Borrel I, Sutler, and Borrel II, in whose time Almansor took and sacked Barcelona (9S5). In this period we find Catalonia divided into various countships — Barcelona, Ausona, Urgel, Ampurdan, Perelada, Besalu, Gerona, etc. — now united, now separated, until the time of Berenger III. Ramon Berenger I, the Old (1035-1076), pub- lished the Usatges (Customs), the first civil code of the Reconquest (1071), and left the throne to his two sons, of whom Ramon Berenger II, called the Fratri- cide, because he was believed to have put his brother to death, was vanquished in an ordeal by combat, and journeyed to the Holy Land in penance for his crime. Ramon Berenger III, the Great, married Dulcia, heiress of Provence, united the two countships, and entered upon the Aragonese policy of intervention in Italian affairs. Ramon Berenger IV. the Saint, mar- ried Petronilla, daughter and heiress of Ramiro the Monk, thus bringing about the union (1 137) of Aragon and Catalonia (see Castile and Aragon); he also finished the reconquest of Catalonia, capturing the cities of Tortosa and Lerida. After Alfonso-Ram6n, who succeeded to the kingdom and the countship in 1162, the histories of Catalonia and of Aragon are one. Especially worthy of note here are the conquests of Valencia (1238) and the Balearic Isles (1229), won chiefly by Jaim6 the Conqueror. The latter were peopled mostly with Catalans, as the island dialects prove, the Majorcan still preserving a base of archaic Catalan, while in the Valencian there is an influx of Aragonese. The Order of Mercy, for the redemp- tion of captives, originally an order of knighthood, was founded on Catalan soil, in 1223, by St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymund of Penafort. In 1225, Philip the Bold. jiing ci France, laid siege to Gerona and was defeat^ or. the Coll de les Panises. An expedition of Catalan and Aragonese allies, sum- moned to the Levant by the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus Pakeologus, and commanded by Roger de Flor, founded, in 1313, the Latin Duchies of Athens and Neo Patra. Lastly, it was with Catalan sailors and fleets that the kings of Aragon, inter- vening in the affairs of Italy, possessed themselves of the Kingdom of Sicily i 1282) and Naples 1 1420).

Castilian influence began to make itself felt in Cata- lonia from the time when the Castilian dynasty, in the person of Fernando I, of Antcqucra, ascended 'he throne of Aragon. The first important collision between Catalonia, and her Castilian rulers had its Origin in the persecution which Juan II, the husband of Dona Juana Enriquez, carried on against his son.