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Balaguer of the counts
Between October
and November of the year 1105 the Muslims were besieged and defeated by the troops
commanded by Pedro Ansúrez, at the sudda of Balaguer, as the last Andalusian
redoubt. The conquest of the city by the tutor of the count of Urgell Ermengol VIII
(1105) was violent and the result was the ruin of the urban nucleus and the emigration
of the Andalusian population. The conquest also involved a fundamental change in
the organisation of the system of government and the organisation of property, as
well as the cultural and religious ideologies that influenced the urban physiognomy
in a decisive way. The first immediate change was the sacralisation of the places
of worship, with the conversion of all the mosques of the city into Christian churches:
Santa Maria d'Almatà, Santa Maria de la Suda, Sant Miquel and Sant Salvador.
It was not, however, until the second half of the 12th century that, after having
conquered the capital of the district, Larida, in the year 1149, the reconstruction
of the city was started, along with the reorganisation of the irrigation systems,
the repair of the walled enclosure and the construction of new religious buildings
and their corresponding funerary spaces. The charter of township was granted in 1174.
The entry of the
House of Barcelona at the head of the County, from 1314 onwards, signified a close
link between Balaguer and the lineage that governed the Crown of Aragon; this fact
implied an important stimulus to a series of public works (Santa Maria, the bridge
and the gate of Sant Miquel, Sant Domènec, etc.) that would embellish the
city and which drew up the physiognomy that has reached our times. A second event
had immensely important repercussions in the urban organisation: the sentence of
Alfons the Benign (1333) according to which the Jews had to live together but outside
the walled enclosure. This implied the creation of the jueria (Jewish quarter), made
up of the present day streets of Carrer Barri Nou, Teixidors, Miracle and Sant Josep
and which ended by forming the space of the actual Plaça del Mercadal. The
last effect of the sentence was the necessity to expand the walls of the city to
protect the new quarter, a construction that was finished by the beginning of the
15th century.
The revolt of count Jaume II "the Unlucky" against king Ferran d'Antequera
ended with the siege of the city and the total destruction of the castle in 1413.
The siege of the royal troops was implacable and unleashed a veritable chain of destruction
on the palace, which could not resist the artillery of the period, or the pillage
of the troops, who were paid with the booty attained.
With the conquest of Balaguer by king Ferran of Antequera and the disappearance of
the County of Urgell, the city joined the Crown of Aragon without having any notable
political role. Thus the long Medieval period that had seen the genesis and the formation
of the city came to an end, and the transition towards the modern age was initiated,
an epoch characterised by urban, economic and social stagnation.
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