La bonhomia històrica de Joan Reglà

Abstract

The celebrated bonhomie of Joan Reglà. Joan Reglàs celebrated bonhomie runs through the life and work of one of the foremost Catalan historians of the last century. His life, because it was not at all easy, requiring a huge but thankless effort to become Professor of Modern History in Valencia. His work, because it is extensive, large and versatile. Joan Reglà was a medievalist as shown by his doctoral thesis on the Vall dAran (13th-14th century). But also due to his teacher Vicens Vives, and as the first disciple and the oldest of all the others, he turned towards the modern world and towards the weakest social and religious classes. Proof of this are his works on the Catalan baroque banditry, on the expulsion of the Spanish Muslims or on the era of Felipe II, not in Castile but in Catalonia. However, at the same time he was a historian of synthesis and even capable of writing a book which, at that time, made Valencias undergraduates dream: Comprendre el món (1968) (Understanding the world). No Catalan undergraduate today can ignore the work of a great historian of Catalonia who constructed modernist studies in the País Valencià. Perhaps thats why he is often remembered more there than here. When this happens, we forget the linguistic, historical and cultural unity of the Països Catalans.