wide open to dynastic squabbles. The most ruinous of these was the long civil war which followed the death of Alfonso XI of Castile in 1349 (he was the only European ruler to die of plague), in which the illegitimate Henry of Trastamara eventually gained the throne over Alfonso's legitimate son Peter the Cruel (in 1369). Civil wars were briefer but more frequent in Aragon, where the nobility took a leading part in the crises of succession. The advanced development of representative institutions, the cortes, in Aragon gave them and the other estates an important political role, although it should not be assumed always to work to the disadvantage of the king; many historians have assessed positively this development of a close relationship between crown and subjects in what is known as 'pactism'.

The kingdoms were also fighting amongst each other, for the ruling dynasties were frequently intermarried, and many aspired to annex a neighbouring kingdom or even to unite the whole peninsula. From the mid-fourteenth century a number of conflicts stemmed from the aspirations of the house of Trastamara. They acceded to Castile in 1369; in 1383 attempts at Trastamaran succession to Portugal led to a national revolt there and the establishment of the house of Avis; in 1412 the Trastamarans won the succession to Aragon. All this was eventually vindicated, in that it paved the way for the union of the Castilian and Aragonese crowns later in the fifteenth century, but in the mean time it was a repeated source of disorder.

Political conflicts were closely tied up with economic and social problems, indeed often had their roots in them. The massive breakdown of law and order in the wake of the Black Death was merely a foretaste. In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries Catalonian trade took a dramatic downturn. Barcelona was particularly affected. Along the eastern seaboard banks collapsed, and the country witnessed a flight of gold and silver as exports declined. Both Aragon and Castile saw repeated and ruinous debasement of the coinage as monarchs took the easy way out of their financial predicaments. In the countryside post-plague retrenchment by landlords, whether the

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