WEBVTT 00:00:00.590 --> 00:00:05.830 Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:06.490 --> 00:00:12.689 it was December 28th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.689 --> 00:00:16.870 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.870 --> 00:00:20.769 University of New Mexico, and this is The Historian's 00:00:20.769 --> 00:00:25.269 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:30.000 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.299 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:34.299 --> 00:00:40.179 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:40.179 --> 00:00:45.759 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:10.189 --> 00:01:15.530 Today's document is another letter about filling 00:01:15.530 --> 00:01:23.750 a vacancy for an ecclesiastical position. And 00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:29.349 I gotta tell you... I am not in my comfort zone 00:01:29.349 --> 00:01:34.250 because this document is in Latin. There were 00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:38.829 a ton of abbreviation symbols in this document 00:01:38.829 --> 00:01:42.269 that I had to go back to some of my notes in 00:01:42.269 --> 00:01:46.230 order to figure out what they were. And even 00:01:46.230 --> 00:01:50.090 after spending about three hours with this document, 00:01:50.469 --> 00:01:54.189 which is only like about 10 lines, I'm still 00:01:54.189 --> 00:01:59.549 not sure what's going on. Folks, Latin is really, 00:01:59.629 --> 00:02:02.849 really difficult. And if you've never studied 00:02:02.849 --> 00:02:06.890 Latin at all, let me just tell you that, well, 00:02:07.209 --> 00:02:10.750 you know, in a lot of languages, there's conjugations 00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:13.349 for verbs. The verbs will have different endings 00:02:13.349 --> 00:02:18.009 depending on who's doing the action. Well, to 00:02:18.009 --> 00:02:22.300 put it in a very basic way, in Latin, there's 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:26.139 different endings for the nouns, too, based on 00:02:26.139 --> 00:02:29.860 certain prepositional phrases. So, there's just 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:33.620 a lot that you have to keep in mind, and when 00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:37.599 you're trying to get a sentence meaning down, 00:02:37.979 --> 00:02:41.550 you're often getting confused about who is doing 00:02:41.550 --> 00:02:48.030 what to who, and it's all just a lot. So basically, 00:02:48.669 --> 00:02:52.729 I figured out a lot about this document, but 00:02:52.729 --> 00:02:56.210 I still am like really far from from what it 00:02:56.210 --> 00:03:00.629 means. So what's going on here is that Joan 00:03:00.629 --> 00:03:07.330 is writing to the archdiocese of Huesca. Now 00:03:07.330 --> 00:03:12.490 Huesca is another city in the Crown of Aragon. 00:03:12.810 --> 00:03:16.629 It's within Aragon itself, not Catalonia and 00:03:16.629 --> 00:03:19.889 other or other parts of the Crown of Aragon. 00:03:20.729 --> 00:03:22.930 What are the parts of the Crown of Aragon? I'm 00:03:22.930 --> 00:03:26.169 gonna have to get into that probably in a future 00:03:26.169 --> 00:03:29.889 episode upcoming pretty soon, though. I'll explain 00:03:29.889 --> 00:03:33.590 what made up the Crown of Aragon, what territories. 00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:38.289 But this is the city of Huesca as the intended 00:03:38.289 --> 00:03:41.990 recipient of this letter. I guess I shouldn't 00:03:41.990 --> 00:03:44.909 have said city. What I mean is it's the archdiocese 00:03:44.909 --> 00:03:49.770 of Huesca. And in the first line, there's the 00:03:49.770 --> 00:03:55.629 word vacet. And that's indicating that there's 00:03:55.629 --> 00:03:59.490 some kind of vacancy. And it's because somebody 00:03:59.490 --> 00:04:04.590 died. The person who died, I think, is named 00:04:04.590 --> 00:04:11.620 Pere Cerdani. Four words from the end of the first 00:04:11.620 --> 00:04:17.399 line there's a big letter P with a downward 00:04:17.399 --> 00:04:22.579 diagonal mark above the P. I think that's an 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:28.639 abbreviation for Pere, the Catalan version of 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:32.860 the name Peter. And then there's a period, so 00:04:32.860 --> 00:04:37.829 I think that's indicating that that's Pere, and 00:04:37.829 --> 00:04:41.850 then the last name I think is Cerdani, maybe 00:04:41.850 --> 00:04:46.970 meaning that this Pere came from the region of 00:04:46.970 --> 00:04:53.029 Cerdanya. And that's a neighboring territory 00:04:53.029 --> 00:04:56.050 of Aragon, I'm pretty sure. They're close if 00:04:56.050 --> 00:05:01.029 not neighboring. Okay, so... Later on in the 00:05:01.029 --> 00:05:04.290 letter, in the third line, is where we get to 00:05:04.290 --> 00:05:09.470 the name of the person who Joan was recommending 00:05:09.470 --> 00:05:15.310 for this post, the vacant post, and that person's 00:05:15.310 --> 00:05:22.129 name is Nicolao Çorica. As best as I can transcribe 00:05:22.129 --> 00:05:25.129 what I'm seeing there, I think that that's that's 00:05:25.129 --> 00:05:30.850 the person's name, Nicolao Çorica. The C has 00:05:30.850 --> 00:05:34.870 a cedilla underneath, which turns it into a soft 00:05:34.870 --> 00:05:39.970 C, sort of pronounced like the letter S. So, 00:05:40.290 --> 00:05:42.769 Nicolao Çorica. And then later on in the letter 00:05:42.769 --> 00:05:48.569 we find out that Nicolao is the son of somebody 00:05:48.569 --> 00:05:55.490 who's mentioned here as R. Çorica. This is most 00:05:55.490 --> 00:06:00.329 likely a Raimundo, like a Raymond. So Raimundo 00:06:00.329 --> 00:06:03.550 Çorica is the father, and the father, I think, 00:06:03.769 --> 00:06:10.769 is very established, some kind of official that 00:06:10.769 --> 00:06:16.889 has done a good job. He's called a Fidelibus, 00:06:16.889 --> 00:06:21.230 but maybe like as faithful, but that may actually 00:06:21.230 --> 00:06:26.180 be referring to Nicolao as the faithful son of 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:30.560 Raymundo. I don't know. It's all it's all just 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:35.279 gonna take a long time to figure out. So here 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:41.500 we have Joan getting involved with another ecclesiastical 00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:45.980 appointment. And in this situation, he's not 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:48.779 addressing it to a particular person. It could 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:52.120 be because this is a lower level appointment. 00:06:52.459 --> 00:06:56.759 the archdiocese here would have a bishop but 00:06:56.759 --> 00:07:02.259 it's not like the archbishop so and I'm not even 00:07:02.259 --> 00:07:06.259 sure if it's if it's a bishopric to be honest 00:07:06.259 --> 00:07:16.500 so basically this is my guess this is maybe being 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:21.939 prompted by the father that sent in a request 00:07:21.939 --> 00:07:25.439 to Joan for this recommendation, but I don't 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:28.699 know. It's just my best guess at this point. 00:07:30.019 --> 00:07:34.240 Okay, so how did I get to this document? Why 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:38.100 did I torture myself with incredibly difficult 00:07:38.100 --> 00:07:43.259 Latin abbreviations? If I have my druthers... 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:47.579 I will go for the Catalan letter versus the Latin 00:07:47.579 --> 00:07:50.600 letter, but it is good for me to practice the 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:55.160 Latin and to give it a try. When I talk about 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:58.279 the abundance of the Archive of the Crown of 00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:03.319 Aragon, it's not like a uniformly spread out 00:08:03.319 --> 00:08:08.180 high quantity of letters each day. The Archive 00:08:08.180 --> 00:08:12.120 will sometimes have like 30 letters in a day. 00:08:12.670 --> 00:08:16.589 maybe even more. And then other days are like 00:08:16.589 --> 00:08:21.509 down days, so there aren't as many choices. And 00:08:21.509 --> 00:08:25.610 then in some points in this year, there's going 00:08:25.610 --> 00:08:29.610 to be a real lack of letters from Joan, because 00:08:29.610 --> 00:08:34.690 he had, I think, two different bouts of very 00:08:34.690 --> 00:08:37.830 serious illness., where it looks like he's gonna 00:08:37.830 --> 00:08:40.789 die like twice in the first year of the reign 00:08:40.789 --> 00:08:44.509 it looked like Joan was gonna die so that's 00:08:44.509 --> 00:08:48.389 dramatic and we'll get to that but oh the first 00:08:48.389 --> 00:08:50.669 one is in January and then the second one is 00:08:50.669 --> 00:08:53.070 in April so one of them is like coming up and 00:08:53.070 --> 00:08:56.350 that that'll be interesting but basically what 00:08:56.350 --> 00:09:00.529 I'm trying to get at here is there will be days 00:09:00.529 --> 00:09:04.379 where I've got like 30 documents to choose from, 00:09:04.419 --> 00:09:06.279 and then there will be days where I've only got 00:09:06.279 --> 00:09:10.899 a handful. And this is one of those days where 00:09:10.899 --> 00:09:14.100 there weren't that many to choose from. There's 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:19.080 another letter above this one on the same folio, 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:25.600 and that one was longer and also in Latin, so 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:28.600 I said, no thanks, I'll go for the shorter one. 00:09:29.039 --> 00:09:31.740 But what I can tell you is that when I'm trying 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:34.879 to corroborate, which is one of the historical 00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:36.759 thinking skills when you're comparing what's 00:09:36.759 --> 00:09:41.480 in one document to another, I look up above and 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:44.539 then on the next page or the other side of the 00:09:44.539 --> 00:09:47.519 folio and I try to see if there's something else 00:09:47.519 --> 00:09:50.120 about the same topic so I can maybe start to 00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:53.879 figure out a little bit more or some of the really 00:09:53.879 --> 00:10:00.179 difficult words in the script. And I can tell 00:10:00.179 --> 00:10:03.159 you that the document above is seemingly not 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:05.440 going to be helpful to understanding this one, 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:08.820 because it's to the governor of Mallorca. It's 00:10:08.820 --> 00:10:10.759 something about Mallorca. And this one doesn't 00:10:10.759 --> 00:10:15.379 seem to have anything to do with Mallorca. Okay. 00:10:16.700 --> 00:10:20.220 Well, that's a bit about today's document. Of 00:10:20.220 --> 00:10:23.679 course, there's a ton of questions, right? I 00:10:23.679 --> 00:10:27.830 really want to know about how Joan came to 00:10:27.830 --> 00:10:31.269 weigh in on this appointment. It seems pretty 00:10:31.269 --> 00:10:35.629 minor. I'd really like to know a little bit more 00:10:35.629 --> 00:10:39.409 about the recipient. There's not a person's name 00:10:39.409 --> 00:10:45.409 here. At the bottom left below the text block 00:10:45.409 --> 00:10:53.009 of the letter, we've got a little phrase about 00:10:53.009 --> 00:10:56.980 who this letter is supposed to go to. And the 00:10:56.980 --> 00:11:04.000 last word is oscen with a macron on top. So that's 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.419 Huesca. There was a Latin name for the town of 00:11:07.419 --> 00:11:12.919 Huesca, which is Oscensis. And then the word 00:11:12.919 --> 00:11:17.019 before that is something like capitulum. So maybe 00:11:17.019 --> 00:11:20.320 a word to mean like the chapter, the people in 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:24.500 charge, the head. I'm just not sure. Someone 00:11:24.500 --> 00:11:26.960 else who's worked with these a lot more and knows 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:30.620 this Latin would identify this immediately and 00:11:30.620 --> 00:11:33.320 not have a problem. But for me, it's still tough. 00:11:34.559 --> 00:11:40.580 Alright, we're gonna pause there on this particular 00:11:40.580 --> 00:11:43.080 letter, and I want to come back to something 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:46.690 I was talking about before, which is... finding 00:11:46.690 --> 00:11:50.070 the documents. I want to bring you in on one 00:11:50.070 --> 00:11:54.309 of my methods for finding a document, if it's 00:11:54.309 --> 00:11:57.750 one of those slow days, because I do know that 00:11:57.750 --> 00:12:01.669 there is at least one document for each day of 00:12:01.669 --> 00:12:04.830 this year and other years too. How do I know 00:12:04.830 --> 00:12:10.129 that? Well, there was a scholar who was working 00:12:10.129 --> 00:12:14.370 at around the turn of the 20th century, and in 00:12:14.370 --> 00:12:20.549 1923 published a basically you could call it 00:12:20.549 --> 00:12:26.429 a calendar well he called it an itinerary so 00:12:26.429 --> 00:12:31.309 the the word for it in Catalan is itinerary and 00:12:31.309 --> 00:12:39.669 it's a day -by -day list of where Joan was for 00:12:39.669 --> 00:12:48.200 his entire time as the heir to the crown. And 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:53.080 then there's another itinerary for every day 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:59.259 of his reign. And the scholar who did this, he 00:12:59.259 --> 00:13:04.220 was, I mean, dedicated, because it takes a lot 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:07.879 of work to be able to put this together, because 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:11.679 not only was he figuring out where Joan was, 00:13:11.899 --> 00:13:20.039 but he listed a letter in the archive that lists 00:13:20.039 --> 00:13:25.919 where Joan was according to the last couple 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:28.039 lines of the letter where there's not only the 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:32.120 date, but it's also the convention to put down 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:37.960 the place where the letter was composed. And 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:46.320 so This scholar, his name is Daniel Girona i LIagostera. 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.700 It's kind of funny that his last name is also 00:13:50.700 --> 00:13:57.360 the the title of of Joan and Violant, Duke 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:03.600 and Duchess of Girona. So in 1923, this scholar, 00:14:04.460 --> 00:14:10.759 Daniel Girona i LIagostera, published this long, 00:14:10.779 --> 00:14:16.600 long document that lists where Joan was each 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:25.440 day, and also a register and folio for a letter 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:31.379 that confirms that location on that day. He also 00:14:31.379 --> 00:14:35.440 added some transcriptions of letters, not every 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:40.080 single one, but a selection. This is a tremendous 00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:45.960 resource, and it's one that I really wouldn't 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:48.639 be doing the podcast in this way if it didn't 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:53.360 exist. So I am just full of gratitude for the 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:57.480 work of Daniel Girona i Llagostera. But I just 00:14:57.480 --> 00:15:01.840 want to mention that this project that Girona 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:06.820 i Llagostera did was situated in a really interesting 00:15:06.820 --> 00:15:12.820 context called the Catalan Renaixença, the Renaissance 00:15:12.820 --> 00:15:16.879 of the Catalan language and culture. In the 19th 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:20.759 century, kind of early in the 19th century, scholars 00:15:20.759 --> 00:15:27.100 in the area around Barcelona, they basically 00:15:27.100 --> 00:15:33.379 produced a rebirth of the Catalan language and 00:15:33.379 --> 00:15:40.480 promoted Catalan culture, and the legacy of this 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:45.519 is still visible to this day, despite a total 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:50.179 crackdown on it, like a near extermination of 00:15:50.179 --> 00:15:54.860 Catalan during the Franco era in Spain in the 00:15:54.860 --> 00:16:02.240 20th century. So basically the work that Girona 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:06.879 i Llagostera produced is part of actually a gigantic 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:11.500 project of Catalan scholarship with a lot of 00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:17.220 focus on medieval Catalan and the archive of 00:16:17.220 --> 00:16:19.340 the Crown of Aragon. So there's a lot of scholars 00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:21.600 that got into this. It's a really interesting 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:26.720 story and I don't have time to get into any more 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:30.340 details on it right now, but I do have some links 00:16:30.340 --> 00:16:35.440 in the page on the website associated with today's 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:41.440 document, as well as an image of this page of 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:45.779 Girona i Llagostera's itinerary of Joan's movements. 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:52.700 And you can see where where I was able to locate 00:16:52.700 --> 00:16:57.740 this particular document on this day. Okay, well, 00:16:58.120 --> 00:17:01.899 that brings us to the close of today's episode. 00:17:03.799 --> 00:17:07.160 Thanks for listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:17:07.160 --> 00:17:11.460 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you 00:17:11.460 --> 00:17:13.539 are leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:17:13.539 --> 00:17:18.720 with, I've done my job. Because the motto of 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:23.480 the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:26.759 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:29.700 document and additional show notes, and listen 00:17:29.700 --> 00:17:32.859 again tomorrow to hear about the next day in 00:17:32.859 --> 00:17:37.539 the first year of the reign of King Joan I of 00:17:37.539 --> 00:17:41.839 Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:43.180 take care.