[24] "Knights of the city-state"--well-chosen words, even if they served to bridge two hopeless anachronisms. For when in 1628 the Catalan jurist Andreu Bosch coined this description of the "honored citizens" of Barcelona, neither chivalry nor independent urban polities were much the fashion in a Europe given to the expanding power of centralizing states. ⁽¹⁾ It is precisely this issue of power which engages our attention, as the history of the Barcelona oligarchy is a chronicle of power, both formal and informal. ⁽²⁾ Its sources, distribution, and the ways and means of its manipulation determined the fate of all local citizens, "honored" and otherwise, during the era of the rule of the few.

In a strict sense, of course, the designation "honored citizen" refers only obliquely to power itself. Since the days of classical Athens the term "citizen" had been employed to single out a recognized participant in urban politics. The word "honored," on the other hand, denoted neither power nor participation, but rather a certain social (and moral) standing. Those citizens "more [25] equal than others" distinguished themselves from the commonality of the republic by their claim to the higher rank conferred upon them by public opinion--in short, to "honor." The label thus blessed the coupling of power and reputation. "The honor and esteem given to the citizens," wrote Bosch, "derive from their political service and governance." ⁽³⁾ In this context, "honor" defined class boundaries, marked recognizable lines of social separation, and ultimately divided the generality of citizens into the opposed categories of rulers and ruled.

The first explicit reference to "honored citizens" dates from the early fourteenth century. ⁽⁴⁾ By that point, however, its usage merely reflected a fait accompli--one which rested on the previous differentiation of Barcelona's inhabitants into two discrete groups. As early as the twelfth century, a handful of proboms, or "distinguished citizens," claimed special positions of leadership for themselves within the municipality. The more generic poble, or "populace," developed as a residual category for the vast majority of city-dwellers condemned to a subordinate role in local affairs. Royal privileges of the later thirteenth century establishing the organs of independent civic government decisively widened this gap. Crown directives confirmed the honored citizens' monopoly over Barcelona's six Councillorships, or superior magistracies. ⁽⁵⁾ These offices, vested with sole legislative initiative and [26] authority over municipal expenditures, far outweighed in importance lesser bodies such as the plenary assembly of the Consell de Cent, or Council of the Hundred. Moreover, the procedure of election by cooptation--the selection without accountability of successors in office--ensured the citizens ongoing control over Barcelona's political life.

Despite the lack of a firm juridical formula defining its membership, there emerged a ruling class possessed of a strong sense of its own identity. Although later texts hint at the existence of an unofficial matrícula, or register of citizens, the prevailing criteria for inclusion in this group seemed studiously informal. According to Bosch, the "old way"--that is, prior to 1510--of determining membership in the elite "consisted in being considered an honored citizen in terms of treatment, respect, esteem, and distinction, or by living nobly, or through the greater honor certain persons receive in cities and towns according to public opinion." ⁽⁶⁾ Such a definition is casual only in appearance. Extension of marriage alliances, recruitment into political factions, and other strategic devices provided mechanisms for integration into an elite whose grip on government made it all too easy to recognize.

Insistence upon the role institutional power played in delineating the public identity of the oligarchy should not obscure the influence of less formal sources of cohesion and strength. In fact, the most distinctive mark of the citizenry in the eyes of contemporaries was its collective existence as a rentier class. The Abbe Xaupí, the honored citizens' most enthusiastic chronicler, underscored the explicit connection between the homogeneous economic base of the oligarchy and its control over the local polity. When posing the question of the "true estate" of an honored citizen, he singled out the qualities of "warriors living honorably from their rents, established by the feudal order within the leading [27]  cities to exercise civil and military authority." ⁽⁷⁾ Many other commentaries, however, limited characterization of the citizens to their disengagement from any but a passive economic role. "Those who live nobly off their rents, and do not work with their hands"; "distinguished city-dwellers with rents of their own, not exercising the mechanical arts"--virtually all such texts focused upon the citizens' unique economic function--or, rather, their lack of one. ⁽⁸⁾

Contemporary emphasis on the economic dimensions of oligarchical identity was not misplaced. The shared rentier existence proved vital to fostering the social differentiation by which the citizens rose from their origins as local prohoms to constitute the ruling class of the later Middle Ages. The turning point was reached when they triumphantly distanced themselves from the real loser in the struggle for local hegemony, the merchant community. The citizens' assumption of military responsibilities accounts in part for this success. ⁽⁹⁾ Even more important, however, was their gradual disengagement from the very commercial ventures which had originally financed their bid for power. Withdrawal from direct involvement in trade rested upon a skillful transposition to the urban sphere of the values and modes of behavior of the feudal aristocracy. This rudimentary system of social classification permitted citizens with a rentier income to pose as those "living as nobles do." As such it drove a wedge between a ruling group not directly engaged in economic enterprise and the vast majority of city-dwellers inescapably linked to the "mechanical arts." While in fact the wealthier merchants involved in international trade commanded economic resources far superior to those of citizen or even gentry families, the association of commerce with manual labor and the pursuit of gain derogated the former to the lower sphere of the commons. A [28] more complex and markedly inegalitarian social structure thus arose amid the ruins of the (at least theoretical) equality of the early medieval commune. Presiding over it was an elite whose pretensions to higher rank depended on maintaining distance from the world of industry and trade.

The rise of oligarchy in Barcelona did not go unchallenged. Opposition to the exclusive practices and widespread corruption of the local ruling class erupted sporadically beginning in the thirteenth century. Apart from an isolated revolt in 1285, the first widespread movement to offer a specific alternative to citizen monopoly over local government appeared in 1386. ⁽¹⁰⁾ A coalition of lesser merchants and guild masters, angered by the mismanagement of public funds and alarmed by the recent increase in municipal debt, obtained royal support for an ambitious reform of local government. The key feature of its program was a proposal to expand the number of Councillors from five to six, now to be composed of two citizens, two merchants, and two guild masters. The death of Peter IV in 1387 and his successor's hasty revocation of this legislation dashed the reformers' hopes. ⁽¹¹⁾ Nevertheless, opposition to the citizen oligarchy did not die out. It surfaced again during the turbulent decades of the mid-fifteenth century in the guise of a sindicat del poble, or "union of the people." This unique example of late medieval popular mobilization provided the nucleus of the so-called Busca, or reform party, that, with the support of royal officials, seized control of the city government in 1453. In that year, according to an outraged chronicler of the seventeenth century, King Alphonso the Magnanimous "made a huge effort to show support for the pobles menuts ['lesser people'] against the honored citizens," charging that, "the grossos [lit., 'big men'] had ruled the city up to now, and had completely robbed and ruined it." ⁽¹²⁾ The royal [29] governor suspended the annual elections for the Councillorships, and in their place filled the vacant posts with two citizens and three merchants, all members of the Busca. Other crown measures included an edict expanding the Council of the Hundred and altering the balance between the social classes represented within it. The decrees of 1454 fixed the Council's membership at 32 citizens (a category to which physicians and barristers were now added); 32 merchants; 32 artistes, or upper guild masters; and 32 menestrals, or masters from the lesser guilds. ⁽¹³⁾

The citizens and their Biga party launched a violent counterattack against this challenge to their privileges, thus plunging Barcelona into three decades of turbulent civil strife. The eventual triumph of the urban oligarchs and rural nobility following the bitterly destructive Catalan civil wars of the late fifteenth century did not remove the original causes of discontent. A new formula clearly had to be found to provide more stable municipal government. Despite various tentative measures, including the creation of separate registries for honored citizens and merchants in 1479, no significant steps were taken to redress the still-precarious situation until the middle years of the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic (1479-1516). ⁽¹⁴⁾

The royal reforms of 1490 to 1510 attempted to pacify the city by constructing a new political balance skillfully weighted in favor of the honored citizens. It was apparent that a simple return to the status quo ante bellum would not achieve civic peace. Restoring power to the citizen oligarchy depended on recasting the hitherto-informal procedures for determining both membership in the citizen group and its representation within the various organs of local government. Seen as a whole, the Fernandine program embodied four profound alterations of the municipal power structure inherited from Alphonso's privilege of 1454. First, it reduced the representation of the lower classes at the [30] highest level of city government from three Councillors to two. The separate guild magistrates (the fourth and fifth) were now combined in the figure of a single fifth Conseller, alternating each year between upper and lower guild masters. By thus lowering the status of the merchants' representative (now the fourth Councillor) and limiting artisan participation to merely one post, the effective balance of power within the magistracy reverted back to the citizens, who controlled three of the five offices. ⁽¹⁵⁾

Ferdinand also encouraged the aristocratization of local government by admitting the urban gentry for the first time to the ruling institutions of the city. The fusion in 1498 of these cavaliers with the honored citizens through the exercise of joint control over the local polity was achieved by mandating the representation of one gentleman for every two citizen Councillors. The inclusion of the gentry within these nominally citizen posts could not help but confer added lustre on the increasingly powerful oligarchy. The further aggregation of physicians and barristers to this category--a reform originally countenanced in the decree of 1454--also expanded the ranks of the composite elite.

The king sought to prevent the resurgence of the factionalism so prominent a feature of the city's recent history by instituting a system of "insaculation," or lottery, for all major public offices. Ferdinand thus hoped to neutralize the rivalries and discontent provoked by certain families' monopolizing the resources and patronage of local institutions. He initially took care to retain control over the key step in the insaculation process--the habilitació, or scrutiny governing admission to the lists of candidates. However, in 1516 Ferdinand permanently transferred this power to a commission of twelve chosen by lot among the members of the Council of the Hundred. While the Councillors apparently managed to exercise some favoritism within this seemingly neutral framework, the measure proved remarkably successful in discouraging the bitter factional disputes that so [31] often had threatened the public peace during the later MiddleAges. ⁽¹⁶⁾

Yet all these measures would have been ineffective without a more acceptable means of determining membership in the citizen oligarchy. The pressing need for a clear public definition of the composition and legal status of the honored citizenry gave rise to the capstone of the royal program: the edict of 1510, awarding noble privileges to the specific families named as ciutadans honrats of Barcelona. The decree conferred upon the citizens and their direct male descendants "all the privileges, immunities, liberties, franchises, honors, favors, and prerogatives pertaining to gentlemen and other noble persons in Catalonia. ⁽¹⁷⁾ Two exceptions were made to this sweeping concession of privileges. Honored citizens were not permitted to sit or vote in the Noble Estate during parliamentary sessions. Neither could they occupy the two positions reserved for nobles in the Generalitat, the Diputat and Oïdor Militars. In all other instances, however, citizens were to be regarded as equal to the gentry, a clause which enabled their admission to sessions of the Noble Estate when parliament was not convened. The privilege concluded with a list of the approximately 100 persons ⁽¹⁸⁾ specifically named citizens, along with provisions for the future admission of new members to the group.

The four-pronged reform program left the citizens in unambiguous if not exclusive control over the governance of Barcelona. While representatives of the craft guilds were not wholly removed from power, and even enjoyed parity with citizens and merchants in various committees, the balance of power within [32] local government had shifted back to the citizens and their new-found gentry and professional allies (see Table II-1). ⁽¹⁹⁾ The key to citizen predominance lay in the superior power of the Councillorships in relation to the larger bodies of civic government. The latter were: the Trentenari, a thirty-six member council whose principal task was to screen legislation presented by the Councillors to the Council of the Hundred; the various committees of eight, twelve, sixteen, or twenty-four members established to advise the Councillors on matters of public policy; and the Council of the Hundred itself. All legislative initiative lay with the Councillors, as did the right to name those eligible to serve on the plenary Council and in other municipal offices. ⁽²⁰⁾ The power to appoint candidates for citizen rank also rested with the magistrates.

                                                                                                                                                                           Citizens                    Upper         Lower
                                                                                                                                                                            and                           guild            guild
                                                                                                                                                                           Gentry     Merchants  masters     masters

Councillors	After 1454 reform	2	1	1	1
	After 1493 reform	3	1	2	2
Committees	Eight members	2	2	2	2
	Twelve	3	3	3	3
	Sixteen	4	4	4	4
	Twenty-four	6	6	6	6
Trentenari	Before 1498 reform	8	8	8	8
	After 1498 reform	12	8	8	8
Council of	After 1454 reform	36	32	32	32
the Hundred	After 1493 reform	48	32	32	32

SOURCES: J. Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la Ciutat de Barcelona (1936), II, chapter 8; J. P. Xammar, Civilis Doctrina Civitatis Barchinonae (1644), 191-192; C. Batlle, "Trentenari," in the Gran Enciclopedia Catalana (1979).

The oligarchy's ability to perpetuate its rule during the next two centuries rested in part upon the calculated absorption of new-comers [34]  into its midst. The royal privilege of 1510 spelled out the procedures for the appointment of new members. A typical assembly began with the call on May 1st for all honored citizens to gather at the city hall in the presence of the Councillors and other officials. After attendance was taken, the municipal notaries inscribed into the matrícula all the direct male descendants of citizens who had reached the age of twenty. If a two-thirds quorum could be established, the assembly voted by secret ballot on the candidates nominated for membership by the Councillors. The names of those lucky enough to have obtained unanimous approval were then entered in the registry, an act which brought the solemn ceremony to a close. ⁽²⁴⁾

Royal intervention soon threatened the citizens' exclusive control over the matriculation process promised in the edict of 1510. In 1519 Charles V lowered the minimum for acceptance to three-fourths of those present. ⁽²⁵⁾ He also personally named at least three honored citizens between the years 1528 and 1532. ⁽²⁶⁾ The threat of increased crown intervention had the desired effect. The citizens relaxed their tacit ban on admissions and, beginning in 1531, held regular meetings to approve new candidates for membership. The "extremely rigorous examination and most severe judgment" of election to citizen rank nevertheless obliged many potential or failed candidates to seek alternate means of gaining admission to this exclusive group. ⁽²⁷⁾ Philip II's decision to revert to his father's tactic of creating citizens by royal fiat led to the awarding of twenty-two patents prior to his [35] death in 1598. Fearing loss of control over admission to this rank, the matriculants opposed stubborn resistance to exercise of the royal prerogative. The controversy came to a head in 1586, when the head Councillor ordered the municipal notary to matriculate four lawyers created citizens by royal privilege following the parliamentary session of the previous year. Although the ciutadans de matrícula responded with a lawsuit defending their exclusive right to inscribe new members, an appellate judgment of 1588 ruled against them. The matriculants retaliated in 1591 by declaring a boycott of new admissions. However, this self-defeating measure merely lent the king added justification for awarding new privileges. ⁽²⁸⁾

In 1599 the new monarch, Phillip III, and the government of Barcelona finally reached a compromise. Threats of obstructionism in the Commons forced the crown to promise that in the future no citizen created by royal privilege would be inscribed in the matrícula. In exchange for this substantial limitation upon the royal prerogative of ennoblement, the "old citizens" agreed to inscribe all the royal nominees appointed to that date. More importantly, the matriculants finally accepted the legitimacy of the royal creation of citizens despite the exclusive powers of nomination Ferdinand had conferred upon them in 1510. ⁽²⁹⁾ The compromise of 1599 thus fostered the emergence of two different bodies of citizens. The ciutadans de matrícula, or "old" citizens, continued to be elected through the procedures established in 1510. The ciutadans de nómina reial, or "new" citizens, were appointed directly by the king. Contemporary observers unfailingly attributed higher social status to the first group. Commenting upon the legal status and privileges of Barcelona's honored citizenry, the distinguished jurisconsult Joan Pere Fontanella assigned higher social standing to the ciutadans de matrícula. "In all meetings and public acts," he remarked, "the citizens [36] made by the city, even those not yet of legal age, are to be preferred to those by royal privilege." ⁽³⁰⁾ Nevertheless, the royal potestas of naming citizens had survived a crucial challenge, and was soon exercised on a scale hardly to be imagined by the relatively tight-fisted monarchs of the sixteenth
century.

The evolution of the ciutadans de matrícula from the creation of this registry to 1699, the last year in which an assembly met to elect new members, is portrayed in Table II-2. The first admissions to citizen rank took place immediately after Charles V's intervention. The figures then level out for three to four decades prior to the dramatic rise of 1590 to 1600. The flood of new applicants began with the acceptance in 1590 of twelve nominees, the largest number of members absorbed through a single election to that date. After the matriculation of three other nominees in 1591, the citizens declared a boycott of new admissions. They did not reconvene as a body until 1600, following the compromise reached the previous year with Philip III. By that point a considerable backlog of applicants had developed, which that year's ballot duly reflected. The annus mirabilis of 1600 witnessed the creation of an extraordinary number of new citizens. These included the fifteen chosen from a total of twenty-seven candidates, a further half-dozen inscribed as a condition of the royal privilege of 1599, and some ten sons of citizens who had reached the age of twenty. ⁽³¹⁾ The first half of the seventeenth century saw the regular admission of a moderately high number of citizens, averaging some ten new members per decade. The siege of 1651-1652 and the accompanying famine and plague disrupted this steady influx; the assemblies of that decade admitted only three candidates. ⁽³²⁾ The final years of the century experienced a gradual return to earlier levels of admission, until the annual assemblies ground to a halt in 1699.

[37] The contrast between the numbers of new admissions and the sons of citizens inscribed following their twentieth birthday shows the latter consistently outstripping the former except during the extraordinary decade of the 15905. The self-perpetuation of the elite clearly depended more on the biological issue of existing citizens than on the election of new members. Still, the admission of the latter proved crucial to the continued existence of the group as a whole. Of the 250 families registered as ciutadans de matrícula during the period under study, approximately loo contributed only one member to the group. Among the remaining 150 families, 46 were represented by just two generations. ⁽³³⁾ Upward mobility out of citizen status joined biological extinction in accounting for the failure to contribute more members to the group. Hence the reproduction of the citizens as a distinct social class depended vitally upon the constant replacement of old members by new families.

The concession of royal privileges of honored citizenship of Barcelona and other Catalan cities and towns is detailed in Table II-3. ⁽³⁴⁾ The crown awarded only three letters-patent prior to 1585, when Philip II created a dozen new citizens following the conclusion of parliament. The number of ciutadans de nómina reial steadily rose during the early decades of the seventeenth century, to culminate in the dispatch of some sixty privileges in the later 1630s. The revolt of 1640 and the subsequent collapse of royal government in Catalonia accounted for the sharp drop in the number of citizens named by the king. ⁽³⁵⁾ Not surprisingly, a  [41] dramatic increase in privileges followed the reimposition of Castilian authority in 1652. ⁽³⁶⁾The later 1670s witnessed the creation of a record-breaking number of citizens. The annual averages then began slowly to taper off, and the century closed with the granting of only one privilege during the last five years of the reign of Charles II. Philip V created seven new citizens of Barcelona from 1702 to 1704, while the Pretender Archduke Charles of Austria issued some 82 patents during his brief rule (1705-1714). The Bourbons awarded a modest 206 ciutadanias prior to the abolition of this rank in the Liberal reform of 1838. ⁽³⁷⁾

Admissions to the Ciutadans de Matrícula, 1510-1699

Years	No. of mtgs.	No. of mtgs. when new members admitted	Estimated no. of cits. *	No. of new admissions	No. of sons of cits, admitted at the age of 20	Total no. of new citizens
1510-19	1	0	61-120	2**	25***	27
1520-29	0	0	--	0	0	0
1530-39	7	3	52-55	9	24	33
1540-49	8	5	36-51	14	17	31
1550-59	7	5	63-64	7	12	19
1560-69	10	9	6 1 -66	9	18	27
1570-79	9	8	61-67	8	17	25
1580-89	5	5	27-48	11****	17	28
1590-99	2	2	29-53	19****	9	28
1600-09	9	9	43-66	30*****	28	58
1610-19	8	8	44-67	10	24	34
1620-29	9	7	61-64	13	18	31
1630-39	8	7	34-52	8	19	27
1 640-49	6	6	30-46	10	14	24
1650-59	4	2	39-45	3	7	10

SOURCE: Matrícula dels Ciutadans Honrays, A.H.M.B./Mss. L-56 and L-57.

* These figures give an estimate of the approximate number of honored citizens in Barcelona. I have used two procedures in calculating the minimum number. When the 2/3 quorum was obtained at every meeting during the decade, I give the lowest number of citizens in attendance. Otherwise, I take the highest number when quorum was not achieved, multiply it by 1.5 to make up the missing third, and then add one to reach the minimum possible number of citizens. I derive the figure for the maximum by taking the lowest number at which quorum is achieved, then multiplying it by 1.5 and adding one; or I take the largest attendance figure, if it exceeds the first calculation. Naturally, the actual ceiling for this later figure may be slightly underestimated due to later admissions.The figure for the maximum of the 1510 meeting is the approximate number of honored citizens named in the royal edict of that year, combined with the sons and brothers added in 1511.

**Admitted by royal privilege of 14 Nov. 1511, adding two brothers of a citizen named in the original edict of 1510 (Matrícula,I2T.-V.).

*** This number includes the many sons and brothers of the citizens specifically named in the privilege of 1510 already over the age of twenty whose names were entered into the matrícula in 1511. There were thus in reality no new citizens admitted during this first decade (Matrícula, 10v.-iiv.).

**** These totals include seven citizens by royal privilege ordered inscribed in the matrícula.

***** This total comprises six citizens by royal privilege not voted for admission but accepted according to the compromise of 1599.
[40]

Table II-3 Admissions to the Ciutadans de Matricula, 1510-1699

Years	Barcelona	Perpignan	Girona	Lleida	Tortosa	Others*	Totals
1560-69	0	8	0	0	0	3	11
1570-79	0	8	0	0	0	3	11
1580-79	12	7	0	0	0	5	24
1590-99	10	6	4	4	0	3	33
1600-09	17	16	0	2	6	9	50
1610-19	13	9	1	1	1	6	31
1620-29	22	5	1	3	2	4	37
1630-39	80	31	4	1	0	2	118
1640-49	25	2	0	0	1	0	28
1650-59	57	15	0	0	0	0	72
1660-69	98	0	0	0	0	0	98
1670-79	101	0	0	0	0	0	101
1680-89	43	0	0	0	0	0	43
1690-99	15	0	14	0	0	0	29
Totals	493	107	24	11	13	38	686

Sources: see footnote 34.
*The other towns include: Berga, Manresa, Vic, Camprodon, Vilafranca del Penedès, Ribes, Vilafranca del Conflent, Tarragona, Puigcerdà, Cervera, Mataró, St. Joan de les Abadesses, Besalú, Sabadell, Olot, and Ripoll. 

The rates of expansion of the two groups of citizens are contrasted in Table II-4 and Graph 1. There is little difference between the level of admissions to either category at the beginning and end of the period under review. However, the dramatic expansion in royal privileges during the mid- and late-seventeenth century far outdistanced the remarkably stable number of citizens elected to the registry. Any explanation of the variation in the rate of new creations must take into account two key factors pressuring the royal government to issue these patents: the "excessive severity" of the matrícula test and the crown's own fiscal and political necessities.

Contemporary observers like Fontanella were quick to point to the highly restrictive character of the matriculation process. The rhythm of admission to the matrícula obviously failed to accommodate local demand for citizen status. The bizarre case of Joan Francesch Rossell, one of the most prominent Catalan physicians of the seventeenth century, vividly illustrates the frustration produced by failure to gain entry into the elite. In the wake of repeated rejections by the ciutadans de matrícula, Rossell finally resorted to the desperate expedient of forging a royal [43] patent in order to be inscribed along with the crown nominees included in the compromise of 1599. A group of citizens--most likely personal enemies of this apparently distasteful character-- searched the chancery registers and discovered the forgery. Rossell immediately took refuge in a local monastery, and later fled to Madrid. He finally escaped punishment for his crime through an ingenious scheme countenanced by his protector D. Joan Terés, Archbishop of Tarragona and acting Viceroy of Catalonia. Rossell arranged for a peasant who had killed a bandit to deliver the corpse to him. The doctor then promptly turned it over to the government, which, in accordance with its longstanding policy of offering pardons in exchange for outlaws brought in dead or alive, dropped the charges against Rossell and restituted him ad honorem--much to the disgust of the citizens ⁽³⁸⁾

Table II-4  Creation of Honored Citizens of Barcelona, 1516-1700

Reign	New admissions to the Ciutadans de Matrícula	Average number per year	Citizens by royal privilege	Average number per year	Totals
Charles V  1516-1558	20	0.46	3	0.07	23
Philip II  1558-1598	44	1. 10	22	0.55	66
Philip III  1598-1621	40	1.70	30	1.30	70
Philip IV  1621-1665
1621-40	21	1.1	102	5.36	123
1641-52	11	1	25	2.27	36
1653-65	11	0.92	113	9.41	124
Total	43	0.97	240	5-45	283
Charles II  1665-1700	30	0.85	201	5-74	231
TOTALS	177*	0.96	496	2.70	673

SOURCES: same as Tables II-2 and II-3.

* This total does not exactly coincide with the number of matriculants in Table II-2 due to the deliberate omission in the former list of: two citizens admitted in 1511 (i.e., prior to the reign of Charles V); seven citizens  the Audiència ordered entered in the matrícula during the 1580's and 1590's (Table II-2, note 4); and six citizens by royal privilege inscribed in 1600 (Table II-2, note 5).
 

[44] Failure to obtain election to citizen rank did not lead everyone to seek (or forge!) a royal privilege. Analysis of the fate of the dozen candidates who failed to win admission in 1600 shows that none of these went on to obtain a crown patent. Damià Prexana, a lawyer who had narrowly escaped being elected in 1600, gained admittance at the 1602 meeting. Joan Baptista Gorí, a judge of the Audiencia, was also later matriculated the year prior to his death at the hands of a lynch mob in 1640. Moreover, two of those rejected in 1600 had already obtained letters-patent of citizenship in 1599, and had merely sought to join the matrícula group as well--a telling indication of the greater prestige of the latter. Of the rest, apparently none achieved citizen status. ⁽³⁹⁾

An even more compelling explanation of the pronounced differences between the rates of creation of the two groups of citizens emphasizes the supply instead of the demand side of the equation. The crown's own motives for issuing these privileges reflected both a growing need for funds and the desire to obtain political support through a calculated strategy of individual ennoblement. Pressure upon the royal government to offer these privileges as a source of badly needed revenue increased dramatically with the onset of the Thirty Years' War. As a result, the crown sold a number of patents, especially during the early 1630s. ⁽⁴⁰⁾ Still, the outright sale of citizenship for fiscal reasons apparently did not match in overall importance the government's attempts to use these creations as mercedes, or grants, designed to drum up political support among the local elite. The coincidence between the issuing of patents and meetings of the Catalan parliament (1585, 1599, 1626) highlights a deliberate if sporadic policy of granting citizenship as a reward for political favors. The [45] flood of privileges conferred following the recapture of Barcelona in 1652 also originated in the crown's need to compensate its loyal supporters. This development confirms recent interpretations of the "neo-foral" period as one which linked the new-found political quiescence of the Catalan ruling class to substantial honorific concessions by the crown. ⁽⁴¹⁾

A singular feature of the postwar era was a pronounced attrition in the awarding of citizenship of towns outside Barcelona. Grants of honored citizen or burgess status for towns like Perpignan and Girona had longed played an integral role in the crown's policies of ennoblement. However, by the final decades of the seventeenth century, the only such privileges awarded were fourteen citizenships of Girona in 1693, a concession motivated by extraordinary local contributions to the war effort against the French. A growing geographical dispersion of those receiving patents of ciutadania of Barcelona compensated for the drop in the number of creations of citizens and burgesses of towns outside the leading city (see Table II-5). By the later seventeenth century, an impressive majority of new citizens did not originate from Barcelona. Moreover, many of the new appointees continued to live outside the capital. While all twenty-two recipients of privileges awarded by Philip II were either natives or residents of Barcelona, fewer than one-fifth of the citizens named by Charles II can be identified as such.

The crucial factor underlying the sharp rise in demand for patents of citizenship among rural elites was the rank's exemption from royal taxation. This immunity took on added importance during the second half of the century, when the crown frequently resorted to the billeting of troops as a means of offsetting diminishing income from traditional parliamentary taxation. Such generosity soon proved counterproductive, as the awarding of citizenship substantially reduced the number of eligible taxpayers in the countryside. The Council of Aragon [47] recognized the increasing difficulties these grants posed for the collection of revenue. Internal government memoranda also underscored the close connection between the excessive number of citizens created "in towns and villages" and the growing peasant unrest of the 1680's. ⁽⁴²⁾ As a result, beginning in that decade the Council began to discourage the issue of patents, and continued to implement this policy until the end of Charles II's reign. 

The trends of the seventeenth century nevertheless point to an important shift within the civic oligarchy. Since 1510 three separate groups had competed for "citizen" posts: ciutadans de matrícula; citizens by royal creation; and gaudints, or those doctors in law and medicine who, beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, also won inclusion among the candidates for the higher magistracies. The background of the 353 citizens, professionals, and aristocrats who filled the first three Councillorships from 1600 to the final lottery of November 1713 is specified in Table [48] II-6. Of the 171 Councillors from 1600 to 1654, 51 were ciutadans de matrícula, 23 citizens by royal privilege, and 97 gaudints. The 182 magistrates serving from 1655 to 1714 included 28 matriculants, now overshadowed by 39 crown nominees and 115 professionals. The dramatic erosion in the relative strength of the matriculants becomes even more clear when one recalls their unchallenged domination of the Councillorships throughout the sixteenth century. From the creation of the registry in 1510 to the compromise of 1599, only 43 gaudints and no royal citizens were admitted to over 180 magisterial posts.

Xaupi's claim that the crown nominees "did not in truth partake in the great power that the matriculants exercised" proved demonstrably false. ⁽⁴⁴⁾ Still, one should avoid attributing the royal generosity of the "neo-foral" period to a deliberate attempt by the crown to dilute the political influence of the Barcelona oligarchy by staffing it with its own creatures. The flood of royal privileges was in fact a consequence of the government's decision not to indulge in any major institutional reform of the city administration. One might expect the crown to compensate for this unique exercise in self-restraint by promoting more dependable personnel through the manipulation of patents of citizenship. Still, there are several grounds for questioning the existence of a royal policy of using these privileges as a means of weakening Barcelona's ruling class. First, among all the major contenders in Catalan politics during the seventeenth century, the members of the citizen oligarchy had proved the most consistent backers of royal policy. The crown would thus derive little benefit from hindering or replacing its most reliable local supporters. ⁽⁴⁵⁾ Moreover, the rise in the number of ciutadans de nómina reial holding Councillorships during this period should not obscure the fact that the great majority of these privileges were awarded to coqs de village in outlying rural areas who played [50] no role in the government of the city. Finally, the figures in the table clearly indicate that the foremost threat to the matriculants' preeminence came, not from the citizens by royal creation, but rather from the growing number of gaudints. The rapid increase during the late sixteenth century in the number of university graduates eligible for scrutiny had already provoked a sharp response from the ciutadans de matrícula, who filed suit to limit gaudint representation to only one physician and one barrister. However, in 1602 a royal inspection commission ruled in favor of the graduates, thus provoking (according to a delighted Pujades) an explosion of rage on the part of the citizens. ⁽⁴⁶⁾

[51] The structure of local government nevertheless remained in place without substantial alteration until its reorganization by Philip V following the siege of 1714. During the previous two centuries, and despite occasional outbursts of lower-class discontent, Barcelona's political destiny lay firmly in the hands of the citizens and their professional and aristocratic allies. Effective control over municipal government endowed this composite group with a public prominence far outstripping that of civic elites in the rest of Spain. The analogy that foreign visitors frequently drew between Barcelona's distinctive polity and northern Italian and Imperial cities bore witness to the unique power and prestige wielded by its oligarchy. In like manner, the elaborate customs and rituals of local municipal ceremonial fostered the citizens' self-image as protagonists amid the pomp and display of urban politics. Proud of their heritage, though somewhat less optimistic about their ability to influence the future, the oligarchs of Barcelona soon found themselves in charge of the last remaining Iberian city to challenge the expanding powers of the modern state. Their defeat in 1714 spelled the end of the honored citizens as leading members of the urban patriciate, and opened the path of social and political hegemony to another, more exclusive, ruling class. ⁽⁴⁷⁾
 
 

The concentration of power and prestige in the hands of Barcelona's honored citizens was far from unique. A glance at the evolution of urban society throughout the rest of Europe reveals similar patriciates consolidating their hold upon local government during the closing years of the Middle Ages. All the leading municipalities of the Crown of Aragon--Valencia, Saragossa, and Palma de Mallorca--were dominated by a [52] distinguished "citizen" class. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ Numerous Castilian cities also boasted the presence of an urban petty nobility, especially among their regidores or town Councillors. Moreover, several fifteenth-century Castilian writers referred to a ciudadano, or middling stratum, between nobles and commoners living, as in Catalonia, "not from labor, but from rents." ⁽⁴⁹⁾ Beyond the Pyrenees, rentier oligarchies in Italy and France provided close parallels with the experience of Barcelona. The bourgeoisie of many French cities in particular similarly linked dominance in local politics to an "honorable"--that is, rentier--existence. ⁽⁵⁰⁾

The shared economic base and political preeminence informing ruling-class experience throughout much of the continent should nevertheless not obscure one vital characteristic distinguishing the Barcelona elite from, say, the civic oligarchies of early modern France. The crucial difference lay in the collective ennoblement in 1510 of the honored citizens. This guaranteed the Barcelona patrician a much higher (and more secure) social status than the bourgeois, whose strident claims to noble rank were often spurned by local aristocrats. ⁽⁵¹⁾ The citizens' winning of inheritable nobility proved a decisive step on the high road of acceptance by the Catalan aristocracy. Without it, the unified civic elite of early modern Barcelona would not have emerged.

1. Bosch, Títols, 417.I have translated the vexing term ciutadans honrats as "honored citizens,"  although less literal renderings like "honorable," "distinguished," or even "noble citizens" convey  much the same meaning.

2. Contemporary Italian writers also defined civic nobility in terms of public power. See Berengo,  "Città del Antico Regime"; Borelli, "Problema dei Patriziati Urbani"; and Marrara, "Nobiltà Cívica e Patriziato."

3. Bosch, Títols, 418. Not surprisingly, terms of address also embodied such distinctions. Medieval  usage accorded honored citizens several forms of address, including mossen (equivalent to "monsieur" or  "messire"), and honorable. Later centuries witnessed a general inflation in these terms of respect. Notarial documents of the seventeenth century designate guild masters and merchants as "honorable," while reserving  the prefix magnìfic for honored citizens and university graduates.

4. Palacio, "Contribución," 312.

5. Their number was reduced to five in 1274.

6. Bosch, Titols, 413.

7. Xaupí, Recherches, 362.

8. Tristany, Discurs de les Contrafactions, 6v.; Soler, Discurs, 23; Fossa, Mémoire, 44.

9. Alós, "Disputa sobre la Nobleza."

10. Batlle, Crisis Social, I.

11. B.C./Ms. 1479, untitled history of Barcelona, 27r.-v.

12. A.H.M.B./Ms. B-44, Catálogo de Consellers de la present Ciutat de Barcelona, 22V.

13. Batlle, Crisis, II, 466-475.

14. A.H.M.B./Consell de Cent, XV, Diversorum, I, 2v.-3r.

15. Vicens, Ferran II; Reglà, "Política Municipal." A sixth full-time menestral Councillor was created in 1641: Amelang, "Oligarquia Ciutadana," 16-19.

16. The scrutiny was carried out every four years until 1587, when it became annual. The crown resumed  direct control over the habilitació following the surrender of Barcelona in 1652. See Xammar, Civilis Doctrina,  chaps. 20-22; Mercader, Fin de La Insaculación Fernandina; and Torras Ribé, Municipis  Catalans,  108-116.

17. A.C.A./Can., reg. 3558, 314r.-318v.; Solà-Morales, Création de Noblesse Patricienne, 69.

18. The exact number cannot be ascertained because of several references to unnamed relatives (e.g., "et eius fratres") within the original list.

19. Prior to 1454 virtually all Councillors were honored citizens.

20. A.H.M.B./Consellers, C-VIII, Insaculacions, I.

21. J. Montfar i Sorts, Diario de Barcelona, B.U.B./Ms. 398, 21 Jan. 1686. Monitor i Sorts was a barrister  from a prominent citizen family.

22. Soler, Discurs, 17; Xaupí, Recherches, 34.

23. Numerous examples can be found in Bosch, Títols; Soler, Discurs; and Xammar, Civilis Doctrina.

24. A.H.M.B./Mss. L-56 and 57, Matrícula dels Ciutadans Honrats. These terse minutes provide a   mere summary of the proceedings. They do not specify the number or names of all candidates for new   membership, nor the actual deliberations of the assembly itself. Chance references from diaries or the minutes of the city Council can supplement this bare outline. Nevertheless, evidence for internal history of this  group--including the criteria for admission--is quite limited.

25. Matrícula, 13r.-14r.

26. A.C.A./Can., reg. 3915, 302r.

27. Fontanella, Sacri Regii Senatus, I, 392.

28. Matrícula, 68v.-69v.

29. A.H.M.B./Ms. A-1, Copia de Varios Diarios de Sucesos Memorables, 159v.; Matrícula, ff. 72r.-76v.

30. Fontanella, Sacri Regii Senatus, I, 392. Fontanella himself was a ciutadà de matrícula.

31. Matrícula, 70r.-71v.

32. Ibid., 118v.-119r.

33. Cabestany, "Nómina de los Ciudadanos Honrados de Barcelona."

34. Llaris indices to the Chancery section of the A.C.A.; index of letters-patent of nobility during the reign of Philip IV prepared by E. González Hurtebise (manuscript in A.C.A.); Morales Roca, "Privilegios Nobiliarios:   Reinado de Carlos II." For further discussion of these figures, see Amelang, "Honored Citizens," 84, note 65.

35. The French government in Catalonia (1641-1652) awarded 210 privileges of citizenship of Barcelona (Morales Roca, "Privilegios Nobiliarios: Gobierno Intruso de Luis XIII y Luis XIV"). While the Castilian  government revoked these privileges following the restoration of 1652, some families nevertheless succeeded  in retaining citizen status.

36.This growth proved all the more significant considering the pronounced demographic contraction of Barcelona following the siege and plague of 1651-1652.

37. Morales Roca, "Privilegios Nobiliarios: Gobierno Intruso del Archiduque D. Carlos," and his "Privilegios Nobiliarios: Dinastia de Borbon, 1700-1838."

38. A.H.M.B./Ms. A-1, 160r.

39. A.H.M.B./Ms. A-25, P. Serra Postius, Senat Barcelonés, 395-397. Unfortunately, this is the
                   only document which lists the names of unsuccessful aspirants to matriculation as honored citizens.

40. Thompson, "Purchase of Nobility." The sale of nobility in Catalonia is discussed in Chapter III, below.

41. Reglà, Historia de Cataluña, 100; Kamen, "Forgotten Insurrection."

42. A.C.A./C.A., llig. 242 (47). Jaume Danti's "Revolta dels Gorretes" provides a useful introduction to this unrest.

43. Pujades, Dietari, (1600-30); Montfar i Sorts, Diario (1685-1687).

44. Xaupí, Recberches, 192.

45. Elliott, Revolt, Chapter 5.

46. Pujades, Dietari, I, 218; Fontanella, Tractatus De Pactis Nuptialibus, I, 14; Matrícula, 106v.-108v.

47. The best study of the socio-political consequences of the Nova Planta is Torras Ribé, Municipis Catalans.

48. Madramany y Calatayud, Tratado de la Nobleza, 237-501; Domínguez Ortiz, Clases Privilegiadas, 177-184.

49. Villena, Doze Trabajos de Hércules, 12; Domínguez Ortiz, Clases Privilegiadas, 52-54; Ruiz,
                    "Transformation of Castilian Municipalities."

50. Galasso, Economia e Società, 312-324; Vovelle and Roche, "Bourgeois, Rentiers, and Property  Owners"; di Coreia, "Bourg, Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie de Paris." Interestingly, Bosch discarded traditional  arguments attributing the historical origins of Barcelona's honored citizens to the Roman Senate in favor of a  connection with the burgesos of northern Europe (Títols, 411).

51. Goubert, Ancien Regime, Chapter 10.