WEBVTT 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:05.179 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:12.300 it was January 9th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:15.599 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:19.800 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:23.980 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:28.219 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:28.219 --> 00:00:31.100 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:31.100 --> 00:00:35.140 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:39.159 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:02.570 --> 00:01:05.250 I'm really excited to talk about today's document 00:01:05.250 --> 00:01:09.909 because it's the first time that I'm talking 00:01:09.909 --> 00:01:15.409 about a document where there's a woman writing 00:01:15.409 --> 00:01:20.870 a letter to another woman. All of the previous 00:01:20.870 --> 00:01:26.609 documents thus far have been involving men in 00:01:26.609 --> 00:01:30.230 some way as either the writer or the recipient. 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:37.739 And so today's letter is a welcome change. Violant 00:01:37.739 --> 00:01:42.719 is writing to Maria de Luna. I might have mentioned 00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:47.000 Maria de Luna in passing earlier on the episode. 00:01:47.620 --> 00:01:52.159 Maria de Luna is a big deal. First of all, she 00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:58.159 is Marti's wife. So basically this is the second... 00:01:58.299 --> 00:02:02.760 most powerful woman in the Crown of Aragon at 00:02:02.760 --> 00:02:07.659 this time. But Maria de Luna has a background. 00:02:08.639 --> 00:02:13.379 She is from the, well, if not the wealthiest 00:02:13.379 --> 00:02:17.819 family in the Crown of Aragon, one of like the 00:02:17.819 --> 00:02:22.599 top five wealthiest families. The de Luna family 00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:27.219 is incredibly powerful and wealthy. And in fact, 00:02:27.659 --> 00:02:32.300 Maria de Luna's uncle becomes pope a few years 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:36.979 down the road. Well, talking about the Avignon 00:02:36.979 --> 00:02:41.500 Papacy, so history actually remembers Pedro de 00:02:41.500 --> 00:02:46.699 Luna, who is Pope Benedict. Oh gosh, what number. 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:49.939 Benedict the something something. He's remembered 00:02:49.939 --> 00:02:55.740 as the anti -pope. So this is a very prestigious 00:02:55.879 --> 00:03:02.740 powerful family with so much established network 00:03:02.740 --> 00:03:09.419 connection to other families and political powerhouses 00:03:09.419 --> 00:03:14.780 in the Crown of Aragon. So Maria de Luna is very 00:03:14.780 --> 00:03:20.400 well connected and has deep roots in the Crown 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:24.819 of Aragon. I say all that in order to bring out 00:03:24.819 --> 00:03:29.069 a contrast. Violant, remember, she grew up in 00:03:29.069 --> 00:03:34.650 France, and Joan set out to have a French wife. 00:03:35.009 --> 00:03:38.490 Like, the way that he got together with Violant 00:03:38.490 --> 00:03:42.129 is that he sent, like, a group of emissaries 00:03:42.129 --> 00:03:47.810 into France and asked them to basically compile, 00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:55.099 like, a dossier of marriageable high -up French 00:03:55.099 --> 00:04:00.599 ladies, and so and actually should, you know, 00:04:00.780 --> 00:04:05.819 specify that the age difference was quite significant 00:04:05.819 --> 00:04:11.240 and very hard for us in the modern age to wrap 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:15.439 our heads around. So the age that Violant leaves 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:19.100 France and moves to the Crown of Aragon to marry 00:04:19.100 --> 00:04:27.439 Joan, she's 15 years old. And so that is not 00:04:27.439 --> 00:04:31.279 what we would say in our time as a lady or woman. 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.259 We would say that is a 15 year old girl. And 00:04:35.259 --> 00:04:38.519 so trying to figure out how to get our minds 00:04:38.519 --> 00:04:42.300 around what was considered a normal marriageable 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:46.259 age in the Middle Ages, in the medieval era, 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:51.300 it's very difficult for us and not easy at all 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:57.470 to support or defend can only say that the notions 00:04:57.470 --> 00:05:00.670 that we have about childhood and adolescence 00:05:00.670 --> 00:05:06.269 are very much modern creations. And not to make 00:05:06.269 --> 00:05:10.470 excuses, but just observe that anthropologically 00:05:10.470 --> 00:05:16.029 there is variation across humanity and over time 00:05:16.029 --> 00:05:21.509 in regard to questions of when childhood ends. 00:05:22.069 --> 00:05:24.310 In our modern time, though, we don't have these 00:05:24.310 --> 00:05:29.610 questions. We are very clear on having a society 00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:35.850 that will not accept a child marriage as okay. 00:05:37.589 --> 00:05:42.629 So, all right. Maria de Luna is from a very well 00:05:42.629 --> 00:05:48.810 -connected, wealthy family, and she, by all accounts, 00:05:48.990 --> 00:05:55.220 is a very competent and responsible leader. Nuria 00:05:55.220 --> 00:05:59.399 Silleras Fernandez has written a fantastic book 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:04.019 about Maria de Luna, and it's a wonderful parallel 00:06:04.019 --> 00:06:08.959 to thinking about Violant, because after Joan 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:14.870 dies in 1396, Marti is off in Sicily and it takes 00:06:14.870 --> 00:06:19.050 him a really long time to get back to Barcelona 00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:26.230 to inherit the throne. And this is to say that 00:06:26.230 --> 00:06:29.509 there were no surviving male heirs at the time 00:06:29.509 --> 00:06:35.269 that Joan died. And so Martí takes several months 00:06:35.269 --> 00:06:38.870 to get to Barcelona, and in an interesting parallel 00:06:38.870 --> 00:06:41.089 to what we're looking at right now with the beginning 00:06:41.089 --> 00:06:45.100 of the reign of Joan and Violant. Just as 00:06:45.100 --> 00:06:48.800 Violante is stepping up and running things while 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:52.199 waiting for Joan to arrive, Maria di Luna does 00:06:52.199 --> 00:06:58.439 that in 1396 and has to really get way deeper 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:01.819 into governance because it takes so much longer 00:07:01.819 --> 00:07:08.230 for Marti to arrive from Sicily and also because 00:07:08.230 --> 00:07:12.889 that transition of power in 1396 is way more 00:07:12.889 --> 00:07:17.310 of a crisis. And the reason for that, without 00:07:17.310 --> 00:07:23.709 getting too digressive here, is that the circumstances 00:07:23.709 --> 00:07:29.810 surrounding Joan's death in May of 1396 are 00:07:29.810 --> 00:07:34.569 problematic. I would use the word suspicious. 00:07:34.750 --> 00:07:38.509 Other historians have not. definitely sudden. 00:07:39.509 --> 00:07:42.970 So Maria de Luna is a really interesting figure, 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:48.009 and the portrait that Nuria Silleras Fernandez 00:07:48.009 --> 00:07:51.370 paints of Maria de Luna is one of just very responsible, 00:07:51.970 --> 00:07:58.209 very organized, very stable personality. And 00:07:58.209 --> 00:08:01.769 Violant, by contrast, has gone down in history 00:08:01.769 --> 00:08:08.639 as more aggressive, more hot -tempered, but I 00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:12.160 think the question that historians of Violant 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:15.160 de Bar, such as Dawn Bratsch Prince, who started 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:18.899 out a whole new revision of Violant de Bar 00:08:18.899 --> 00:08:22.399 in the late 1990s into the early 2000s, and now 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:25.300 Claire Ponsich, who's currently writing about Violant 00:08:25.300 --> 00:08:29.980 de Bar, historians that look at Violant, they're 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:32.899 starting to question a lot of the characterization 00:08:32.899 --> 00:08:37.480 of Violant as ill -tempered or hot -headed, 00:08:37.940 --> 00:08:42.559 and to notice how a lot of that has to do with 00:08:42.559 --> 00:08:48.139 the animus against her for being an outsider, 00:08:48.580 --> 00:08:52.179 for being somebody who had come in from France, 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:56.580 and also maybe how Violant was pushing the 00:08:56.580 --> 00:09:03.090 boundaries in a way that made people angry. because 00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:07.870 of what Joan was doing too, and that there's 00:09:07.870 --> 00:09:12.950 a dynamic here that upset a lot of people that 00:09:12.950 --> 00:09:16.289 has to do with the way that Joan and Violant 00:09:16.289 --> 00:09:19.129 were working together. That last little twist 00:09:19.129 --> 00:09:23.350 is my own theory of this case. In any event, 00:09:23.669 --> 00:09:27.629 what we have in this letter, dated January 9th, 00:09:27.629 --> 00:09:34.289 1387, is Violant informing Maria de Luna that 00:09:34.289 --> 00:09:39.450 Pere has died, which to me is a bit of a mystery 00:09:39.450 --> 00:09:45.009 because I would be super surprised if Maria de 00:09:45.009 --> 00:09:48.909 Luna had not already been informed that Pere 00:09:48.909 --> 00:09:52.230 had died. I mean, that's pretty hot news. So 00:09:52.230 --> 00:09:56.830 maybe Violant is starting this out by just as 00:09:56.830 --> 00:10:00.870 a matter of courtesy saying Hey, I'm going to 00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:04.110 share this important news with you that the king 00:10:04.110 --> 00:10:08.029 is dead, and long live the new king, and I'm 00:10:08.029 --> 00:10:12.950 queen. She starts out the letter with a molt cara. 00:10:13.169 --> 00:10:15.350 You know, we always love that. That's nice and 00:10:15.350 --> 00:10:19.350 tender. So this one starts out molt cara sor. 00:10:19.850 --> 00:10:24.009 And then the second sentence in the letter also 00:10:24.009 --> 00:10:31.250 reiterates moltkara sor. Most dear sister. So, 00:10:31.509 --> 00:10:35.529 Violant is addressing Maria de Luna in the same 00:10:35.529 --> 00:10:39.590 way that she addresses Marti. And that led me 00:10:39.590 --> 00:10:43.929 on my initial read of this letter to say, okay, 00:10:44.370 --> 00:10:49.269 this kind of tone here is just nice and, you 00:10:49.269 --> 00:10:52.610 know, friendly. And the content of the letter 00:10:52.610 --> 00:10:56.129 is basically saying, hey, come to Barcelona, 00:10:56.289 --> 00:11:01.690 please. But... I just was kind of curious what 00:11:01.690 --> 00:11:06.870 would happen if I fed this into ChatGPT and the 00:11:06.870 --> 00:11:09.110 kind of analysis that I might get. Was there 00:11:09.110 --> 00:11:12.889 anything hidden in this letter that maybe ChatGPT 00:11:12.889 --> 00:11:15.409 might find and could kind of spark some additional 00:11:15.409 --> 00:11:18.669 questions in my mind? And that's exactly what 00:11:18.669 --> 00:11:23.149 happened. So ChatGPT has an interesting interpretation 00:11:23.149 --> 00:11:30.039 of this letter and the AI has made an interpretation 00:11:30.039 --> 00:11:37.919 that this letter is actually not all that polite, 00:11:38.580 --> 00:11:43.080 but is instead a more assertive and commanding 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:48.399 summons, that Violant is summoning Maria de 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:52.779 Luna to Barcelona. It's an interesting angle 00:11:52.779 --> 00:11:56.559 on this, and I would have to have way deeper 00:11:56.559 --> 00:12:01.179 familiarity with the tone of the language of 00:12:01.179 --> 00:12:05.100 letters like this than I do now. I'm still a 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:07.860 relative beginner at looking at these documents, 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:11.840 and so maybe if I come back to this about six 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:15.039 months from now, it'll seem obvious to me. that 00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:18.980 this is a summons, that there's really kind of 00:12:18.980 --> 00:12:22.700 like a power play happening here where Violant 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:28.799 is asserting that she has the power to demand 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:34.200 the presence of Maria de Luna, like as a subordinate. 00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:38.840 Or maybe that's not what's going on here at all. 00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:45.000 Maybe it is a request. The key phrase that ChatGPT 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:51.620 pulled out that is, I think, the one that we're 00:12:51.620 --> 00:12:53.960 really trying to figure out in a close read, 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:59.220 whether it's demanding or not, is in the second 00:12:59.220 --> 00:13:03.639 -to -the -last full line where basically Violant 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:06.279 is saying, oh, sorry, it's the third -to -the 00:13:06.279 --> 00:13:11.889 -last line, kind of in the center. Al pus breu. 00:13:12.570 --> 00:13:19.929 So basically saying, you know, move it. It should 00:13:19.929 --> 00:13:24.649 be fast the way you get here. I'm not sure that 00:13:24.649 --> 00:13:29.049 that's necessarily the tone that is being conveyed 00:13:29.049 --> 00:13:33.409 in this letter. Maybe, you know, it's not going 00:13:33.409 --> 00:13:37.179 to come across to Maria de Luna as uh sort of 00:13:37.179 --> 00:13:41.399 edging on rudeness level of summons, but you 00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:44.299 know maybe it is. And you know I asked a series 00:13:44.299 --> 00:13:48.700 of questions the other day about Marti and how 00:13:48.700 --> 00:13:53.139 Marti reacts to being issued directives from 00:13:53.139 --> 00:13:56.039 Violante, and the same thing can be asked about 00:13:56.039 --> 00:14:00.279 Maria. Is Maria de Luna at this point in full 00:14:00.279 --> 00:14:07.330 support of Violant, or is she... feeling a certain 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:12.330 kind of annoyance at a level of presumption from 00:14:12.330 --> 00:14:18.669 this foreigner, this French lady who is now going 00:14:18.669 --> 00:14:22.570 to become the Queen of the Crown of Aragon. So 00:14:22.570 --> 00:14:26.210 a lot of questions about the operation and exercise 00:14:26.210 --> 00:14:30.850 of power are at work here. And I talked about 00:14:30.850 --> 00:14:36.009 this quite a bit in previous episodes. But I 00:14:36.009 --> 00:14:39.990 go in deeper on this question of the exercise 00:14:39.990 --> 00:14:45.330 of power in some of the show notes on the webpage 00:14:45.330 --> 00:14:49.710 for this document on the website. So do check 00:14:49.710 --> 00:14:52.409 that out. There's a lot of really interesting 00:14:52.409 --> 00:14:56.169 bibliographic citations. If you're wanting to 00:14:56.169 --> 00:15:01.090 learn more about how scholars today discuss the 00:15:01.090 --> 00:15:06.899 exercise of power. by medieval women. And I can 00:15:06.899 --> 00:15:10.000 highly recommend some of the works that I had 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:13.379 mentioned yesterday, but also I want to mention 00:15:13.379 --> 00:15:18.899 two more. First, an article by Marie Kelleher 00:15:18.899 --> 00:15:23.740 titled, What Do We Mean by Women and Power? That's 00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:29.659 from 2016. And then a really great contrast to 00:15:29.659 --> 00:15:33.779 the book by Nuria Silleras Fernandez about Maria 00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:39.360 de Luna is one by Elizabeth Casteen about Johanna 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:44.799 of Naples. It's titled From She -Wolf to Martyr, 00:15:45.179 --> 00:15:48.360 the Reign and Disputed Reputation of Johanna 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:53.139 the First of Naples, and it's also about the 00:15:53.139 --> 00:15:57.129 14th century and about a woman who pushed the 00:15:57.129 --> 00:16:03.049 boundaries of power and a way more violent fate 00:16:03.049 --> 00:16:07.970 awaited Joanna of Naples versus that experienced 00:16:07.970 --> 00:16:12.330 by Violant and Maria de Luna, and also Sibilla 00:16:12.330 --> 00:16:16.799 de Fortia, who the three of them in the Crown 00:16:16.799 --> 00:16:21.240 of Aragon, they had a lot of ups and downs and 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:25.919 excitement, but their physical safety was never 00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:30.259 in super risk. I'm sure Sibilla is pretty frightened 00:16:30.259 --> 00:16:34.539 at this moment, but she ends up being okay and 00:16:34.539 --> 00:16:39.299 lives a long life after this, long enough to 00:16:39.299 --> 00:16:44.039 see Violante go down after Joan's death in 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:50.019 1396. Alright, so a lot of really interesting 00:16:50.019 --> 00:16:53.179 stuff being written about powerful women in the 00:16:53.179 --> 00:16:56.559 Middle Ages. Oh, but one last thing to mention 00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.159 about this letter before I bring this episode 00:16:59.159 --> 00:17:05.740 to a close, which is that Violant mentions the 00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:11.140 Infanta Joanna is there with her. And this is 00:17:11.140 --> 00:17:14.759 a really interesting moment because I had not 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:18.039 understood that there were any of the children 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:22.000 around. But this is actually Violant's stepdaughter, 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:26.559 a daughter that Joan had with his previous 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:30.640 wife, Matha of Armagnac. And by all accounts, 00:17:30.900 --> 00:17:34.599 Violant and Joanna got along very, very well. 00:17:34.900 --> 00:17:38.480 But I think that... mentioning Joanna in this 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:44.240 moment helps to maybe imply a little bit to Maria 00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:50.180 that the women are going to be a force together, 00:17:50.460 --> 00:17:55.359 working together on team next gen for this upcoming 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:57.519 reign. So I think that's a really interesting 00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:00.059 moment that I wanted to make sure I didn't forget 00:18:00.059 --> 00:18:04.400 to talk about that that Violant mentions that that 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.220 the Princess Joanna is there with her in this 00:18:07.220 --> 00:18:13.359 moment. Thanks for listening to this episode 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:17.019 of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Mult Cara 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:20.440 Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions 00:18:20.440 --> 00:18:24.119 than you arrived with, then this episode has 00:18:24.119 --> 00:18:29.579 succeeded according to the criteria, dissatisfaction 00:18:29.579 --> 00:18:33.480 guaranteed, which is the motto of this podcast. 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:37.240 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:41.440 document and additional show notes. And listen 00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:46.900 again tomorrow to hear more about the first year 00:18:46.900 --> 00:18:51.420 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:53.960 Violant de Bar. Take care.