ENCYCLOPAEDIA of Rebellions

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Santa Coloma de Farners uprising 1640

Synopsis
In January 1640, in the context of the Franco-Spanish war (1635-1659), the viceroy of Catalonia was ordered to billet the tercios of the Spanish Monarchy. As was customary at the time, the billeting of the troops was carried out in the houses of private individuals, a circumstance that caused great unease among the Catalan population. Santa Coloma de Farners, a village in northeastern Catalonia, was the first to oppose the billeting. On 30 April 1640, its inhabitants took up arms to resist the arrival of Leonardo Moles' tercio (some 1,100 soldiers). This protest had a contagious effect, and the neighbouring villages joined the revolt. A peasant insurrection of around 4,000 men mobilised to expel the king's soldiers. Faced with their numerical inferiority, the soldiers were ordered to withdraw. Before doing so, however, they razed the neighbouring village of Riudarenes and its parish church to the ground, burning the monstrance and the consecrated hosts. This act was denounced to the bishop of Girona, Gregorio Parcero, who excommunicated Leonardo Moles' tercio on 13 May as sacrilegious and heretical. It was a politically charged event, as it legitimised the peasant insurgency and tinged the insurrection with a component of holy war. The indignation generated by that event grew even greater when, on 14 May, the tercios razed Santa Coloma de Farners to the ground as punishment for their seditions.
Additional info

Starting date: . Ending: . Duration: 15 days. Name in sources: Insurrección de Santa Coloma de Farners . Location: Santa Coloma de Farners Country (current): Spain. Monarchy: Spanish. Main participants: Artisans, Peasants. Number of participants: >500. Main reasons & motivations: Anti-seigneurial, Fiscal, Political. Leadership: Unknown. Relevance: medium.

Further reading
ELLIOTT, John H. (1963). The Revolt of the Catalans. A study in the Decline of Spain (1598-1640). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. SIMON i TARRÉS, Antoni (2019). 1640. Barcelona: Rafael Dalmau editor. TORRES SANS, Xavier (2017). “De Tirlemont a Riudarenes: política y religion en la crisis hispánica de 1640”, Hispania Sacra LXIX 139: 221-231.
Cite this entry

(2023) "Santa Coloma de Farners uprising 1640", in J. V. Serrão and M. S. Cunha (coord), Rebellions in the Early Modern Iberian World. (accessed on ).