The Black Death and the Iberian Kingdoms in the Middle Ages

The Black Death

Many people died in the 14th century as a result of crop failures, wars, or diseases. The plague appeared in Europe in 1347. It was a deadly epidemic caused by a bacterium that is transmitted to humans by fleas or black rats. More than a third of Europe's population died, and it took 150 years to recover. As a result, there were fewer farmers, abandoned lands, bad harvests, and declining revenues of the nobles and monasteries...and more fights to improve them. The nobles reinforced serfdom, which led to peasant revolts. Food shortages and the decline of craftwork were also causes of riots in the cities, which often ended up paying minorities due to religious fanaticism.

Castile and Aragon in the Middle Ages

The Crown of Castile

Although Portugal gained independence in the 12th century, Castile and Leon stayed together since the reign of Ferdinand III, the conqueror of the Guadalquivir Valley, giving rise to the Crown of Castile.

The Castilian monarchy was more powerful than the other peninsular kingdoms, partly because only there was just one parliament for the entire crown, but in the 14th century, it also suffered from the plague, the struggles of the nobility, peasant revolts, and civil wars. Thus, the Reconquista remained paralyzed for a century and a half.

While the economy was based, as usual during the Middle Ages, on agriculture, sheep farming was very important, whose wool was exported to Flanders. Alfonso X the Wise founded the Honorable Council of Mesta, an association of noble stockbreeders who enjoyed many privileges to practice transhumance with their herds through the valleys of the kingdom. This enriched more noblemen but hurt the textile bourgeoisie.

The civil war between Pedro I, supported by the cities and the Jews, and his half-brother Henry of Castile, supported by the nobility, was won by the latter.

The Crown of Aragon

Aragon and Catalonia joined in 1150, giving rise to the Crown of Aragon, whose king, Jaime I the Conqueror, managed to conquer Valencia and the Balearic Islands in the 13th century. His successors expanded throughout the Mediterranean (Sicily, Sardinia, Naples). This sea trade was the basis of the wealth of the kingdom.

The Catalan-Aragonese monarchy was more in favor of agreements than the Castilian monarchy, among other things because there was a parliament in every realm (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia), and they could make some laws with the king because the urban bourgeoisie was also very powerful, together with the nobles and clergy. Each kingdom retained its own laws and customs.

King Martin I the Humane died in 1410 without an heir. Representatives of the three parliaments reached a Commitment in Caspe and chose as king a Castilian prince from the Trastámara family, Fernando de Antequera.

The plague affected Catalonia, exacerbating peasant conflicts due to the outrages of noblemen and conflicts between the great merchants, who controlled the municipal government, and small artisans of Barcelona.