L'Estat que no va ser: catalans i occitans entre els segles VIII i XIII. A propòsit del vuitè centenari de la Batalla de Muret

Abstract

From the late eighth century up to the thirteenth century, Catalans and Occitans belonged to the same linguistic and cultural space and established strong socioeconomic and political links, creating closer family ties between the major lineages of feudal nobility on both sides of the Pyrenees. From the eleventh century, Catalan expansion towards the Languedoc and Provence regions led the dynasties of the Counts of Barcelona and Toulouse to challenge each other in order to secure hegemony over Occitania in the so-called Great Occitan War, a conflict that would continue throughout most of the twelfth century and become international, with the direct or indirect intervention of the English and French monarchies, the German empire, the Papacy and the Italian cities of Genoa and Pisa, among other powers of the time. However, the extension of the Cathar heresy to the Languedoc precipitated a Catalan and Toulouse alliance against the Crusade sponsored by the Pope and supported by the Crown of France. The situation created by the death of Peter the Catholic, King of Catalonia and Aragon, at the Battle of Muret in 1213, led to the House of Barcelonas progressive loss of sovereignty over Occitan domains and its gradual replacement by the Capetian dynasty, a process that would be legitimised by the Treaty of Corbeil between the French and Catalans (1258).