Messianisme royal de la Couronne d'Aragon

Abstract

International audience ; During the end of the Middle Ages, while modern State was growing, kings spread political propaganda to support the increasing of their power and their wars against other countries. For Catalan-Aragonese monarchy, heiress of Frederik II, prophecy was a good mean of fighting against papacy and Angevins for the supremacy in Southern Italy. The religious dissidence of the kings of Aragon induced them to receive many spiritual Franciscans persecuted under John XXII and to create some insular utopias based on poverty in their own kingdoms. These friars were fond of joachite theories announcing that the end of the world was soon arriving. They believed on an emperor who would found universal monarchy with a peaceful millenium, after having annihilated decadent clerics, beaten Muslims and conquered Jerusalem. This kind of Antichrist or exterminator angel was personified in the king of Aragon, who took paradoxically advantage of the apocalyptic metaphors of the winged dragon, the bat, the eagle, the fire or the smoke. These negative images were used in Catalonia to affirm a primitive national identity, fighting behind the royal dynasty.