The Crown of Aragon and Catalonia

(Today part of: region of Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia in Spain)

Crown of Aragon and Catalonia was, in fact, a union of autonomous areas. Aside from being separated by different languages, both parts kept their own institutions, political structures, tax and legal systems as well, so their mutual king dealt with them separately. The coastal Catalan cities maintained a large and well-armed fleet that enabled the king of Aragon to conquer the Balearic Islands (1229), which had gained him a foothold for further expansion across the Mediterranean. The Crown’s expansion occurred on land as well, to the south, towards Valencia, which they conquered in the context of the Reconquista (1236), which was one of the key moments in the process of the Reconquista, seen as how the city represented a crossroads of continental and sea routes. Valencia will soon after become the third kingdom of the Crown.

 Pushing towards the eastern Mediterranean, the Crown will help the Sicilians overthrow the Anjou dynasty (1282) which became the cause for a twenty-year war which ended in the splitting-up of the kingdom into the Aragon Sicily and the Anjou peninsula with Naples. Although, the separation of these territories, their political and cultural differences, as well as their economic structures, predated the Sicilian Vespers by centuries. Later, at the height of its power during the 14^th and the 15^th centuries, the Crown of Aragon will control a great part of the eastern Pyrenean peninsula and the “Mediterranean Empire” that included, apart from the aforementioned Balearic Islands and Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, as well as the Kingdom of Naples as and, for a short time, Provence, Montpelier, the Duchy of Athens, and Corsica.