The Nueva Planta decrees were a series of decrees that reorganized the administration of Spain between 1707 and 1716, during and immediately after the War of the Spanish Succession. Philip V, the first Bourbon king of Spain took advantage of his military victories to suppress the institutions and privileges of the areas that were formerly part of the Aragonese Empire (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands). The decreess abolished the ancient fueros, making these regions part of a uniformly administered, centralized Spain.

The decrees of Valencia and Aragon were published in 1707, of Mallorca in 1715, and in Catalonia on January 16, 1716.

With these decrees, the court of the Kingdom of Castile became the court of Spain.

The repression in Valencia went so far that after burning the city of Xátiva , Philip ordered that it would be rebuilt only under the name of San Felipe (the saint after whom Philip V had been named). In memory of the insult, the portrait of the monarch hangs upside down in the local museum of L’Almodí. [1]

References

• This article draws on material from the corresponding article in the Spanish Wikipedia, accessed 23:20, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC).