Medieval Barcelona
- Carlos Felipe Holguin Isaza
- Feb 27, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Feb 27, 2024
By: Carlos Felipe Holguín
The medieval city
Few places evoke the cultural richness of the Middle Ages as countless Spanish and Italian cities still do, cities that despite the passing of urban fashions, keep alive the complex system of alleys that at some point wove a complex thread of social relations, commercial exchanges and traditions amalgamated into a great pulsating fabric of civilization. The Middle Ages have had a shattered legacy in universal history, partly a product of the black legend that emerged during the Renaissance and industrialization, placing it as a period immersed in the darkness of religious obscurantism and dominated by misery, inequality and... diseases; so far from any ideology of beauty that later urban movements strove to correct. This brief story is a guided tour through the heart of one of my favorite cities, Barcelona, whose particularity, beyond its scenic beauty in the Mediterranean that makes it one of the main tourist destinations in Europe, is given by the preservation of the medieval city protected by the modern avenues and boulevards of the perimeter ring of the most recent Cerdà Plan. In this article, I will try to demystify the medieval city, presenting it as an organic city, intimately human and endowed with layers that reflect the social complexity of a widely misunderstood period of universal history.
Over the ruins of Rome (Placita de la Seu)
On the Placita de la Seu stands the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, the nerve center of Gothic Barcelona and the seat of the city's political and religious power throughout countless centuries. Inside, the vivid stained-glass windows adorned by complex geometric shapes, figures of angels and saints, and a heraldry that tells the history of the city through eight centuries stand out. The choir, crowned with emblems of noble families, deposits memories of illustrious names such as Charles I, Maximilian I, the Duke of Alba, Infantado, Escalona, Feria, the Constable of Castile, the Duke of Cardona, the Count of Modica, the Marquis of Astorga, the Admiral of Castile, among many others [1] who leave no doubt about the aristocratic vocation of the cathedral. But its intimate relationship with the Middle Ages is not found among its magnificent Catalan Gothic style arches, but in its underground, where hidden from the eyes of the thousands of tourists who frequent the Placita de la Sue, lies the urban layout of the ancient Roman villa of Barcino.
Conventionally, the historical period that we know as the Middle Ages begins with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, with the deposition of its last emperor Romulus Augustus at the hands of Odoacer [2]. However, placing the beginning of this period in such a specific event is problematic; In reality, the leap to the Middle Ages was made through the gradual evolution of ancient Roman institutions to confront various phenomena such as the ruralization of society, the stagnation of imperial expansion and the fracture with the East. From there, the Roman slave system was gradually replaced by one of free citizens although legally bound to the land, the election or appointment of public offices was replaced by a system of vassalage where political and religious power, closely linked, were headed by an aristocratic elite who derived their power from divine command. The traces of the city that we find under the Placita de la Sue do nothing more than remind us of the medieval transformation in the heart of Barcelona. Now, open to the public at the Barcelona History Museum, the Roman ruins buried beneath the ancient cathedral and surrounding buildings deceptively narrate the explosion of Christian society over a decimated Rome, almost mirroring Thomas Cole's apocalyptic canvas [3]: Destruction.
Among the archaeological remains, we find a network of clay alleys no more than two meters wide between which the edges of the Domus are traced: ancient Roman homes. In several of these excavations, the grids that demarcate the ostium, the vestibulum, and the atrium can be seen until finally climbing to the peristyle that surrounds the moat of the central fountain of each house. On the ground, you can still see elaborate mosaics with equestrian figures disfigured by the weight of the city built on top of the ruins. Some places worth highlighting are the temple of Augustus, adorned by 4 Corinthian columns that stand in the inner courtyard of a much more modern building; the fullonicas where slaves were routinely in charge of washing clothes; and the thermal baths, so central to the Roman social ritual [4]. When going down and up from the excavation, one tends to instinctively disassociate the cavernous and dark world from the very modern and bustling city that lies on the surface, but just like a tree that hides its old roots deep in the earth, the medieval city flourishes and is nourished by the complex foundation system of Barcino.
Tradition and the cultural legacy of antiquity are part of Barcelona's identity, even if it is not revealed at first glance. The Gothic city still preserves countless streets and landmarks that demarcate the outline of the Roman villa beneath its surface; a heritage that has unconsciously remained alive, surviving urban cataclysms that have changed the course of its great avenues. Faced with the changing whirlwind of history, the bastions of the Roman defensive wall still stand out like stone monoliths on Plaça Nova, imbuing the city with eternity and character. Although these vestiges today are not as popular as the most recent modernist landmarks for which Barcelona has been recognized worldwide, it would be impossible to do without them when it comes to understanding the past and future of Barcelona.
The urban labyrinth (the Jewish quarter of Barcelona)
To the northeast of Plaça de Sant Jaume, contained between the Carrer de Sant Honorat and the Carrer de Sant Sever, is the famous Jewish quarter of Barcelona [5]. Its narrow streets tell the story of a nomadic people spread across Europe, a product of persecution and the constant siege of their ancestral homeland. It is likely that the first Jewish residents of Barcelona arrived shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD, settling in small merchant communities. The first written testimonies of the Barcelona Jewish community date from the 11th century AD, amid the heyday of medieval Christian society, where Jews became property and subjects of special protection of the crown of Aragon thanks to their enormous influence over the finance, commerce, and science of the time.
Nowadays, entering the heart of the Jewish quarter is like transporting yourself to the medieval world, without being completely medieval... Although none of the buildings of the [6]original Aljama remain standing, its narrow passageways of irregular cobblestones and sloping stone walls, damp and dark, transport us to the interior of a castle. The height of the buildings prevents the sun from illuminating the ground, giving the Call a spectral and mysterious atmosphere even under the profuse summer sun. In this close community, an important financial district was born around the 11th century, even before, typical of the medieval coastal city, which by feeding for centuries on the benefits of eastern and Mediterranean trade, managed to accumulate astronomical amounts of money, allowing it to leverage urban innovation and the empire over the sea.
Jews, historically viewed with suspicion by both Romans and Christians, were relegated to socially condemned professions. Before the mercantile revolution, Jews constituted important niches of local merchants. Once the commercial practice became popular with demographic growth, innovation in agricultural practices, and political stability [7], the Jews who had already accumulated significant sums of money thanks to their
commercial activity began to dedicate themselves to something that was practically harshly condemned by Christian society. but essential to feed economic growth: the administration of usury. The Aristotelian eudaimonist logic, adopted by Christianity in the Middle Ages, assumed the moral undesirability of charging interest on loans granted. Although Jewish society also condemned usury [8], it was prohibited only for members of the same community [9], making them exclusive lenders to Christians while strengthening ties of cooperation between members of the same community. This is how these demographically dense and compact places became, paradoxically, dynamic entities of the medieval city and, the Jews, its protagonists.
The dense Jewish citadel inside the ancient Roman walls came to be governed under its own laws with the tutelage and protection of the king, who interceded to calm the anger of angry mobs who routinely accused them of all kinds of misfortunes. Within these citadels, strong ties of cooperation were woven that lasted until the Call massacre. of Barcelona in 1391 and the definitive expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula some one hundred years later. After the loss of the Jewish Quarter [10], the old synagogues were quickly converted into temples of the Catholic rite, leaving behind only archaeological evidence of the life of a population that not only settled after exile but also flourished amid ostracism and adversity for more than eight centuries.
Beyond castles and monasteries (Basilica de Santa María del Mar and Calle Montcada)
Medieval port societies, especially those based in important commercial nodes such as Barcelona were and still are more “free” and dynamic societies than the smaller towns dispersed in the interior. The influx of people from diverse towns and the convergence of mercantile adventure and financial wealth fueled important ontological changes in social relations, which began to move away from the most conservative relations of vassalage; predicting the end of the Middle Ages.
As we saw before, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia was the place of ritual for the high aristocracy of Barcelona. As the city grew outside its old walls, it became a foreign temple for the new social classes that nourished the city. This is the case of sailors and merchants, who gathered in the popular neighborhood of La Ribera, a few meters from the sea. On the layout of an ancient early Christian church, in turn built on an ancient Roman amphitheater, an indisputable symbol of social prosperity began to rise, the Cathedral of Santa María del Mar. This important religious center was the result of the joint effort of the incipient neighborhood bourgeoisie and the most humble links, the basaixos or stevedores of the port, who on their backs carried the heavy stones from the royal quarry of Montjuïc more than two kilometers away. To this day, figures alluding to the hard work of the basaixos are preserved and carved on the columns of the cathedral, imbuing the austere façade with a genuine sense of community.
The Cathedral of Santa María del Mar, whose construction was completed in 1383, stands out for its monumentality. Similar to other Gothic cathedrals in Barcelona, this one extends under a single nave adorned by vivid stained-glass windows and is divided into sections separated by columns that project distinctive Gothic palms onto the roof that support the enormous weight of the roof. The cathedral does not stand out for its ornamentation, but this does not prevent us from coming across some jewels such as the enormous rose window on the main façade, a complex sculpture that reflects the best of the craftsmanship of its time, which has managed to endure to this day despite of the multiple earthquakes, wars and fires that the city has had to face over the centuries.
But beyond the monument, the cathedral evokes a transformative moment in the Middle Ages, where new “social classes” began to challenge the power, until then almost absolute, of the nobility. In fact, behind the ambulatory [11] of the cathedral, right in front of the Paseo del Borne, stretches what was once the most important street in Barcelona [12], Montcada, a narrow artery on which family mansions were built; wealthy communities of the 14th and 15th centuries, among which the nobility and the new merchant bourgeoisie mix. Although it was not on this street where Barcelona gave birth to its bourgeoisie, it is one of the most representative as it moved the center of economic power from inside the medieval wall to the outside; moving us away from the medieval story of castles and monasteries and placing ourselves on an expanding world that is beginning to lay the foundations of modern capitalism. This was no longer a society cloistered behind the impregnable walls of old Barcino, it was a full-fledged city that was beginning to look towards modernity, with characteristic agglomerations of citizens who, like those on Montcada Street, consolidated their new economic power after a network of neighbors similar in social contexts and incentives.
Nation-State (Palau Reial Major)
In 1492, two turning events occurred in universal history, the first was the discovery of America by the Spanish Empire and the second was the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula at the hands of the new dynastic union between the Crown of Aragon and Castile: the Catholics. Barcelona, which since the 12th century had been under the tutelage of the Crown of Aragon, was now at the center of a vast empire that circled the globe. Almost prophetically, that medieval Barcelona that had been built on the ruins of the Roman Empire would now witness firsthand what for many historians would come to be considered the end of the Middle Ages. In April 1493, Christopher Columbus arrived in Barcelona to meet personally with the Catholic Monarchs and narrate his experiences in the New World. This anecdote, which is still curious, most likely takes place in the Palau Reial Major, a semi-palatial fortress that served the kings of Aragon and later the Catholics as a bastion and residence in the region of Catalonia.
Although the building underwent multiple modifications since its first construction in the city's Visigoth era, the Palau Reial Major currently stands out as one of the best exponents of medieval Barcelona [13]and Catalan Gothic civil architecture. In particular, the building is crowned by King Martí's viewing tower, which despite its name is worthy of various theories about its true function, which has not been fully documented. One of these theories is that the tower, which consists of five levels and five corridors open to the four winds (that is, surrounded by open windows), in addition to serving as a watchtower, constituted an ancient form of air conditioning that provided the palace with fresh air. Regardless of the theories that could lead us to wrongly assign merits to the city's ancient architecture, the palace is an example, once again, of the profound political transformations that occurred throughout the Middle Ages.
The fortress of the Counts of Barcelona was built on the property currently occupied by the current palace. Originally vassals of the Franks, the county of Barcelona soon became an important independent center of the Hispanic March [14]. As the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula progressed, the county of Barcelona began to claim new lands that would extend the city's dominion beyond its immediate periphery, making it a bastion of Christianity in the region. After the dynastic union between the Counts of Barcelona and the kings of Aragon, the fortress underwent significant modifications and renovations until it became a true imperial palace, the same one where the Catholic Monarchs would later receive Christopher Columbus. Thus, this monolithic palace of dark stone saw the rise of the city of Barcelona from a medieval coastal town to an authentic global city, embedded in the center of a territory that was beginning to emerge in modernity as a Hispanic and Catholic nation-state.
Annotations
Most of my sources are in Spanish although some webpages can be accessed in both English and Spanish and some documents are as well translated into both languages.
[4] Metropolis : Ben Wilson
[6] The Jewish aljama is the community itself that is established independently within a medieval population and that is organized outside of it and in turn is governed with its own laws or regulations known as tacanot .
[7]file:///Users/carlosfelipeholguin/Downloads/Dialnet-ElDesarrolloDelComercioMedievalYSuRepercusionEnLas-4364770.pdf
[8]Deuteronomy 23, 20-21: “You shall not lend interest to your brother, whether it be money or food or anything else that produces interest.
[10] For the complete chronology of the Jewish quarter of Barcelona, consult: https://www.fluido.es/google/google_maps_print/cronologia-barcelona-es.html
[11] Back alley of a gothic cathedral
[14] Territory between the border of the Carolingian Empire and al-Andalus.
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