Catalan members in the Courts of Cadiz (1810-1813): Electoral process and prosopography

Abstract

The present work aims to analyse the process by which Catalan members of parliament were elected to represent Catalonia in the Courts of Cadiz (1810-1814), the sociology of these members of parliament, and their ideological behaviour in the parliament. To perform the study, we crossed data from the Diccionario Biográfico de los Parlamentarios Españoles (Madrid, 2010) and records from the Parliamentary Archives. The analysis of the electoral process revealed three findings. Firstly, that not all the seats allocated to Catalonia were filled. Secondly, using a prosopographic method to establish a typology of members of parliament, we found that the members chosen by the different institutions that took part in the electoral process were mainly well-off and representative of Catalan society in a similar manner to their Spanish counterparts, with clergymen, lawyers and noblemen standing out in number. Thirdly, that the majority of Catalan representatives was absolutist in terms of their political allegiance. In general, the Catalan group opposed the liberal legislation approved in Cadiz.