HISTORY
In the Middle Ages (since 1151, when Petronila, queen of Aragon, married Raimundus, count of Barcelona) Catalonia was part of the Crown of Aragon.
In the XIIIth century Aragon and Catalonia had great influence and power in the Mediterranean Sea. Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and the duchy of Athens were under Catalan dominion.
In 1336 Peter III of Catalonia and IV of Aragon was the king. He was called Peter the Ceremonious and Peter "El del Punyalet". He married four times. He married his second wife, queen Eleanor of Portugal in 1337, but she died from plague in 1348.

BARCELONA
The Crown expanded and Barcelona became a major city and port.
There were around 40,000 inhabitants from different religions, including Muslims and Jews. Merchants, bankers and guilds turned Barcelona into a rich city. From this time date many important gothic buildings.
In the Xth century many Catalan Jews worked in agriculture. In the XIth
Century there was a Jew colony in Barcelona made of tailors and silversmiths. In the XIIth century Jews were considered a property of the Counts of Barcelona. That was more protective than discriminatory.
References to Jews and Muslims in medieval Catalonia always refer to peoples not of differing religions, but of different laws. There was nearly always a clause guaranteeing the right of the conquered peoples to their own law, the çuna, by which they regulated their personal lives as well as their communal affairs. This right was respected by the Aragonese monarchs, in theory and in practice, and one of Peter III acts was to confirm the right of all his Muslim and Jews subjects to their own law. In every case, civil or criminal, they were judged by the çuna and not by the civil law or any other law or custom of the land.

TRADE AND SOCIETY
Trade existed between Catalonia and Eastern Mediterranean. Ships used to travel from Barcelona charged with wool, wine and wheat that were exchanged for silks and foreign spices.
Genoa and Venice merchants wanted to control the trade routes. The competition between Barcelona, Genoa and Venice was fierce.
In the beginning of the XIVth century an economic and social crisis started in the Crown of Aragon. The rhythm of agricultural production was interrupted by several years of bad weather and bad harvests. Wheat crops were not abundant enough to feed the citizens of Catalonia. People suffered from malnutrition and physical weakness. 1333 was called "the first bad year", "lo mal any primer",

THE PLAGUE
The hunger facilitated the diffusion of illnesses and epidemics. At that moment an unexpected enemy made its appearance; the Black Death, which had infected most of Italy, appeared also in Spain in the month of May 1348. The towns of Valencia and Catalonia suffered severely. The members of the Crown were alarmed for their safety, and were anxious to return to Aragon, which was comparatively free from the plague. The first wave of the Black Death, carried to Europe from the East by rats on merchant ships, arrived in the first months of 1348. Successive waves of the Plague took the lives of roughly one third of the population in Catalonia and in Southern Europe. Doctor Jaume D'Agramunt, professor at the University of Lleida, wrote in 1348 a treaty about the disease. It had only 14 pages where he explained the symptoms and was titled "Regiment de preservació a epidèmia o pestilència e mortaldats".
Only in Barcelona 10,000 citizens died from Plague. During the epidemic 300 people died every day.