Catalonia (historic Territory) - The Term Principality

The Term Principality

The counts of Barcelona were commonly considered the princeps or primus inter pares ("the first among equals") by the other counts of the Spanish March, both because of their military and economic power, and the supremacy of Barcelona over other cities.

Thus, the count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer I, is called "Prince of Barcelona, Count of Gerona and Marchis of Ausona" (princeps Barchinonensis, comes Gerundensis, marchio Ausonensis) in the Act of Consecration of the Cathedral of Barcelona (1058). There are also several references to the Prince in different sections of the Usages of Barcelona, the collection of laws that ruled the county since the early 11th century. Usage #64 calls principatus the group of counties of Barcelona, Gerona, and Ausona, all of them under the authority of the count of Barcelona.

The first reference to the Principatus Cathaloniae is found in the convocation of Cortes in Perpignan in 1350, presided by the king Peter IV of Aragon. It was intended to indicate that the territory under the laws produced by those Cortes was not a kingdom, but the enlargement of the territory under the authority of the Count of Barcelona, who was also the king of Aragon, as seen in the "Actas de las cortes generales de la Corona de Aragón 1362-1363". However, there seems to be an older reference, in a more informal context, in Ramon Muntaner's chronicles.

As the Count of Barcelona and the Cortes added more counties under his jurisdiction, such as the County of Urgell, the name of "Catalonia", which comprised several counties of different names including the County of Barcelona, was used for the whole. The terms Catalonia and catalans were commonly used to refer to the territory in Northeastern Spain, as well as its inhabitants, and not just the county of Barcelona, at least since the beginnings of the 12th century, as shown in the earliest recordings of these names in the Liber Maiolichinus (around 1117-1125).

The term Principatus Cathaloniae or simply Principatus never achieved official status as the various covers of Catalan constitutions prove, until Philip V of Spain used it to describe the Catalan territories in the Nueva Planta decrees. In 1931, Republican movements favoured its abandonment because it is historically related to the monarchy.

Neither the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, Spanish Constitution nor French Constitution, mention this denomination, but, despite most of them being republican, it is moderately popular among Catalan nationalists and independentists.