Kingdom of Aragon
medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula (1035-1707) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Kingdom of Aragon (Aragonese: Reino d'Aragón, Catalan: Regne d'Aragó, Latin: Regnum Aragoniae, Spanish: Reino de Aragón) was one of the Hispanic kingdoms of the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. It was in the central Pyrenean region in 1035 after the union of the Carolingian counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza. It expanded southward, as it took over Muslim territories, until it came to occupy the area corresponding to the current autonomous community of Aragon.
Kingdom of Aragon Reino d'Aragón (in Aragonese) Regne d'Aragó (in Catalan) Regnum Aragonum (in Latin) Reino de Aragón (in Spanish) | |||||||||||
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1035–1707 | |||||||||||
Status | Kingdom of the Crown of Aragon (since 1162) | ||||||||||
Capital | |||||||||||
Common languages | Aragonese, Castilian, Catalan, Latin, Mozarabic | ||||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||||
Government | Feudal monarchy | ||||||||||
Legislature | Cortes of Aragon | ||||||||||
Historical era | Medieval / Early Modern | ||||||||||
• County of Aragon established as independent kingdom | 1035 | ||||||||||
• Nueva Planta decrees dissolved Aragonese institutions in 1707 | 1707 | ||||||||||
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Today part of | Spain |
Not to be confused with the Crown of Aragon, a group of territories over which the King of Aragon ruled. At first it consisted of the Kingdom of Aragon itself plus the possessions of the Count of Barcelona, and later the Kingdom of Mallorca, the Kingdom of Valencia, and several territories in the Mediterranean were added by conquest. Although it was never considered a kingdom, Catalonia was one of the territories that made up the Crown, and since it had a large population and military weight, it was considered one of the "kingdoms" of the Crown of Aragon.
In 1479 the union of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile took place. However, unlike the Crown of Castile, the Crown of Aragon continued to function. The territories shared the same monarch but had different laws, institutions and ways of relating to the king until 1707. Then in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession, King Philip V, first king of the House of Bourbon, abolished its laws, abolished the Council of Aragon and the rest of its own institutions, such as the Justice, the Provincial Council or the Courts of Aragon, and imposed the laws and institutions of the Crown of Castile, through the Decrees of Nueva Planta.
Aragon would continue to be considered a territorial division of Spain until 1833, when Javier de Burgos established the territorial division by provinces, ending the division by kingdoms. The other territories of the former crown of Aragon also saw their institutions and laws abolished after the various Nueva Planta Decrees: the courts of the principality of Catalonia, the kingdom of Valencia and the kingdom of Mallorca, like those of Aragon, were from then on convened jointly with the Cortes of Castile.