Els Pirineus: frontera i connexió a l'època moderna

The Pyrenees, border or connection? Border and connection, as the title of this colloquium of trans-Pyrenean studies suggests? Until recently, many people considered the Pyrenees a border between two realities, two different worlds which could not be joined by anything. This point of view is the result of the political history of the two States which have been split in the Pyrenees, in the north and south, since the modern period. However, the Pyrenees had never been a human, cultural or economical border; many people and things travelled through its ports.
The cultural, human and economical relationships were numerous among the towns, as it can be seen in the emblematic treaties of «lligues i patzeries», harmonies between the valleys of each side of the political border. Thus, some bonds of solidarity between each side of a slowly built political border had been created. However, the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries played a role in the evolution of the border and the Pyrenees became, during the modern period, the Revolution and the French Empire, a line which is more rigid every time, better controlled and internalized between France and Spain, and which isolates towns that had daily contacts and whose language and culture (Catalan andOccitan) were part of the same group.