Generalitat de Catalunya

As its name indicates, the General Council (“Deputació del General”, as it was called then) permanently and ordinarily represented the “general” or “generalitat” of Catalonia. In the historical context of the medieval period, “generalitat” referred to the entire community of subjects of the Catalan-Aragonese monarch in the territories belonging to the Principality of Catalonia and the Counties of Roussillon and Sardinia.

The General Council originated from the General Court, which was made up of the king and representatives of the different estates of society. Its mission was to implement certain decisions—basically tax-related—that required more time than that allowed at the short parliamentary meeting where they were decided upon and which, in the feudal system’s spirit of deal-making, were the responsibility of the different estates.

The fiscal jurisdiction of the General Council was a determining factor in establishing the precise boundaries of Catalonia. The Val d’Aran, an independent territory governed by a royal lord, voluntarily joined the Principality in 1410 and committed to paying taxes to the treasury of the General Council in return for military protection.

The history of the General Council has three stages:

• Beginnings (14th century)
• Expansion (15th-16th centuries)
• Decline (17th century)