Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was January 4th, 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. and
we're looking at a document from each day of
the first year of the reign of King Joan I of
Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin
today's document. There's a lot going on in today's
document, both in the content of it, but also
just in how it is appearing on the page and the
things that we can infer about how the chancery
staff is operating and also how letters are going
back and forth between various correspondents
at this time. There's just a lot. So starting
with just the paper itself, if you're able to
take a look at this, and there's a web page for
every document on my website, jonathanseyfried.net,
in the section for the podcast, The Historian's
Notebook. So see if you can get over there to
take a look at this page, because what we see
on folio 8R of this register 1952, is that at
the very top of the page it says, lo primogenit.
And then we have the letter that's our letter
of focus today from Joan to Marti. And then
below that letter on the right hand side, we've
got the usual kind of probata in a way. We do
have a scribe signing off on it, and it's Bernardo
de Jonquero, one that is in this register a lot.
But then to the left of that, in the center of
the page, we've got a couple lines in Latin,
and those lines amount to a message saying that
Pere has died and Joan has become king, and the
register is going to reflect that from now on.
And indeed, in the letter at the bottom of the
page, it starts out with Rex. r -e -x at the
upper left corner above the text block of that
letter. So on a single page we go from primogenit,
firstborn heir, to king. Also I want to go back
into the probata message at the bottom of the
letter that takes up most of this page. And you
can see that the word REX is on the first line
of that probata statement. So the second line
is just Bernardo de Jonquero and Bernardo is
abbreviated. So what you can see there is a B
and an N and then D and then the straight line
down is a J, which actually can also be an I.
And so that's the name of the scribe, Bernardo
de Jonquero. And what we have above that is an
interesting statement. And I think that the first
word is something like a D -O. It's an abbreviation
for Dominus or Dominum, and that would be Lord.
So you would see something in the earlier letters
like Lord, Duke. Here we've got both. It's kind
of weird. Domino, Rex, Dux. So we have Lord,
King, Duke, and then MA. and then m but above
the ma is a macron and so what that is abbreviating
is mandauit and then the m with a kind of a well
it's not really a straight up and down mark it's
kind of looking like an accent grav there that's
for an i and that stands for mihi mandauit mihi
okay commanded to me, or dictated to me, or gave
to me. So the whole probata here in its meaning
is saying that the Lord, King, and Duke has given
this, has mandated this of me, and I'm saying
as Bernard de Jonquero that I attest that this
is exactly what has been sent out in the outgoing
letter form. All right. In an earlier episode,
we talked about how Joan had received a letter
that had been time stamped for the third hour
of the day. In this letter, at the beginning,
the first couple lines refer to other correspondence
that Joan has been getting information from.
The letter begins Molt Car Frere. Vostra letra
havem rebuda, meaning my dearest brother, I have
received your letter. You might notice that the
The pronoun and verb here is in plural, so Joan
refers to himself in first person plural, Havem,
and he's referring to his brother in second person
plural, Vostra. And so that's, of course, the
honorific version of the plural form there, which
a lot of royalty and elites adopt for themselves.
Next, we see that he has received also letters
from two people. One is Vicente Ferrer and the
other is Gerau de Cerveo. So what we can tell
already is that there's a flurry of letters going
back and forth, right? And it's it's very difficult
to take account of all that is coming in and
going out, even though we we have a lot in these
registers. I don't think we have any outgoing
letters in reply to Vincent Ferrer or in reply
to Gerau de Cerveo, but maybe they're just in
other registers. that would be a different kind
of project than the one that I'm undertaking
in this podcast to try to track those down. So
it's hard to tell where Joan is getting all
the different information from, and it's also
hard to tell where he is at which time, because
if you flip through the pages of this register,
The documents are not in chronological order.
It's really common to have a primogenit letter
in the middle of Rex letters in the upcoming
pages. And then also tomorrow we're going to
take a look at a document that claims that Joan
was in Girona when it's very clear that he was
not in Girona. Why is it so clear that he was
not in Girona? after a certain date, after the
third of January? Well, it's because right here
we have in this letter, at the bottom, the second
to the last line begins, dada en los tal de la
bella dona. That is a place. it is a little bit
on the outskirts of Girona. He didn't get too
far, and actually today there's a luxury resort
there that you can rent out, and the claim on
the website of the Belladonna Lodge is that it's
a building from the 15th century. So what I'm
guessing is that there is a centuries -long building
there that is sort of, it's known as a resting
spot and had been already by the 15th century
at the time that the current structure was built
and that there was another structure there at
the time that Joann was there. It's also possible
that the website is wrong and that actually the
structure that currently exists, the building
that you can stay in today, if you're willing
to shell out quite a lot of money, is the same
structure that Joan was in when he composed this
letter. So he's outside of his usual residence
in Girona. He's on his way to Barcelona. The
question at this point is, is he starting to
feel the symptoms of the illness that we know
is on its way? And we know it's on its way because
Violant leaves him and goes into Barcelona.
There'd be no reason for her to do that. And
also no reason for him to not go, to slow it down.
There's no reason for him to slow down his journey.
All of his motivation is to get to Barcelona
as fast as possible to claim the throne at the
moment of his father's death. And he doesn't.
Violant goes ahead and he stays behind, and
historians have found that there's mention of
him getting very seriously ill in these days.
And so we're trying to track that and find mention
of it. But I haven't seen any mention of it yet,
and I've done a little looking ahead at the documents
coming up, and there's no mention of it. It's
all just silenced. Why? Well... you don't want
to put the word out there that you're in a weakened
state right in the moment that you're trying
to assert your authority as the new king. So
this is a very kind of hush -hush sort of situation.
So we'll see in the coming days how Joan is phrasing
his progress on the way to Barcelona. But the
content of this letter, we haven't even gotten
to like the main point of this letter. The main
point of this letter to Marti, his brother, is
that Joan has become aware that Marti is pursuing
Sibilla, the queen who has fled, and the main
line of this letter, the instruction that Joan
is communicating out to his brother, I think
is in, let's see, one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, like the seventh line down
in which he tells his brother that Sibylla should
not be allowed to enter Barcelona without my
Joan's permission. Don't let her get back
into the city and I think the implication here
is you need to take her prisoner. You need to
be in charge of her movement so that she does
not try to come back into Barcelona. Now something
that you've got to keep in mind is that people
can be close to death and then bounce back and
we know, and on this very page it is recorded,
that Pere died. But Joan hasn't seen Pere,
and he's certainly had his own rounds of illness
that bring him in a very dire state, and then
he's bounced back. So it is within the realm
of possibility that Pere could survive this bout,
that he could regain consciousness. And then,
well, then Joan and Marti will have to answer
for their actions. So Joan wants to make sure
that he is in control of what happens to the
Queen, Sibilla, the current Queen, and also that
she doesn't try to make some kind of outlandish
claim that Pere has returned to consciousness
and is still in a state of ruling the kingdom.
So Joan is moving to try to have as much control
over a wild card as he possibly can. And of course
that wild card is Sibilla de Fortia. And he also
wants to get her brother's falcons. as we talked
about in that other letter. Oh, something I forgot
to mention when I was talking about the importance
of Joan projecting that he is strong and that
he is not weakened by illness. There's a very,
very foundational work of scholarship about political
kingship in the Middle Ages, and that book is
titled The King's Two Bodies, and it's by Ernst
Kantorowitz. And it's still very foundational
to a lot of the ways that scholars, historians
think about representations of kingship in the
Middle Ages and what was on the minds of those
who were trying to create the perception of being
an effective king, trying to shore up their own
authority. And the idea in a nutshell is that
the king has two bodies, the physical human body
of the king, but also the body of the government,
the body politic, and that these are very symbolically
connected. And so if the king's physical human
body is in bad shape, then it's symbolically
connected to the state and strength of the kingdom
and vice versa. So that is a really interesting
symbolic connection that Kantorowitz argues was
very strong in the communication and political
theory of the time and could argue that it's
actually still quite prominent in the way that
we think about our political leaders and how
they reflect the status of the state and the
larger body politic, even in our times. Alright,
well, that does it for this episode. Thanks for
listening to this latest Episode of the Historian's
Notebook, Season 1 Molt Cara Companyona. If you
are leaving with more questions than you arrived
with, then I have done my job. Remember, the
motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction
guaranteed. Visit the website 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
of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime,
take care.