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Last week Catalan Television showed a two-part series entitled 'Serrallonga, Legend of a Bandit', based on the life of bandit Joan Sala Ferrer, better known as Joan de Serrallonga. The series serves as an opportunity to talk about banditry and about two of Catalonia's most famous bandits: Joan de Serrallonga (1594-1634) and Perot Rocaguinarda (1582-1635).

The first thing to say is that, in the Catalan Countries, banditry was a social phenomenon that had a political impact during the 16th and 17th centuries. It was particularly intense between 1540 and 1640, when the Guerra dels Segadors (Catalan Revolt) started, in which Catalonia fought against the Hispanic monarchy.

In Catalonia, a distinction is made between two types of banditry: aristocratic and popular. The former was practiced by the increasingly impoverished lesser rural nobility, whereas the latter was carried out by peasants, oppressed by the heavy burden imposed on them by the nobility. However, the line separating the two was very fine and often became blurred, as it did during the first decades of the 17th century in particular, as a result of the social, economic and political crisis that affected Catalonia at the time.

The authorities, starting with the viceroy, who was the king's representative in Catalonia, had great difficulties in combating banditry. The bandits knew the country very well and found refuge in recesses in the mountains. They also had the complicity of the people, either out of sympathy or out of fear.