The
Nueva Planta decrees ( ) were a number of decrees signed between 1707 and 1716 by Philip V—the first Bourbon king of Spain
—during and
shortly after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession
which he won.
Taking his
native France
as a model
of a centralized state, Philip V suppressed the institutions,
privileges, and the ancient fueros
of almost all the areas that were formerly part of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon
, Catalonia
, Valencia, and
the Balearic
Islands
). The decrees ruled that all the territories in
the Crown of Aragon except the Aran Valley
were to be ruled by the laws of Castile ("the most praiseworthy in all
the Universe" according to the 1707 decree), embedding these
regions in a new, and nearly uniformly administered, centralized
Spain. Other historic territories such as Navarre
and the
Basque Country
, which supported Philip V during the war, kept
using their own charters.
The acts
abolishing the fueros were promulgated in 1707 in Valencia and
Aragon, in 1715 in Majorca
and the
other Balearic Islands (with the exception of Minorca
, a colony of
the Kingdom of
Great Britain
at the time), and finally in Catalonia on January
16, 1716.
These acts constituted the first realization of Spain as a
centralized state and were meant both as a modernizing element, in
line with other European countries where the monarchs were
increasing their powers, and also as a punishment on these
territories which had fought against Philip V in the War of
Succession.
Top civil servants were appointed directly
from Madrid
, the king's
court city, and most institutions in these territories were
abolished. Court cases could only be presented and argued in
Spanish, which became the sole
language of government, displacing
Latin,
Catalan and other
Spanish languages.
See also
References
- This article draws on material from the corresponding article in the
Spanish Wikipedia, accessed January 2006.
External links
, UK
.
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