5 Reales – Municipality of Argentona

In 1642, the Municipality of Argentona, like much of the Principality of Catalonia, was embroiled in the Reapers' War (Guerra dels Segadors), a conflict that had begun in 1640 as a revolt against the centralizing policies of the Spanish Crown under King Philip IV. This wartime context created a severe monetary crisis. The Crown, desperate to fund its military campaigns across multiple fronts, repeatedly debased the coinage, flooding Catalonia with low-value copper vellón currency while silver and gold coins were hoarded or flowed out to pay for troops and supplies. This led to rampant inflation, a collapse in public trust in the currency, and severe disruption to local commerce and daily life in towns like Argentona.

The local currency situation in Argentona would have been defined by acute scarcity and confusion. While royal coinage was legally mandated, its real value was in constant flux, and its availability was unreliable. This likely forced the local council and citizens to engage in a complex and precarious economy, resorting to barter for essential goods, using outdated or clipped coins, and possibly accepting foreign currencies from French or other troops operating in the region. The municipal authorities would have struggled to collect taxes and pay for local defenses or militia, as the value of the collected coinage could plummet between assessment and expenditure.

Furthermore, the political reality of 1642 intensified these difficulties. By this year, Catalonia was under the protection of the French King Louis XIII, following the Catalan Courts' oath of allegiance to him in 1641. This meant Argentona was technically under a dual monetary influence: the de jure claims of the depreciating Spanish currency and the attempted imposition of a new French monetary system, which was also under strain from the war. The result was a fractured and unstable monetary environment where the primary "currency" was often necessity, and the economic stability of Argentona's households was profoundly undermined by forces far beyond its control.