Rites of justice, rites of barbarism: memory of violence during the Catalan War (1640-1652)

Abstract

The series of popular protests that shocked Catalonia in 1640 left a large volume of accounts of violence that reported on the disturbances erupted in the Catalan countryside against the abuses committed by the tercios of the Hispanic Monarchy. Many of these accounts were printed and during the early years of the Catalan War (1640-1652) they contributed to forging the memory of that turbulent year. This article analyses how the memory of the upheaval of the segadors that took place on Corpus Christi Day 1640 in Barcelona –Corpus de Sang–, the day on which the viceroy of Catalonia was assassinated, was used politically. Based on the analysis of different types of relaciones and political writings disseminated during the 1640s, this work suggests the confrontation of two memories of the assassination, one associated with the rebel side, in the form of rites of justice, and the other with the royalist side, in the form of rites of barbarism.