Every 11 September, Catalonia celebrates its national day, the Diada Nacional de Catalunya.
For those who know little about its history, the choice of this date may seem surprising. The 11th of September does not commemorate a victory, but the fall of Barcelona in 1714, at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession.
How did a defeat more than three centuries ago become one of the main symbols of modern Catalonia? To understand this, we need to go back long before 1714, to the gradual formation of the Catalan counties, the Crown of Aragon, the Spanish Monarchy and the distinctive institutions Catalonia developed over the centuries.
One common thread links this long history to the Diada: for centuries, Catalonia formed part of larger political entities while retaining its own laws, institutions and forms of government. It was the disappearance of much of this institutional order after 1714 that gradually gave the date its symbolic power.
This article does not seek to defend any particular political interpretation of this history. Its purpose is simply to explain what 11 September represents, which events it commemorates and why this date still holds such an important place in Catalan collective memory.
From the Marca Hispanica to 1714
The gradual formation of the Catalan counties and their integration into the major political entities of the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean
The Marca Hispanica was the frontier zone established south of the Carolingian Empire to protect Frankish territories from Al-Andalus.
From the Franks to the Catalan counties
In 711, Muslim armies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and conquered much of the Iberian Peninsula within a few years.
At the beginning of the ninth century, the Franks sought to establish a frontier zone south of the Pyrenees facing Al-Andalus. This group of territories, traditionally known as the Marca Hispanica, was not a single administrative region and did not correspond exactly to present-day Catalonia. It was organised into several counties under the authority of Frankish rulers.
In 801, a Frankish army led by Louis the Pious, the son of Charlemagne, recaptured Barcelona from Muslim forces.
The city and its surrounding territories were then incorporated into the Carolingian realm. It was in this context that several counties began to take shape, including the County of Barcelona, whose earliest counts exercised power on behalf of the Frankish rulers.
Over successive generations, the position of count became hereditary and ties with the Frankish monarchy weakened.
Following Almanzor’s sack of Barcelona in 985 and the failure of the Frankish authorities to provide effective assistance, Count Borrell II did not renew his oath of allegiance to the new Capetian dynasty.
From the end of the tenth century onwards, the Catalan counties gradually freed themselves from Frankish authority and acquired de facto political autonomy. This was not, however, an official declaration of independence or the birth of a Catalan state in the modern sense in 988.
Over the following centuries, these counties consolidated their organisation and continued their expansion southwards.
In 1137, the betrothal of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, and Petronilla of Aragon paved the way for the dynastic union that would give rise to the Crown of Aragon. They married in 1150.
Union with Aragon: the formation of the Crown of Aragon
In 1137, a dynastic alliance brought the territories of the Count of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon together.
King Ramiro II of Aragon arranged the betrothal of his young daughter and heir, Petronilla, to the Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV.
Ramon Berenguer IV was then entrusted with the government of Aragon and given the title of prince, while Ramiro II retained the title of king. Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla did not formally marry until 1150.
Their son Alfonso later became King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, consolidating what would become known as the Crown of Aragon.
This was not a merger of two kingdoms: Aragon was a kingdom, while the Catalan territories were organised around the County of Barcelona and other counties. The different territories of the Crown retained their own laws, institutions and political traditions.
Over the following centuries, institutions such as the Catalan Courts, assemblies representing the clergy, the nobility and the towns, and the Diputació del General, the forerunner of the Generalitat, began to develop.
Ramon Berenguer IV also continued the southward expansion with the conquests of Tortosa in 1148 and Lleida in 1149. In the following century, James I conquered Mallorca and the Kingdom of Valencia, among other territories.
A major Mediterranean power
The expansion of the Crown of Aragon across the Mediterranean from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century.
Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Crown of Aragon became a major political, commercial and maritime power in the Mediterranean.
Its rulers gradually extended their influence to the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Sardinia and, in the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Naples.
Catalan, Valencian and Majorcan merchants established trading networks across much of the Mediterranean. Barcelona became one of the Crown’s leading commercial centres, alongside other increasingly important cities such as Valencia.
This Mediterranean outlook was an essential part of the economic and political history of medieval Catalonia.
The marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 paved the way for the dynastic union of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. The two political entities nevertheless retained their own laws and institutions.
The dynastic union of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon
This institutional history is essential to understanding what followed: dynastic unions gradually brought the different kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula closer together without immediately erasing their distinctive features.
In 1469, the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Aragon to Princess Isabella of Castile brought together the two leading Christian powers on the peninsula.
Isabella became Queen of Castile in 1474 and Ferdinand became King of Aragon in 1479.
This dynastic union was a fundamental step in the formation of the future Spanish Monarchy, but it did not yet create a unified Spanish state. Castile and the territories of the Crown of Aragon retained their own laws, institutions, tax systems and administrations.
In 1492, the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs brought an end to the last independent Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula and traditionally marked the end of the Reconquista. That same year, Christopher Columbus set out on his first westward voyage with the support of the Crown of Castile.
The opening of the route to the Americas gradually shifted the monarchy’s economic and political centre of gravity from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. For Catalonia, and for the Crown of Aragon more broadly, this was an important change: its Mediterranean tradition endured, but the new Atlantic expansion was driven primarily by Castile.
Charles V and the composite monarchy
In the sixteenth century, Charles V ruled a vast collection of territories in Europe and the Americas. This monarchy remained composed of kingdoms and principalities with different institutions.
Through a series of dynastic alliances, the grandson of the Catholic Monarchs became Charles I of the Spanish kingdoms in 1516 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 under the name Charles V.
He ruled a vast collection of territories: the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, the Burgundian Netherlands, Italian possessions, Austrian territories during part of his reign and the American possessions of the Crown of Castile.
Yet this great power was not a homogeneous state. It remained a composite monarchy in which the different territories largely retained their own institutions and rights.
Catalonia therefore continued to have its Constitutions, its Courts and the Diputació del General.
As the Atlantic world and the American empire grew in importance, however, Castile acquired increasing economic, fiscal and political influence within the monarchy.
The Habsburg monarchy
After Charles V, the crown passed to his son Philip II, followed by Philip III, Philip IV and finally Charles II.
Throughout this period, the monarchy’s different territories continued to maintain distinct legal and institutional systems.
In Catalonia, the Catalan Constitutions, the Courts and the Generalitat remained in place.
Tensions nevertheless arose between the monarchy and the Catalan institutions, particularly over fiscal and military demands. They culminated in the seventeenth century with the Reapers’ War of 1640.
In 1700, King Charles II, the last descendant of Charles V to rule the Spanish Monarchy, died without a direct heir. His succession triggered a crisis that rapidly became European in scale.
On 11 September 1714, Barcelona fell after a fourteen-month siege. The defeat paved the way for the abolition of Catalonia’s former political institutions and, much later, became the main historical symbol of the Diada.
The War of the Spanish Succession
It was this balance between a shared monarchy and distinct territorial institutions that would be overturned at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Two candidates claimed the succession to Charles II: Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV and a member of the Bourbon dynasty, and Archduke Charles of Austria, a member of the House of Habsburg.
Charles II’s will named Philip of Anjou as his successor, and he became Philip V.
The prospect of the French and Spanish monarchies becoming closely linked alarmed several European powers. A coalition including England, the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Habsburgs went to war against the Bourbons.
The conflict became both a European war and a civil war within the Spanish Monarchy, as supporters of both candidates could be found in different territories.
The situation in Catalonia was itself more complex than a straightforward confrontation between Catalonia and Philip V.
The Catalan institutions initially recognised Philip V, who travelled to Barcelona and swore to uphold the Catalan Constitutions at the Courts of 1701–1702.
Relations with the new government nevertheless deteriorated. In 1705, much of the Catalan political establishment joined the cause of Archduke Charles, particularly in the hope of better preserving the institutions and Constitutions of the Principality.
Catalonia then became one of the main territories supporting the Austrian cause, in other words, the cause of Archduke Charles of Austria.
1713–1714: resistance and the fall of Barcelona
From 1711 onwards, the international situation changed when Archduke Charles himself became Holy Roman Emperor.
The European powers gradually negotiated an end to the conflict. The Treaties of Utrecht of 1713, supplemented notably by the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714, brought most of the war between the great powers to an end.
The Allied forces gradually withdrew from the Iberian Peninsula.
In July 1713, the Junta de Braços nevertheless decided to continue resisting the forces of Philip V.
Barcelona then endured a long siege. On 11 September 1714, after fourteen months of resistance, Bourbon troops entered the city.
The following day, the Diputació del General and Barcelona’s Consell de Cent were abolished.
The Nueva Planta Decree of 1716 abolished Catalonia’s principal political institutions and most of its public law. It profoundly reorganised its administration along centralised lines, while preserving part of Catalan private law.
Castilian became the language of the royal administration and the new Real Audiencia. Catalan, however, continued to be widely used in everyday and social life.
The Bourbon monarchy thus established a much more centralised system than the composite monarchy of the Habsburgs.
The following centuries: from cultural memory to the restoration of autonomy
The fall of Barcelona and the abolition of the Catalan institutions did not immediately turn the 11th of September into an annual commemoration. The memory of 1714 would gradually take shape and acquire new meaning over time.
The nineteenth century saw the development of the Renaixença, a cultural and literary revival that helped restore Catalan to an important place in intellectual and cultural life.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, demands for self-government also acquired an institutional dimension. The Mancomunitat de Catalunya, created in 1914, brought together Catalonia’s four provincial councils until it was abolished under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.
Following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, a provisional Catalan government revived the historic name of the Generalitat de Catalunya in 1931.
The Statute of Autonomy adopted in 1932 subsequently established Catalan self-government with a Parliament, a Government and a President of the Generalitat.
In April 1938, during the Spanish Civil War, the Franco regime officially abolished the Generalitat and its powers.
The institution nevertheless continued to exist symbolically in exile. Following Franco’s death, it was provisionally restored in September 1977, even before the adoption of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
How the 11th of September became the Diada
It was mainly from the late nineteenth century onwards, in the context of the Renaixença and the emergence of political Catalanism, that the 11th of September gradually acquired its modern commemorative significance.
The date became a symbol of the loss of Catalonia’s former institutions, but also of the determination to preserve an identity, a language and forms of self-government.
The commemorations subsequently went through periods of official acceptance and prohibition under different political regimes.
Following the restoration of democracy and autonomy, the Parliament of Catalonia passed a law in 1980 officially designating 11 September as the National Day of Catalonia.
The Diada as we know it today is therefore the result of a long process through which the memory of 1714 was constructed. It does not celebrate the defeat itself, but what the date eventually came to represent in Catalan history.
From 1978 to the present day: Spain’s system of autonomous communities
The Palau de la Generalitat in Barcelona is the historic seat of the Catalan Government. The Generalitat was provisionally restored in 1977, before the adoption of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
Following Franco’s death in 1975, Spain began its transition to democracy.
The Constitution of 1978 affirmed the unity of Spain while recognising the right to autonomy of the “nationalities and regions” that make up the country.
Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy was adopted in 1979, and the first elections to the new Catalan Parliament were held in 1980.
Over the years, the Generalitat has exercised extensive powers in areas such as education, healthcare, culture and the autonomous police force, while the principal powers associated with national sovereignty remain the responsibility of the Spanish state.
A new Statute of Autonomy was adopted in 2006.
Its preamble recalls that the Catalan Parliament defined Catalonia as a “nation”, while Article 1 legally defines it as a “nationality” exercising self-government in accordance with the Constitution and the Statute.
In 2010, the Constitutional Court struck down or reinterpreted several provisions of the Statute and ruled that the reference to a “nation” in its preamble had no interpretative legal effect.
This decision became one of the important factors behind the rise of the independence movement in subsequent years.
On 1 October 2017, the Catalan Government held a referendum on self-determination, even though the law intended to provide its legal basis had been suspended by the Constitutional Court several weeks earlier and was subsequently declared unconstitutional.
The institutional crisis that followed led to the temporary application of Article 155 of the Constitution, the dismissal of the Catalan Government and the calling of new regional elections.
Since then, Catalonia has retained its status as an autonomous community within Spain, while its relationship with the Spanish state and the question of sovereignty continue to fuel political debate.
Why 1714 still resonates today
The 11th of September 1714 marked a major turning point in Catalan history.
Philip V’s victory paved the way for the abolition of the Principality’s former political institutions and the establishment of a much more centralised Bourbon system.
Over the centuries, this rupture has become an important part of Catalan collective memory.
Contemporary debates about language, institutions, autonomy and relations with the Spanish state are often viewed in the light of this legacy, although they naturally have their own causes, issues and actors.
The Diada therefore has no single political meaning. Depending on the individual and the period, it may be observed as a historical commemoration, a cultural and national celebration, a defence of autonomy or an expression of support for independence.
All these interpretations, however, stem from the same event: the fall of Barcelona on 11 September 1714 and the subsequent disappearance of Catalonia’s principal political institutions.
This is how a defeat more than three centuries ago became one of the main symbols of modern Catalonia.
Jim – La Tribune de Planas
