The first representative and legislative bodies in Catalonia were the Peace and Truce of God Assemblies, of which the earliest record dates from 1027. These were originally ad hoc, local meetings convened by the clergy but progressively became subsumed into the court of the Counts of Barcelona. The first Catalan legal code, the Usatges de Barcelona, was promulgated by Count Ramon Berenguer I based on the decisions of these assemblies. Although the Counts of Barcelona, had greatly extended the territory under their control, their financial and military power was quite limited, partly because of their former status as vassals of the Carolingian dynasty. Their personal resources were particularly insufficient in periods of economic crisis or military expansion, of which they were many from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. The need to secure troops and revenue led to the steady expansion of the royal court and a formalisation of its procedures. It came to be referred to as the Cort General de Catalunya or Corts catalanes, and was endowed with formal procedures, effectively a written constitution, by King Peter III of Aragon in 1283, making this institution the policemaking and legislative body of the Principality of Catalonia. The Corts Catalanes were composed of Three Estates, representing the clergy, the feudal nobles and the citizens of Royal towns such as Barcelona or Girona. Inhabitants of feudal towns were not represented, except by their overlords. The main function of the Corts was legislative, either in approving laws proposed by the King Peter III of Aragon or at their own initiative. Although the Corts met at irregular intervals, it also formally approved the acts of the between the King and their sessions and, from 1359, established a permanent delegation to oversee the Crown. The Catalan Courts, as well as the use of Catalan as the official language, were abolished by the Nueva Planta decrees in 1716 after the House of Bourbon, supported by the Crown of Castille, defeated the Habsburg pretender to throne, which was backed by the remnants of the Crown of Aragon in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Modern history
There were attempts in the early 20th century to institute an autonomous system of representation for Catalonia. The Commonwealth of Catalonia was an assembly without legislative powers of the provincial delegations of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, disbanded and outlawed by Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship in 1925. Following an abortive declaration of the Catalan Republic on 14 April 1931, a separate Parliament of Catalonia was established under the first Statute of Autonomy approved by the Parliament of the new Spanish Republic, and was elected on 20 November 1932. This first legislature was controlled by the Republican Left of Catalonia, the winning party of the election, while the conservative Regionalist League, almost hegemonic in Catalonia during the reign of Alfonso XIII, reached the second place but far from the Republican Left. The Parliament approved a large number of progressive legislation in different areas, such as health, culture and civil law, but the institution was suspended between 1934 and 1936 when the Government of Cataloniaattempted to create a Catalan State after, among other reasons, a bill to change the taxing of farmers was rejected by the Constitutional Court. The unilateral declaration of independence lasted 10 hours. The Statute of Autonomy was restored in February 1936 after the victory of Popular Front in the Spanish election, and abolished again by Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. The Parliament of Catalonia, like the rest of the institutions of the Generalitat, went to exile in 1939. After the death of Franco in 1975 and the Spanish transition to democracy, the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 1979 recognized the restoration of the Parliament. The first legislature of the current Parliament of Catalonia was elected on 20 March 1980, 48 years after the first election in 1932.
