The Archive of the Crown of Aragon. Seven hundred years of history

The Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó (Archive of the Crown of Aragon) was founded by King James II of Aragon in 1318 as a royal archive housed in his Barcelona palace, and it has existed continuously ever since then. This article presents its history over the course of these 700 years, with a special focus on the circumstances that led to its creation, and it explains its evolution within a broader historical context. This uninterrupted history of the Archive since its origins spans its evolution from an administrative archive at the exclusive service of the monarch to a historical archive open to research and a more general public today.