Era Querimònia: how the tiny Val d’Aran was a self-governed free country with no feudalism from the 1200s until 1834
After the battle of Muret in 1213, where the Crusaders and the Kingdom of France defeated the Catharists (an sincretic religion that interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ based on a life without luxury, which was very spread in Occitania and part of Catalonia and greatly persecuted for centuries by the Catholic Church) and the Catalan and Aragonese army, France occupied all the Occitan territories and started an enormous persecution of the Catharists that lasted for over two centuries, until their annihilation.
WHAT IS THE ARAN VALLEY?:
The Aran Valley (in Aranese, the local dialect of Occitan, Val d’Aran) is a small valley situated in the middle of the Pyrenees mountain range, at the southern part of Occitania, bordering Catalonia in its South and East, and Aragon in the South-West. Because of their situation, the Val d’Aran was given the choice: follow the rest of Occitania and be occupied by France, or become part of its neighbor and ally Catalonia.
Seeing the defeat of the Occitans, very closely related to the Catalans in language and culture and who shared political relationships until the defeat in Muret, the Aranese decided to join Catalonia, since Catalonia had promised to renognise the Valley’s own traditional organization.
The Val d’Aran, officially part of Catalonia, was de facto independent and kept its language, culture and organization under the protection of the Crown of Catalonia and Aragon.
Many treatises and other documents were signed by Catalonia recognising Val d’Aran’s uniqueness, but the most important one is probably Era Querimònia (in the photo above). This document was signed in 1313 by king James II of Catalonia and Aragon recognising that
the Aranese forests, mountains, water, fishing and hunting are common property only of the Aranese people. They can’t belong to any private person, and can be used by all inhabitants.
Aranese people do not work for the king, there is no royal servitude in Aran
that Val d’Aran has the right to its own political administration, law and its own traditional economic system
that the Valley is not under the rule of the Catalan-Aragonese kings, and the Aranese people are not subjects of any king. But Aran is directly tied and protected by the House of Barcelona (the kings of Catalonia-Aragon), meaning that it is protected from the fights between different feudal lords.
As a result, Val d’Aran was a self-governed, feudalism-free country for centuries, and nowadays most of the Valley is still public property.
Era Querimònia remained the law regulating the relationship between Val d’Aran and Catalonia from 1313 until 1839, when Spain abolished the Aranese self-government.
SPAIN’S INVASION OF CATALONIA AND ARAN’S FATE:
In the year 1714, Catalonia lost the War of Spanish Succession and lost its independence: losing its own government institutions, the right to speak the Catalan language, its traditonal law system (much more democratic than the Spanish one) and became a possession of Spain where the Spanish language and culture had to be imposed, and governed by Spanish “gobernadores” appointed by the Spanish monarchy. (We talked about that in this post)
But the Aran Valley remained the only part of the former Catalan-Aragonese territories with its traditional laws and institutions. Spain could not manage to control the tiny valley shielded by the mountains.
But in 1834, the Kingdom of Spain suspended the Conselh General d’Aran (“General Council of Aran”, Aran’s traditional government) and imposed in the Valley the new Spanish administrative system of provinces, forcing Aran inside the Lleida province.
The Aranese language could not be legally used in schools or documents, and it suffered especially brutal repression during the fascist dictatorship of general Franco in Spain (1939-1975), but the language resisted in the people and is still spoken nowadays.
VAL D’ARAN’S RIGHTS NOWADAYS:
After the ending of the fascist dictatorship, the different cultures under Spanish rule got some of their rights restored, such as the ending of language persecution (even if we still face discrimination nowadays). In the first moment, Aran was integrated into the Spanish administrative unit of Catalonia.
On 17th June 1991, after 156 years, the Conselh General d’Aran was restored. This day is celebrated in the valley as the Hèsta d’Aran (the Festivity of Aran).
The regional Government of Catalonia has since recognised the Aranese government as an equal, and the Aranese government has the power in the Aran Valley on most matters. Both governments hold frequent meetings where the Aranese expose their demands. The Aran Valley is also not integrated into the Catalan administrative system of comarques (shires), but is instead the only parçan (the traditional Occitan administrative region) of Catalonia.
The Aranese language is official in all of Catalonia and is the language used in public education in the Aran Valley.
Catalonia also legally recognises the Aran Valley as its own nationality, and Catalan law even recognises the Val d’Aran’s right to self-determination, which means that any time the Aranese people want to they can vote on a referendum and become independent from Catalonia.
The problem is that these rights are recognised by the Government of Catalonia, but not by the Government of Spain, who holds the supreme power. Catalonia’s government has pledged to give even more self-rule to Aran once Catalonia becomes independent, since it can’t be done under Spanish law.
Sources: Jornalet, Viquipèdia
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