Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, 1st Count-Duke…

Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, 1st Count-Duke Olivares, the chief minister of Philip IV, in the face of the increased French threat  and the need to raise men, money and arms to defend the Peninsula, had sent his army of nine thousand men into Catalonia expecting relatively limited resistance.

Catalan peasants, who have been forced to quarter Castilian troop during his wars against France, respond May 1640 on Corpus Christi day with an uprising known as 'Bloody Corpus' (Catalan Corpus de Sang), under the slogans "Long live the faith of Christ!", "Long live the king of Spain, our lord", "Long live the land, death to bad government".

This 'Bloody Corpus', which begins with the death of a segador, a reaper, and leads to the somewhat mysterious death of Dalmau de Queralt, the Count of Santa Coloma and Spanish viceroy of Catalonia, marks the beginning of the conflict.

The situation takes Olivares by surprise, with most of the Spanish army fighting on other fronts far from Catalonia.

The Catalan Revolt is known in Catalan as the Guerra dels Segadors or Reapers' War.

The irregular militia involved are known as 'Miquelets': the name is a diminutive of Michael; it is claimed it comes from Miguel or Miquelot de Prats, a Catalonian mercenary captain in the service of Cesare Borgia.

The term is used for many unconnected groups of Catalonians who take up arms in many wars, as well as in banditry; the term is generic rather than referring to a specific militia.