Francesc de Verntallat

Francesc de Verntallat (1426/8-1498/9), was a Catalan soldier who participated in the War of the Remences.

He was a member of the Catalan lower nobility, and was responsible for the Batet Noguer farmhouse, where is saved the styling and the digging, and formed part of the Royal Knights, generous arm and men in place of the Principality of Catalonia. Later known as gentlemen of Catalonia.

When the Catalan civil war broke out between the generalitat and Juan II of Aragon the Great, the lower nobility stood on the side of the King, who took the contact which was among the remensa peasantry and the gentlemen to bring to their cause the whole of the farmers.

Francesc de Verntallat organized a small army of laborers from Pyrennean areas that assaulted the Bestracà Castle, where the Lord kept a remensa who didn't want to or couldn't afford. He later besieged the castle of Castellfullit for a similar cause. During the siege of Gerona, it was called by the Queen Juana Enríquez to help in the defense of the city, in which she and the Infante Fernando were blocked. Grateful for the performance of the remences, the Queen gave him the title of Captain Real. From that moment his fully identified with the men began to be known as Verntallats.

Verntallat and his army occupied Olot, Castellfullit de la Roca, Banyoles, and the castles of the mountain, fought in numerical inferiority against the various forces of the generality; Hugo Roger III, Enrique IV de Castilla, Pedro de Portugal and John II, Duke of Lorraine.

The war had ups and downs until finally the 28 October 1472, the troops of Juan II came to Barcelona, where it is signed the Capitulación de Pedralbes, which Catalonia retained its charters and privileges.

The remences troops were organized in captaincies and subcapitanies, thus, of every three tenants, two farmed the land of the third, which was mobilized. This recruitment system lasted in the different guerrilla forces that have occurred in the country.

Second Remensa War
In 1484 the second Remensa war began, directed by Verntallat former lieutenant, Pere Joan Sala, but Verntallat remained on the sidelines. After the defeat of Joan Sala, the Lords were seen as winners of the war and were willing to maintain and even to accentuate the evil customs, but Verntallat remained in his possession mountain castles and his forces. The count of Tendilla, assigned by the King to the end of the war, sought out Verntallat as a representative of the farmers for the agreement of the ruling of Guadalupe (Sentencia de Guadalupe).

Once achieved the principal demands of the remences, Verntallat remained a time at the Court of the Catholic Monarchs (Reyes Católicos) until he returned to his castle of San Feliu de Pallarols, where he died at the end of the century.