The Frankish Empire conquered northern half of the area from the Muslims, ending with the conquest of Barcelona in 801, as part of the creation of a larger buffer zone of Christian counties against Islamic rule historiographically known as the Marca Hispanica.

The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, the end of the reign of House of Barcelona, serf and urban conflicts and a civil war (1462–1472) weakened the role of the Principality within the Crown and internationally.

[6] The Neolithic era began in Catalonia around 4500 BC, although the population was slower to develop fixed settlements than in other places, thanks to the abundance of woods, which allowed the continuation of a fundamentally hunter-gatherer culture.

It was a rich agricultural province (olive oil, vine, wheat), and the first centuries of the Empire saw the construction of roads (the most important being the Via Augusta, parallel to Mediterranean coastline)[13] and infrastructure like aqueducts.

The first Christian communities in the Tarraconense were founded during the 3rd century, and the diocese of Tarraco was already established by 259, when the bishop Saint Fructuosus (Fructuós) and the deacons Augurius and Eulogius were burned alive on the orders of the governor Aemilianus, under an edict issued by the emperor Valerian.

While archaeological evidence shows the recovery of some urban nuclei, such as Barcino (later Barcelona), Tarraco (later Tarragona), and Gerunda (later Girona), the previous situation was not restored: the cities became smaller, and constructed defensive walls.

The Visigothic Kingdom respected and adopted the provincial system inherited from the Romans, the Tarraconense was maintained, but after the establishment of the new province of Cantabria its extension was reduced to the Valley of the Ebro and the current Catalonia.

[19] After repelling Muslim incursions as far north as Tours in 732, the expanding Frankish Empire set about creating a buffer zone of Christian counties in the south that became historiographically known as the Marca Hispanica or Gothia.

[39] Catalonia became the base for the Aragonese Crown's sea power, which came to dominate a maritime empire that extended across the western Mediterranean after the conquest of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and the accession in Sicily of the kings of Aragon.

[45][46] The Catalan Company, mercenaries led by Roger de Flor and formed by Almogavar veterans of the War of the Sicilian Vespers, were hired by the Byzantine Empire to fight the Turks, defeating them in several battles.

After the assassination of Roger de Flor by orders of the emperor's son Michael Palaiologos (1305),[47] the Company took revenge sacking Thrace and later Greece, where they took the duchies of Athens and Neopatras in the name of the King of Aragon.

[53] The second quarter of the 14th century saw crucial changes for Catalonia, marked by a succession of natural catastrophes, demographic crises, stagnation and decline in the Catalan economy, and the rise of social tensions.

[60] In the frame of the institutional reforms of Ferdinand, in 1481 the Catalan Courts approved the Constitució de l'Observança, which established the submission of royal power to the laws of the Principality of Catalonia.

After Philip IV acceded to the throne in 1621, his minister the Count-Duke of Olivares attempted to sustain an ambitious foreign policy by taxing the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula and establishing a military contribution to the Empire in each one of them (the Unión de Armas, "Union of Arms"),[67] which meant laying aside the until-then-prevailing principles of the composite monarchy, in favor of an increased centralization.

Repressive mesures of the viceroy Francisco de Velasco and authoritarian decisions of the king (some of them contrary to Catalan legislation), as well as the economic policy and distrust to the French absolutism caused Catalonia to switch sides.

After a series of advances and stalemates of both sides, geopolitical changes in Europe led to peace with the signature of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), ending the possibility of Catalonia's resistance to Bourbon rule.

The rejection to French dominion was institutionalized with the creation of "juntas" (councils) across Spain who, remaining loyal to the Bourbons, exercised the sovereignty and representation of the territory due to the disappearance of the old institutions, and sending delegates to the Cortes of Cádiz.

[93] Between 1812 and 1813, Catalonia was directly annexed to France itself, and organized an ordinary civil administration in the form of four (later two) départements: Bouches-de-l'Èbre (prefecture: Lleida), Montserrat (Barcelona), Sègre (Puigcerdà), and Ter (Girona).

The last insurrection of the period, the Jamància (1843), which tried to expel the government of General Espartero and proposed a progressive program and postulates close to federalism, ended with Barcelona blocked and bombed by the army, representing the triumph of the moderates and its centralist politics.

[100] The rise of Amadeo I to the throne of Spain (1870–1873) proved unstable, his reign saw the outbreak of the Third Carlist War (1872–1876), Cuba's fight for independence, the spread of the ideas of the First International and economic troubles, ending with the resignation of the king.

The Commonwealth of Catalonia established a modern infrastructure, such as roads and telephones and expanded the culture (libraries, professional education, use and regulation of Catalan language, promotion of sciences...).

[110] The Catalan workers movement at the turn of the twentieth century consisted of three tendencies: syndicalism, socialism, and anarchism, part of the last openly embracing "propaganda of the deed" as advocated by Alejandro Lerroux.

In 1926, Estat Català tried to liberate Catalonia with a little army (established in the town of Prats de Molló in Roussillon, France), led by Francesc Macià, and proclaim the independent Catalan Republic, but the complot was discovered by the French police.

After the fall of Primo de Rivera, the Catalan left made great efforts to create a united front under the leadership of left-wing independentist leader Francesc Macià, founder of Estat Català.

[119] Under its two presidents, Francesc Macià (1931–1933) and Lluís Companys (1934–1939), the Republican Generalitat, democratically led by the left, carried out a considerable task in different areas such as culture, health, education and civil law, despite the serious economic crisis that the Republic inherited, its social repercussions, the low fiscal autonomy granted by the Statute, and the political vicissitudes of the period.

The loyalist victory allowed to the workers' self-armed militias, predominantly anarchists, to become the real power of the streets, which meant the beginning of a harsh repression in Catalonia against those elements of being "fascist" or right-wing sympathizers[citation needed].

The military forces of the Generalitat, weakly structured between December 1936 and May 1937 in the People's Army of Catalonia (Exèrcit Popular de Catalunya), were concentrated on two fronts: Aragon and Majorca.

[130] As in the rest of Spain, the Franco era (1939–1975) in Catalonia saw the annulment of democratic liberties, the prohibition and persecution of parties, the rise of thoroughgoing censorship, and the banning of all leftist institutions.

[133] Working-class opposition to Franco began to appear, usually clandestinely, and most notably in the form of the Comisiones Obreras ("Workers Commissions"), a return of trade union organizing, and the revival of the PSUC, while the students' protests turned frequent.

[169] Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria was chosen to assume the functions of the President of Catalonia,[170] as part of the actions that resulted after the activation of Article 155.