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La heredera de Sangumí, published in Barcelona in 1835, shows how romantic historical fiction became an instrument of regional recovery. Juan Cortada sets the action in twelfth-century Catalonia and organises the fiction around lineage, inheritance, feudal loyalty and threatened love.

Catalonia’s medieval past

For Cortada, the Middle Ages is not an undifferentiated territory. Institutions, customs and local memories seek to restore a historical continuity. This attention to the Catalan past participates in the cultural revival preceding and accompanying the Renaixença, although the novel is written in Castilian.

Documentation and narrative

The desire for accuracy gives the setting depth but sometimes slows the action. This is a characteristic tension of the genre: the more it seeks to demonstrate fidelity to history, the greater the risk of suspending narrative movement. Cortada turns that difficulty into a distinctive feature.

Love, lineage and legitimacy

The heiress’s status concentrates the narrative’s forces. Individual love is subjected to family rights, the transmission of property and the violence of the feudal order. Walter Scott’s influence is recognisable in the combination of fictional characters and historical framework; Cortada’s originality lies in giving that model a specific regional grounding.

About the author: Juan Cortada y Sala.

Alba Longa’s edition

Language of the book offered for purchase: Spanish. This study is translated into English; the buttons below lead to the Spanish edition.

Source: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.