ROYAL MESSIANISM OF THE CROWN OF ARAGON ( 14TH-15TH CENTURIES)

During the end of the Middle Ages, while modern State was growing, kin gs spread political propaganda to support the increasing of their powe r and their wars against other countries. For Catalan-Aragonese monarc hy, heiress of Frederik II, prophecy was a good mean of fighting again st papacy and Angevins for the supremacy in Southern Italy. The religi ous dissidence of the kings of Aragon induced them to receive many spi ritual Franciscans persecuted under John XXII and to create some insul ar utopias based on poverty in their own kingdoms. These friars were f ond of joachite theories announcing that the end of the world was soon arriving. They believed on an emperor who would found universal monar chy with a peaceful millenium, after having annihilated decadent cleri cs, beaten Muslims and conquered Jerusalem. This kind of Antichrist or exterminator angel was personified in the king of Aragon, who took pa radoxically advantage of the apocalyptic metaphors of the winged drago n, the bat the eagle, the fire or the smoke. These negative images wer e used in Catalonia to affirm a primitive national identity, fighting behind the royal dynasty.