Hello. In The Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was January 3rd, 1387. My name is Jonathan
Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the
University of New Mexico. And this is The Historian's
Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made.
Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. we're
looking at a document from each day of the first
year of the reign of Joan I of Aragon and Violant
de Bar. Let's begin today's document. Alright,
today's document is a letter from Joan to the
officials that are in charge of the city of Barcelona.
Something to keep in mind about the organization
of the Crown of Aragon is that there's very,
very powerful city councils, especially in the
big cities like Barcelona and Valencia. And you
have to really think about Barcelona like it's
the New York City of the country. It's a financial
center. It's wealthy. There's a lot of people
who have a lot of power. The population is relatively
speaking, very large. And if you're going to
go up against the people who control power in
the city of Barcelona, you could get yourself
into some trouble. And that is actually what
happens later on in Joan's reign. But right now,
I think at this point, Joan and the leaders of
Barcelona are just mutually apprehensive. Joan
does not have a good history with these town
councils. He's never really gotten along with
them. He just doesn't like politics. He likes
the arts, and he likes being outside with the
hunting dogs. He does not like all of the political
machinations and power plays. He just wants to
listen to troubadours all day. So, dealing with
the town councils is something that... pretty
much is at the top of his list of things that
he does not want to do. And Violant will actually
step in. Like in later years, Violante really
is the one who's the political entity. And so
in between the two of them, she's, and I think
it happens pretty quickly, which is one of the
big questions I have. For this this year's project
is to figure out well, when does that start?
I think it starts pretty soon I think that
Joan's illness has a lot to do with it his sickliness
so this particular letter I'm trying to figure
out if we can see anything about his sickliness
or his illness in it. He's letting the leaders
of Barcelona know that he's on his way that he
has received their information because they are
keeping him informed, just like his brother Martí
is keeping him informed. So Joan has received
the letter from the leaders of Barcelona about
the grave condition of the king, which in this
document the king is referred to as El Senyor
Rey. the Lord King. So, Joan is saying to them,
I've heard the news, I've heard it's bad, I am
coming to Barcelona. That's the simple message
of the letter, but there's a lot operating here
that goes beyond just what's being stated. So,
first of all, This letter appears on the middle
of a page and there's two other letters on that
page. The letter to the Barcelona city leaders
is dated the 3rd of January. The one above it
that precedes it as entered in this register
is dated January 15th. And then the one below
it is dated January fourth. So something has
happened in terms of the organization of the
letters. Is it a usual typical backlog of the
chancery staff, or is it indicating that there's
some other kind of chaos happening? Keep in mind
that Joan and Violant, they're both making
arrangements to leave their home in Girona and
move permanently to Barcelona. So that's got
to be a massive undertaking that just everybody's
figuring out what to take and how to pack and
how to move. And the staff, the scribes of the
chancery, they're also in the middle of that
process and they have to go with them. Earlier
in the podcast, I speculated that Violant had
left Girona before Joan did? I don't think so.
I'm changing my mind about that. I think they're
still together at this moment on January 3rd.
That will change for sure in the coming days.
But what is known at this point about how these
conditions are shifting? And I'm talking really,
when I'm talking about conditions, I'm talking
about Joan's health conditions. Because in this
letter, he's saying I'm gonna be in Barcelona.
I'm just gonna be on a little rest in this place
called Bella Donna. Bella Donna is just on the outskirts
of Girona, and it is true that Joann makes it
further. gosh, I have to kind of figure out when,
but I have to go back and look at the itinerary
from Daniel Girona y Llagostera to figure out
when he leaves Belladonna and goes to Hostalric.
Hostalric is not all that much further away from
Girona, so he's not really making it to the halfway
point between Girona and Barcelona. And then
he moves on to another place called Granollers,
and he's there for a while, and he's definitely
in a state of illness in the middle of January.
Violant and Joan, they finally enter Barcelona
on January 19th. I should have said that Joan
enters Barcelona on January 19th. The secondary
literature is incredibly conflicting on what
is going on in these days. Who is in which place
when, and what is Joan's health condition on
the different days. It is not very well laid
out. There's a couple different historians that
have gotten into this. They're pretty much basing
their accounts on the book by Tasis i Marca.
and that book doesn't have footnotes so it's
really hard to try to figure out when Joan's
illness gets to its most severe point and then
when he starts to recover and then when it gets
worse again. So this is one of the things I'm
going to be tracking as I'm going forward in
the documents day by day. So What's happening
in this particular document here is that Joan
is saying all the nice things about, oh, it's
so sad that my father has very bad illness, and
it's all very unfortunate. And then he says,
keep me notified, keep the letters coming, and
I am going to be there in Barcelona before you
know it. I'm on my way. And that, of course,
is a promise that he does not keep. Theoretically,
he could have been in Barcelona by January 5th,
because that's when Violant gets to Barcelona.
So, Joan gets pretty delayed. Something else
that gets revealed in this letter that I think
is super interesting from a logistical standpoint
is that Joan says he has received a letter from
the leadership of Barcelona that is dated January
2nd at the third hour. So it's super specific.
And it leads me to wonder a lot of things about
the mail delivery. It was done by courier and
it seems clear to me that you can get a letter
from Barcelona to Girona perhaps overnight. under
24 hours, but can it go faster? Kind of wondering
about that. And then also it's interesting that
in these moments of intensity, the like intense
frequency and communication, there's hours listed.
There's like a timestamp hourly on the letter.
So that to me is super interesting. I have not
actually seen evidence of that before in my work
in the archive, but I'm sure that it's been done
and other people have seen plenty of it, but
I think that's just super interesting to see
for the first time in this document. So this
document is attempting to maintain the appearance
of stability for the upcoming succession. And
it's doing this work to confirm that Joan is
engaged, that there's not going to be any room
for any shenanigans. And I think that's pretty
important because we've already had something
very weird happen, which is the current queen
fleeing the capital and like fleeing the bedside
of the king. And Marti, who's been there, Martí
is also about to leave Barcelona in order to
pursue the current queen, Sibilla. So there's
a moment approaching when no one in the immediate
royal family is going to be in Barcelona if Martí
has followed Sabila to where she's fled to. And
so that I think is probably motivating the decision
for Violant to head to Barcelona and to not
be at Joan's bedside as he comes down with an
illness. So that's how I'm currently thinking
about the situation here and we'll see if that
develops as I get further into the documents.
One close reading moment is something I'd like
to flag at this point. In the second line, Joan
uses the phrase los accidents de la malaltia del
senyor. So basically talking about the accidents
of the illness of the senyor. So I was kind
of curious about that and the use of the word
accident. And so I used an online resource that
is available from the Institut d 'Estudis Catalans
and I was able to find it's well it's kind of
like the Oxford English Dictionary but for Catalan
and I was able to find a really great entry that
I've linked to on the web page for this document
and it makes it really clear that the word accidents
can refer to miss can basically be used like
misfortune and so here Joan is talking about
the misfortune or the worsening misfortune of
the illness of the Lord King. So I thought that
was an interesting word choice. He uses it again
a couple lines further down in the letter. Los
dits accidents, the said accidents, the said
misfortunes. He wants to be further notified
about any other misfortunes that occur. I mean,
we know what that means. That's when the King
dies. So alright. That's the material for today's
letter that I was kind of most excited to talk
about, and we will now bring this episode to
a close. Thanks for listening to this episode
of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara
Companyona. If you still have questions about...
the way that the succession operates in this
moment of one king's death and the new king on
his way if you have questions about mail delivery
in the middle ages if you have questions about
the town council of Barcelona and who is on that
well Yes, you are leaving with more questions
than you arrived with, and I have done my job.
The motto of the Historian's Notebook is, as
we know, dissatisfaction guaranteed. But visit
the website jonathanseyfried.net to see an image
of today's document. and additional show notes.
And listen again tomorrow to hear about the next
day in the first year of the reign of King Joan
I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the
meantime, take care.