FAmily matters

6The black death.

Many people died in the 14C as a result pof crop failures, wars or diseases.  The plague appeared in Europe in 1347. It was a deadly epidemic caused by a bacterium that is trasnmitted to humans by feas or black rays. More than a third of Europ´'s population died and took 150 years to recover. As a rsult, fewer farmers, abandoned lands, bad harvests, declining nevenues of the nobles and monasteries.. And nore fights to improve tham.RThe nobles rinforced serfdom, wich led to peasant´s levolts. Food shortages and the decline of the craftwork were also causes of riots in the cities , which often ended up paying minorities due to religious fanaticism

7.Castile and Aragon in Middle Ages.

Although Portugal's independence in the 12C, Castilla y Leon will stay together sice the reing of Ferdinand III, the conqueror of the Guadalquivir Valley, givin rise to the CROWN OF CASTILE.

The Castilian monarchy was more powerful tan the other peninsular kingdoms, partly because only there was just a parliament to the entire crown, but in the 14C it also suffered from the plague, the noble struggles, peasant revolts and civil wars. Thus reconquest remained paralyzed a century and a half.

While the economy was based as usual during the Middle Ages in agricultura, it was vey important sheep farming, whowoe wool was exported to Flanders. Alfonso X the wise founded the honourable council of mesta, an association of noble stockbreeders who enjoyed many privileges to practice transhumance with their herds through the glens of the kingdom. This enriched more noblemen, but hurt the textile burgeoise.

The civil wae 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.

7.2 Aragon and Catalonia, joined in 1150, giving rise to the CROWN OF ARAGON, whose king Jaime I the conqueror reached to conquer valencia and the Balearic islands in the 13C. His successors, expanded for the Mediterranean (Sicily, Sandinia, Naples). This sea trade was the basis of the wealth of the kingdom.

The catalan-Aragonese monarchy was more in favour of agreements than castilian, among other things because there was a parliament in every realm (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia) and the could make some laws with the king, because here urban burgeoise was also very powerful,, together with nobles and clergy. Each kingdom retained its own laws and usages.

King Martin I the Humane died en 1410 without an hier, representatives of the three parliaments reached a Commitment in Caspe and chose as king a Castilian prince from transtamara family, Fernando de antequera.

Plague affected Catalonia, exacerbating peasants conflicts due to the outrages of noblemen, and conflicts between the grat merchants, who controlled the munucipal government, and small artisians of Barcelona.