Catalan Civil War

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The Catalan Civil War, also called the Catalonian Civil War or the War against John II, was a civil war in the Principality of Catalonia, then part of the Crown of Aragon, between 1462 and 1472. The two factions, the royalists who supported John II of Aragon and the Catalan constitutionalists (Catalanists, pactists, and foralists), disputed the extent of royal rights in Catalonia. The French entered the war at times on the side on John II and at times with the Catalans. The Catalans, who at first rallied around John's son Charles of Viana, set up several pretenders in opposition to John during the course of the conflict. Barcelona remained their stronghold to the end: with its surrender the war came to a close. John, victorious, re-established the status quo ante bellum.

For the royalist side, the "rebels" were for having betrayed the fidelity they had sworn to their king; while the anti-royalists considered the royalists "traitors" for not being faithful to the laws of the "land", for being "enemies of public affairs" or simply for being "bad Catalans". Thus, the anti-royalist side developed a new conception of political society in which, according to Catalan historians Santiago Sobrequés and Jaume Sobrequés, "solidarity among the men of a country was produced by having common laws and inhabiting the same land, not as, until then, by the fact of being vassals of the same sovereign». Thus, the modern concept of homeland had emerged that went beyond mere territorial ascription to take on a legal character, so the Catalan rebellion would be, as the French historian Joseph Calmette described, "the first of modern revolutions', hundred years before the Dutch Revolt.