WEBVTT 00:00:00.620 --> 00:00:06.360 Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:06.839 --> 00:00:14.439 it was December 26th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:18.379 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:18.379 --> 00:00:22.239 University of New Mexico. And this is The Historian's 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:26.379 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:31.019 Season one is titled... Molt Cara Companyona. 00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:34.039 We're looking at a document from each day of 00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:37.979 the first year of the reign of King Joan I of 00:00:37.979 --> 00:00:43.759 Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin 00:00:43.759 --> 00:01:13.079 today's document. Here's the basic profile of 00:01:13.079 --> 00:01:20.260 today's document. It's written by Joan, and the 00:01:20.260 --> 00:01:25.459 place that it's sent from is Girona. Girona is 00:01:25.459 --> 00:01:30.459 about 100 kilometers, like an hour's drive from 00:01:30.459 --> 00:01:35.099 Barcelona up along the coast, but Girona is not 00:01:35.099 --> 00:01:39.290 a coastal city, it's inland a bit. Girona is 00:01:39.290 --> 00:01:43.909 about halfway between Barcelona and Perpignan. 00:01:46.129 --> 00:01:50.469 So, Joan is the Duke of Girona. It's the seat 00:01:50.469 --> 00:01:57.590 of his political station as the firstborn son 00:01:57.590 --> 00:02:03.129 of the king. The Duke of Girona is typically 00:02:03.129 --> 00:02:10.129 the one who's next in line for the throne. So 00:02:10.129 --> 00:02:16.449 what we're looking at here is a letter of about 00:02:16.449 --> 00:02:22.810 11 lines. And if you took a look at the letter 00:02:22.810 --> 00:02:27.569 from episode one, you might have noticed that 00:02:27.569 --> 00:02:31.389 it's not in a script that's very easy to read 00:02:31.389 --> 00:02:35.610 without practice. So I'm going to take a little 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:38.430 bit of time before getting into the content of 00:02:38.430 --> 00:02:42.909 this letter from Joan today, and discuss a 00:02:42.909 --> 00:02:47.310 few ways to navigate, at least for beginners, 00:02:48.229 --> 00:02:52.550 the letters that we're looking at in these registers. 00:02:53.550 --> 00:02:57.550 So first of all, the archival reference number 00:02:57.550 --> 00:03:09.909 for today's document is ACA CR R1675 f19v. Let's break that 00:03:09.909 --> 00:03:13.490 down. ACA stands for Archive of the Crown of 00:03:13.490 --> 00:03:18.810 Aragon. CR stands for Cancellaria Real, the Royal 00:03:18.810 --> 00:03:22.750 Chancery. R is for Registro, which is basically 00:03:22.750 --> 00:03:27.629 like the name for the bound volume. The number 00:03:27.629 --> 00:03:34.419 1675 is that registers number in the overall 00:03:34.419 --> 00:03:38.900 scheme of how these volumes are numbered, which 00:03:38.900 --> 00:03:43.060 was actually not assigned at the time. That was 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:47.680 that numbering scheme was put together by later 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:52.180 archivists, like centuries later. The F stands 00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:58.400 for folio. It's not page. It's sort of like page, 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:05.009 but each Each page is numbered on the front, 00:04:05.490 --> 00:04:11.129 on the upper right hand corner, and then the 00:04:11.129 --> 00:04:16.149 back is unnumbered. So if you're looking through 00:04:16.149 --> 00:04:20.449 these scanned images on Pares, what you're going 00:04:20.449 --> 00:04:27.589 to find is that in order to get to the back of 00:04:27.589 --> 00:04:31.500 Folio 19, it's actually going to be something 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:39.899 like image number 38, because each image has 00:04:39.899 --> 00:04:44.220 its own number, but the pagination, the way that 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:47.319 the pages are numbered is that only the front 00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:52.480 is numbered. So the V, the letter at the very 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:57.920 end of this document's reference, is for verso. 00:04:58.459 --> 00:05:02.939 The front of a page, the front of a folio more 00:05:02.939 --> 00:05:07.360 accurately, is called the recto, and then the 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:12.319 back is called the verso. So we're almost always 00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:15.959 going to be seeing reference numbers that end 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:22.120 in either R or V. So that's a little bit about 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:26.660 the reference number, but when we get to the 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:31.060 page itself, we're going to be looking today 00:05:31.060 --> 00:05:36.899 actually at the lower third of the page. There 00:05:36.899 --> 00:05:41.839 are a couple other letters on this page. Well, 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:45.699 there's the ending of one that began on the recto 00:05:45.699 --> 00:05:49.480 side of folio 19. That's at the top. And then 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:53.600 in the middle, there's a full letter. That one 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:58.120 is to the pope. And there's some interesting 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:00.500 repair work that's been done to the page that 00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:03.839 you can see on that letter. And then the one 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:08.439 that's the focus of our attention today is actually 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:14.819 concluded by the bottom of the page. And it has 00:06:14.819 --> 00:06:22.420 a top, El Primo... Oh boy, what is that? El Primogenito 00:06:22.420 --> 00:06:31.139 D'argo. So that translates to the first 00:06:31.139 --> 00:06:37.120 born of Aragon. All right. This was a title. 00:06:37.740 --> 00:06:43.519 Primogenit was a title. It doesn't seem to be 00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:49.079 saying it in... The ending there is a little 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:52.540 bit confusing to me because I would sort of expect 00:06:52.540 --> 00:06:57.259 something like primogenit, but there's clearly 00:06:57.259 --> 00:07:01.759 an O at the end, which I'm not quite sure why. 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:07.560 The line that's above the word, and there's also 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:12.860 a similar kind of line above darago, That is 00:07:12.860 --> 00:07:18.639 called, in paleography, a macron, and it indicates 00:07:18.639 --> 00:07:21.600 that there's been a letter left out of the word, 00:07:22.439 --> 00:07:27.959 and the macron indicates that there's an abbreviation 00:07:27.959 --> 00:07:30.800 happening because the letter has been left out. 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:38.000 So for darago, it's really clear that the macron 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:43.399 is standing in for the letter N. So basically that 00:07:43.399 --> 00:07:52.120 word is d 'Aragon, for of Aragon. Just to the 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:57.860 right of that title, or I guess it's more like 00:07:57.860 --> 00:08:02.459 an attribution heading of what's going to be 00:08:02.459 --> 00:08:05.430 our document at the bottom of the page. to the 00:08:05.430 --> 00:08:09.889 right is information that corresponds to the 00:08:09.889 --> 00:08:13.509 letter above so this is a pretty typical thing 00:08:13.509 --> 00:08:17.149 and you'll see it again at the bottom of the 00:08:17.149 --> 00:08:22.110 page and this symbol stands for probata and that 00:08:22.110 --> 00:08:28.829 is a word that means essentially authorized so 00:08:28.829 --> 00:08:32.649 what's happening here is that at the at the bottom 00:08:32.649 --> 00:08:38.559 of the letter the scribe is putting his authorization 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:44.360 onto this document to assert its accuracy. He's 00:08:44.360 --> 00:08:49.860 basically vouching for it. So we have at the 00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:54.480 end of the middle letter, above the squiggly 00:08:54.480 --> 00:09:00.570 P, you see another P, and that is abbreviated 00:09:00.570 --> 00:09:02.610 there's like a P dot and then above it there's 00:09:02.610 --> 00:09:05.549 like a circle I think that the abbreviation there 00:09:05.549 --> 00:09:12.610 is something like Pedro but I'm not sure and 00:09:12.610 --> 00:09:16.450 then at the bottom it's very clear what's going 00:09:16.450 --> 00:09:20.549 on above the probata symbol there's the letter 00:09:20.549 --> 00:09:30.559 IDM with a macron and here it is the Latin word 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:36.340 edem, that means likewise. So what is indicated 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:42.519 by that is the person who authorized, who copied 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:46.899 and authorized the accuracy of that copy for 00:09:46.899 --> 00:09:51.399 the middle letter on the page has also done so 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:55.120 for the bottom letter. One other thing I want 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:57.720 to point out here, if you're able to look at 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:02.679 this along with me, hopefully you are, the last 00:10:02.679 --> 00:10:10.059 word at the bottom left of the page is R -O -D 00:10:10.059 --> 00:10:19.299 -I, Rodi. And that is Rhodes. And the first 00:10:19.299 --> 00:10:26.789 word of the letter is Maestre. Master. Master 00:10:26.789 --> 00:10:29.990 of Rhodes. So the recipient of this document 00:10:29.990 --> 00:10:32.889 is the Master of Rhodes. It's not really clear 00:10:32.889 --> 00:10:38.110 who that is. I've done some reading on this, 00:10:38.250 --> 00:10:41.549 and I know that the Master of Rhodes at this 00:10:41.549 --> 00:10:46.269 time was Juan Fernández de Heredia, who was actually 00:10:46.269 --> 00:10:51.100 a pretty frequent correspondent of Joan and 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:54.919 Violant. And this was the person that was in 00:10:54.919 --> 00:11:00.799 charge of the Hospitallers, the order of the 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:04.000 Hospitallers sort of like an equivalent of the 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.720 Knights Templar. And so Joanne is writing to 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:13.639 the head of this religious order, the Hospitallers. 00:11:14.009 --> 00:11:20.690 and is recommending a fellow named Bernard Maloll 00:11:20.690 --> 00:11:28.190 for a position at a monastery. Now the context 00:11:28.190 --> 00:11:31.710 that's super important for understanding this 00:11:31.710 --> 00:11:37.250 document is the Western Schism of 1378, in which 00:11:37.250 --> 00:11:41.029 there started to be two popes, one in Rome and 00:11:41.029 --> 00:11:45.580 one in Avignon. Joan's father, Père, attempted 00:11:45.580 --> 00:11:49.039 to maintain neutrality as this all unfolded, 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:54.179 but eventually, pretty much by the mid -1380s, 00:11:54.440 --> 00:11:57.679 Joan had firmly taken the side of Avignon. 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:01.639 And so the pope being written to in the letter 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:07.679 above is most likely the Avignon pope, and understanding 00:12:08.110 --> 00:12:13.289 the intervention of the Duke in an ecclesiastical 00:12:13.289 --> 00:12:16.889 appointment has got to be something that will 00:12:16.889 --> 00:12:22.809 be made more clear if I am able to learn more 00:12:22.809 --> 00:12:28.470 about how the Western Schism shifted the relations 00:12:28.470 --> 00:12:32.389 between the political, the secular political 00:12:32.389 --> 00:12:35.389 authorities and the ecclesiastical authorities 00:12:35.389 --> 00:12:39.330 in the Crown of Aragon, and then how this extra 00:12:39.330 --> 00:12:44.610 organization, the Knights Hospitallers, had a 00:12:44.610 --> 00:12:48.190 role to play in all of that. And this is something 00:12:48.190 --> 00:12:51.309 I really don't know about. But beyond that, a 00:12:51.309 --> 00:12:54.250 bunch of other questions come up when I'm thinking 00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:57.549 about what I know about this document thus far. 00:12:58.149 --> 00:13:03.340 First of all, Who was Bernardo Maloll, and was 00:13:03.340 --> 00:13:08.259 he a shoe-in for this appointment, or did there 00:13:08.259 --> 00:13:11.980 need to be a lot of advocating for him? Was he 00:13:11.980 --> 00:13:14.879 something of a long shot? Was there a competitor? 00:13:16.299 --> 00:13:20.559 And this letter, is it just a routine thing, 00:13:20.580 --> 00:13:25.399 or was it something unusual for Joan to be 00:13:25.399 --> 00:13:30.860 intervening like this? Now, I'm also curious 00:13:30.860 --> 00:13:37.299 about how this moment here represents that larger 00:13:37.299 --> 00:13:40.059 context that I was talking about a moment ago. 00:13:41.059 --> 00:13:45.340 Is the Master of Rhodes going to be playing a 00:13:45.340 --> 00:13:48.659 really big role in this? And then, of course, 00:13:48.899 --> 00:13:52.279 I'm trying to limit myself to just one document. 00:13:52.519 --> 00:13:56.419 each day, but I can't help thinking about the 00:13:56.419 --> 00:13:59.200 letter to the pope that's right above this one. 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:02.120 And I didn't do that one today because it's in 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:05.480 Latin, and it's much more difficult for me. But 00:14:05.480 --> 00:14:09.279 I am really curious about it, because I'm wondering 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:14.340 whether the pope actually involved himself in 00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:17.019 appointments. at this level because this is not 00:14:17.019 --> 00:14:21.820 a bishop it's not an archbishop it it seems from 00:14:21.820 --> 00:14:25.019 what i can tell like these are are kind of small 00:14:25.019 --> 00:14:29.120 monasteries so I'm really wondering about whether 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:32.240 the papal bureaucracy would have just handled 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:36.200 this and if the pope would have even read that 00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:41.080 letter or maybe got a summary from one of the 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:46.100 officials or bureaucrats i don't know I'd be, 00:14:46.100 --> 00:14:50.980 I guess, surprised if the pope actually read 00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:55.059 this letter in full from someone who's not a 00:14:55.059 --> 00:14:57.419 monarch yet. But maybe the pope is like, yeah, 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:00.379 this dude's gonna be king really soon, so I'm 00:15:00.379 --> 00:15:05.559 gonna read this. It's a question mark. And that 00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:10.399 brings us to the end of this episode, where we're, 00:15:10.399 --> 00:15:13.500 remember, just doing an initial sweep through 00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:19.240 these documents. Thanks for listening to this 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:22.440 episode of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:26.570 Molt Cara Campanyona. If you are leaving with 00:15:26.570 --> 00:15:29.070 more questions than you arrived with, I have 00:15:29.070 --> 00:15:33.210 done my job. Because remember, the motto of the 00:15:33.210 --> 00:15:37.909 Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:41.980 Please try to visit the website to see an image 00:15:41.980 --> 00:15:45.860 of today's document and additional show notes, 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:49.679 and listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:53.720 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:59.659 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:01.519 meantime, take care.