Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was January 6th, 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 are
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. The date of January 6th makes me think
about transitions of power and how in the midst
of a transition of power, malefactors and political
opponents can take advantage of this moment of
vulnerability for a political system. The time
of a transition of power is one that is a moment
of opportunity to challenge the system because
in that transition moment the system is not really
running on its own momentum as much because there's
a change taking place. In an interesting coincidence,
the transition of power in 1387 in the crown
of Aragon took place in the span of January 5th
to January 6th of that year, 639 years ago. January
5th is the day that King Pere the Ceremonious
I dug into this a bit and tried to find some
kind of actual certification of his death on
January 5th. I could only find a quote from one
of the registers of the Archive of the Crown
of Aragon in a secondary source, one that I've
mentioned on the podcast before. It's written
by Rafael Tasis i Marca, and he did not cite
his sources. He has no footnotes in his book.
This is a work published in 1959. I think maybe
it was originally printed in 1957, but the edition
I'm working with is from 1959. Raphael Tasis i
Marca quotes a Latin sentence, a long Latin sentence,
from January 5th. Part of the sentence says,
And that in effect says that his spirit returned
to the creator and that's confirming that Pere
died. And this inscription is dated on the 5th
of January 1387. Violent definitely finds out
about this. by January 6th, because when we look
at Violant's registers of letters in Registro
1819, we see that letters dated January 6th refer
to her as the Queen. The document we're looking
at today is one of those, and it appears on a
page in the register that's a really fun page
because On the recto side of this folio, the
letters are from December 22nd, December 24th,
and January 3rd, and they all have La Duquessa
as the sender. And then you turn the page and
you see that the sender is now La Reyna. And
so it's a pretty cool thing to see in the documentation
this transition that takes place. The document
that we're looking at today is a letter from
Violant to Joan, and these are the letters
that I think are the ones that are going to be
of the most worthwhile focus for me as I'm trying
to understand the way that the two of them related
to each other. Before we get to that one, though,
I just want to point out that, doing a little
bit of a sort of two -fer situation here, the
letter that appears at the top of the page is
one that Violant is writing to Marti, and she's
starting it out by saying, hey, you're absent
you're you're not here right now and so we're
figuring some stuff out specifically when we're
going to bury the body of the dead king and Violant
says it's happening next Tuesday implication
being you should really make it back to Barcelona
by then so Violant knows that Pere has died she
is starting the arrangements for putting him
in the ground That's the letter that's at the
top of the page. Now, the letter that we're gonna
put our focus on to for today's episode is the
one that's in the middle of the page. And it
starts out, So this is a whole string of honorifics
that Violant is providing to Joan, most excellent
prince and powerful lord husband and lord most
dear to me. That's how she's starting it out.
and then she goes on to provide some information
about it's kind of hard to figure out what's
going on here because she's saying that she's
she's got a letter from a Gasto Montcada about
the Count of Empúries This gets into some background
information about what happened in the year before.
The Count of Empúries had risen up in rebellion
against Pere, and Joan had been kind of empathetic,
like he hadn't like sent forces to help the Count
of Empúries, but he wasn't really condemning
it either. And that's another thing that got
Pere very angry at Joann in those last months
of his life. And in fact, here's a little cool
additional piece of information about the family
estrangement and rancor. Pere had started to
write some documentation ordering that if Joan
died that forces would be sent to get Joan and
Violant's son and to kidnap him basically to
take him away so that Violant would not be able
to basically raise him or or I guess maybe the
fear would be use Joan's son to make a claim
for the throne at some future moment. I think
Pere knows that he's kind of getting to the end
of his life, but basically this maneuver is one
that really is an infuriating one to Joan and
Violant, obviously. So that is just another
kind of level of family rancor that gets set
off by how Joan is not really coming out against
the Count of Empúries in this moment of a rebellion.
And it's not like the Count of Empúries has raised
a big army and is going to go capture Barcelona.
It's just that the Count of Empúries, after Some
kind of dispute with Pere is just saying, I'm
done. I'm just not going to be a part of the
Crown of Aragon anymore. And then things sort
of settle down, and I think the concern at this
moment during the transition of power is that
the Count of Empúries might take advantage of
this moment and do some kind of more aggressive
official splitting off or defiance against the
crown because he sees an opportunity, a vulnerability
in this moment of transition of power. So I think
that Violant is on this and she's had an emissary
reach out to the Count of Empúries about just
sticking with Joan and just there's a way to
work out our differences here. Don't split away.
Wait to see what Joan as king is going to do
and you might be happy to stay and we can settle
our differences. That's my guess about what's
going on, but I have to admit that... there's
certainly writing about this in the secondary
literature that I have not really dug into. And
so I could be wrong about this, but I think the
general idea is that Violant is taking action
to look at the places where the new regime might
be vulnerable and looking to take action to increase
and bolster the authority of this new monarchy,
and she's informing Joan about this. But let's
talk about how Violant is saying that she's
taking care of business here. The scholar Claire
Ponsich, who's writing now about Joan and Violant,
and Violant in particular, she has looked at
these letters. And Claire Ponsich is really like
the number one authority on Violant de Bar
today. Claire Ponsich did a close reading of this
very letter, and that's why I decided to choose
it because it appears in a 2008 journal article.
And on page 97 of that article, Claire Ponsich
does a close reading of this letter and pulls
out a sentence in particular. Here it is translated
into English. And this is Violent, okay? To Joan,
quote, do not finalize anything until we, you,
and your brother are together, unquote. So Claire
Ponsich has spent a ton of time reading Violant's
letters from the time she was a duchess and then
also during the time of her queenship and
after during widowhood and Claire Ponsich is saying
Violant's assumption of queenly authority is
noticeable in this sentence and especially the
kind of queenly authority that she is going to
be engaging in here. That is to say, she's not
shy about issuing directives to her husband,
the king. And this is a really interesting argument
that Claire Ponsich makes. I am inclined to follow
right along with it because she has spent so
much time looking at these letters and she would
definitely be the one to be able to conduct a
very informed close reading. So here we are really
getting at the focus of what I'm trying to understand
more about in the way that Joan and Violant
related to each other and the kind of project
that they set out to create as they envisioned
the way that they were going to be king and queen.
Violant is clearly comfortable. with taking charge
and directing action, and she needs to in this
moment, apparently, because Joan is not in Barcelona,
because Joan is possibly sick and possibly deathly
ill, as a matter of fact. We don't have good
information about what condition Joan was in
day -to -day. I spent some time trying to track
down details about the illness that he's suffering
in this period of time in January of 1387. The
scholar Josep Roca is the one who finds a letter
from April 30th and Roca reads this letter. It's
one that Violant is writing. that describes
Joan's illness and he looks at that letter from
April 30th and he says that it is about what
took place in January. I have looked at the register
and I've looked at that page and to be honest
I'm having a little bit of a problem understanding
how Roca came to that conclusion but Roca spent
a lot of time reading these documents and so
I'm inclined to trust him but I really want to
know how he figured out that what she was writing
about on April 30th had to do with Joann's condition
in January and wasn't like a later illness that
took place in April right around the time she's
writing because it's not it's not clear to me
but I'll figure it out I'll puzzle that out I've
got until April 30th to figure that one out but
according to Roca this letter from April 30th
describes what was taking place in January and
at some point in January Joan became so ill
that he was given last rites that he couldn't
speak that he was seemingly unconscious and It
looked like he was gonna die even before he could
make it to Barcelona to start his reign as king
so that's What is likely happening in these moments?
We just don't know like day to day what Violant
is aware of. I mean she's writing to Joan so
presumably she thinks that Joan can read her
letter. But who is informing her about Joan's
condition at this time? How is she finding out
information about that? It's one of the major
questions that I have as I'm looking at these
letters. And of course, there's all the questions
about the content of the letter itself and how
vulnerable is this new regime right as it's beginning
on the first day of their reign, which is January
6th, 1387. I'm also kind of curious about some
of the details like where is Violant living
at this time? Like how has her household started
to merge or replace like the staff of the royal
palace? Or is Violant actually living in some
other kind of residence? And I'm also just really
wanting to know how did Violant feel about the
start of her reign at this point? Is she... feeling
vulnerable, or is she feeling really confident?
I mean, my guess is that there's kind of a mixture
of both, because there's no immediate threat.
It seems like everyone agrees it makes sense
for Joan to be inheriting the throne. No one
knows how sick he is, so it seems like there's
no contender to threaten the succession here.
but I think Violant is also very aware that
it's not going according to plan because she's
the one that's there in Barcelona and Joan is
not. All right, that does it for today's episode.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Historian's
Notebook, season one, Multi Cara Companyona. If
you are leaving with more questions than you
arrived with, I have done my job. Remember the
historians, notebook has a motto, and that motto
is dissatisfaction guaranteed. Visit the website,
jonathanseyfried.net, to see an image of today's
document and additional show notes, including
a bibliographic reference to that article by
Claire Ponsich. It is in French, by the way, so
you'll have to if you want to read that one you
got to brush up on your French. 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.