The Catalonian Revolt (1640)
by From 1635 billeting of Castilian and Italian troops in Catalonia under terms of the ‘‘Union of Arms’’ proclaimed by Olivares added to the heavy tax burden he imposed to pay for the protracted wars of Imperial Spain.
There was also a growing sense in Catalonia that the Empire was failing, and a corresponding rise of local patriotism which took a sharply devotional form among peasants. In May 1640, agrarian workers known as ‘’segadors” (”reapers”) attacked tax collectors and soldiers in the towns. The mobs congealed into a peasant army whose leaders proclaimed a holy war against the corrupt and oppressive Spanish state (a change from earlier peasant disturbances that the clergy aimed at Jews, Moors, ”heretics” or ”Turks”). On the feast of Corpus Christi (June 7, 1640), a mob from the peasant ”Christian Army” entered Barcelona where they cornered Philip IV’s viceroy and beat him to death in the street.
The urban elite of Catalonia shared many of the peasants’ grievances, but they feared to rebel and were frightened by this display of lower-class violence. In December an Imperial army entered Catalonia from Castile. Popular agitation demanded a fight as rebel leaders proclaimed a Catalan republic. This complicated their appeal to Louis XIII of France to take them under his protection in exchange for their acceptance of his title as ”Count of Barcelona.” This appeal to a foreign monarch and historic enemy of the Habsburgs made the Catalan rebels unforgivable traitors in the eyes of Madrid.
For the next 11 years Catalonia was fought over by France and Spain, and by pro-French and pro-Spanish Catalans, in what was called locally the ”guerra dels segadors.” In October 1652, resistance finally crumbled and Barcelona surrendered to the armies of Philip IV.
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