Kingdom of Galicia

The Kingdom of Galicia (Galician: Reino de Galicia, or Galiza; Portuguese: Reino da Galiza; Latin: Galliciense Regnum) was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which at its territorial zenith occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Founded by Suebic king Hermeric in 409, the Galician capital was established in Braga, being the first kingdom which adopted Catholicism officially and minted its own currency (year 449). After the temporal rule of the Visigothic monarchs (585–711), Galicia became a part of the newly founded Christian kingdoms of the Northwest of the peninsula, Asturias and León, while occasionally achieving independence under the authority of its own kings.

Compostela became capital of Galicia in the 11th century, while the independence of Portugal (1128) determined its southern boundary. The accession of Castilian King Ferdinand III to the Leonese kingdom in 1230 brought Galicia under the control of the Crown of Castile, the kingdom of Galicia becoming an administrative division within the larger realm.

Galicia resisted central control, supporting a series of alternative claimants, including John of León, Galicia and Seville (1296), Ferdinand I of Portugal (1369) and John of Gaunt (1386), and was not brought firmly into submission until the Catholic Monarchs imposed the Santa Hermandad in Galicia. The kingdom of Galicia was then administered within the Crown of Castile (1490–1715) and later the Crown of Spain (1715–1833) by an Audiencia Real directed by a Governor which holds also the office of Captain General. The representative assembly of the Kingdom was then the Junta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, which briefly declared itself sovereign when Galicia alone remained free of Napoleonic occupation (1808–1809). The kingdom and its Junta were dissolved by Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies in 1834.