WEBVTT 00:00:00.270 --> 00:00:05.290 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.849 --> 00:00:12.089 it was January 10th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.089 --> 00:00:15.189 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.189 --> 00:00:18.949 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:18.949 --> 00:00:22.929 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:23.570 --> 00:00:27.160 Season one is titled Multi Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:29.899 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:29.899 --> 00:00:33.920 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:37.659 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's 00:00:37.659 --> 00:01:08.799 document. Today's document is weird. If you look 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:13.219 at the image of this document, it's like a mess 00:01:13.219 --> 00:01:20.040 because it's so basically it's on the inside 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:27.310 cover of the back cover of the register. And 00:01:27.310 --> 00:01:31.209 as you're looking at the picture that the Archive 00:01:31.209 --> 00:01:34.510 of the Crown of Aragon has produced for this, 00:01:35.230 --> 00:01:39.969 you can see a lot of the preservation practices 00:01:39.969 --> 00:01:43.849 from earlier eras. Like in other documents we've 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:49.829 seen how archivists from long ago had used reinforcing 00:01:49.829 --> 00:01:55.810 paper. underneath and around the edges of a document 00:01:55.810 --> 00:02:04.159 that had been attacked by worms. maybe like reinforcing 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:07.739 paper might be cut with like sort of this curvy 00:02:07.739 --> 00:02:12.319 edge in order to include some of the writing 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:15.379 if it kind of went into the margin a little bit 00:02:15.379 --> 00:02:19.139 and so the reinforcement paper will kind of, 00:02:19.139 --> 00:02:22.479 you know, have this like little peninsula cut 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.719 out of it in order to accommodate where there 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:29.110 was some additional writing. We see a similar 00:02:29.110 --> 00:02:34.569 tearing out happening here where it's clear that 00:02:34.569 --> 00:02:39.469 there was like a knife taken to this reinforcement 00:02:39.469 --> 00:02:43.590 paper in order to make sure that we could read 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:47.449 this Latin inscription. And by the way, I just 00:02:47.449 --> 00:02:50.069 said reinforcement paper, but as I'm looking 00:02:50.069 --> 00:02:54.409 at it and noticing the texture of this kind of 00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:59.520 top surface reinforcement material here. It looks 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:03.400 like it could be parchment. It looks like it 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:05.460 could be a little bit thicker than paper and 00:03:05.460 --> 00:03:08.840 it has kind of a texture to it that reminds me 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:13.419 of parchment. So it's very possible that at some 00:03:13.419 --> 00:03:17.180 point the archival reinforcement work that was 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:21.250 done here utilized parchment because parchment 00:03:21.250 --> 00:03:25.069 is sturdier than paper when we're talking about 00:03:25.069 --> 00:03:29.830 the long term of this material. One other thing 00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:34.610 I want to point out about this material is that 00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:39.009 you can see all of the holes on the right side 00:03:39.009 --> 00:03:43.949 of the image here. Those holes are part of the 00:03:43.949 --> 00:03:49.719 original binding. of these papers into some kind 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:56.780 of unit and the the string would have gone through 00:03:56.780 --> 00:04:02.520 those holes as a way of connecting all of the 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:06.520 different pieces of of the the paper together 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:10.120 and so you can see how it was very thick right 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:14.800 this very thick volume because of the number 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:20.259 of holes that we can observe there and and so 00:04:20.259 --> 00:04:23.699 that everything you see in the whole part of 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:28.899 it that's how you know that that's the side of 00:04:28.899 --> 00:04:31.279 this like if it's a book and it's laying on it 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:33.879 on a table like that part is going to be vertical 00:04:33.879 --> 00:04:36.899 where those holes are and then the cover is folded 00:04:36.899 --> 00:04:41.540 over so That is a really interesting glimpse 00:04:41.540 --> 00:04:46.959 into some of the history of the material format 00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:51.839 of these record books, and I'm really not clear 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:55.649 about, you know, which kind of bindings were 00:04:55.649 --> 00:04:59.709 used originally when they were bound originally 00:04:59.709 --> 00:05:03.550 and then when they were taken out of their bindings 00:05:03.550 --> 00:05:07.269 and given new bindings there is literature on 00:05:07.269 --> 00:05:11.009 that but I have not for all of my love of the 00:05:11.009 --> 00:05:12.930 archive of the crown of aragon i haven't really 00:05:12.930 --> 00:05:16.209 gotten into the details of of those questions 00:05:16.209 --> 00:05:23.860 so now we're looking at the back cover of a volume 00:05:23.860 --> 00:05:28.019 in the treasury records. So we're not in the 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:31.560 Cancelaria Real. We're not in the Royal Chancery 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:35.819 Records. We're instead in the Patrimonio Real, 00:05:36.180 --> 00:05:39.660 which is the treasury records. And we've looked 00:05:39.660 --> 00:05:42.800 at a treasury record once before. It was actually 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.980 way back toward the beginning of the podcast 00:05:45.980 --> 00:05:52.480 in episode five. But today instead of a payment 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:57.819 record we're looking at this notice that essentially 00:05:57.819 --> 00:06:03.160 just kind of closes out this record book because 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:09.500 it is the Treasury record book of King Pere the 00:06:09.500 --> 00:06:13.959 ceremonious who has died So they're not gonna 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:18.259 let him spend any money anymore because once 00:06:18.259 --> 00:06:20.769 you're dead you don't get to do that anymore 00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:26.569 so this notice in the back is like literally 00:06:26.569 --> 00:06:31.949 closing the book on the reign of king pair the 00:06:31.949 --> 00:06:36.149 ceremonious the long reign over 50 years of king 00:06:36.149 --> 00:06:40.829 Pere the ceremonious it's in latin and actually 00:06:40.829 --> 00:06:46.449 this latin is very accessible to me so the first 00:06:46.449 --> 00:06:51.410 the first A few words here are actually pretty 00:06:51.410 --> 00:06:56.189 standard words that commemorate someone's death. 00:06:57.009 --> 00:07:02.110 The first words here are migrauit ab hoc seculo. 00:07:02.889 --> 00:07:08.009 And what that translates to is he departed from 00:07:08.009 --> 00:07:13.290 this earthly world. so migrauit you can sort 00:07:13.290 --> 00:07:16.110 of detect in there an english word that we have 00:07:16.110 --> 00:07:20.110 that derives from this migration right moving 00:07:20.110 --> 00:07:25.610 so in this sense though he's departing he's moving 00:07:25.610 --> 00:07:31.389 with kind of like a one -way ticket and then 00:07:31.389 --> 00:07:37.089 we have ab hoc from this and then the word seculo 00:07:37.089 --> 00:07:42.670 seculo is basically it's a name for a world 00:07:42.670 --> 00:07:47.670 it's a word for world in latin but it's got a 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:52.250 real kind of earthly world kind of meaning to 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:54.970 it because there's other words that if you want 00:07:54.970 --> 00:07:58.889 to use world you can you can use besides seculo 00:07:58.889 --> 00:08:02.910 so this is really to emphasize that he has left 00:08:02.910 --> 00:08:06.310 the earthly world he's gone on into the heavenly 00:08:06.310 --> 00:08:10.600 world and then after that phrase we've got uh 00:08:10.600 --> 00:08:15.980 the illustrious and magnificent prince and lord 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:20.439 of all of these dominions and then there's the 00:08:20.439 --> 00:08:23.779 list of all of the dominions where you know it 00:08:23.779 --> 00:08:26.939 starts with aragon and then valencia and then 00:08:26.939 --> 00:08:31.759 you've got sardinia in there and so a long list 00:08:31.759 --> 00:08:35.399 of all these different territories and then in 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:40.500 the fourth line in the middle you have the the 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:48.179 date the number five Quinta and then D I E 00:08:48.179 --> 00:08:54.259 a day fifth day of January and then you've got 00:08:54.259 --> 00:08:58.159 the year in the next line right below the word 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:02.779 die you can see septimo very clearly that's the 00:09:02.779 --> 00:09:09.659 seven in 1387 so here we've got another corroboration 00:09:09.659 --> 00:09:16.340 of the date of Pere's death and then what comes 00:09:16.340 --> 00:09:23.669 after that is a statement about when he was interred, 00:09:23.789 --> 00:09:28.730 like when he was buried. And that is listed as 00:09:28.730 --> 00:09:32.549 the tenth day so right below septimo there's 00:09:32.549 --> 00:09:36.649 another die and before that is an x that folks 00:09:36.649 --> 00:09:40.789 is an x oh my gosh that used to drive me crazy 00:09:40.789 --> 00:09:43.909 when i was starting out with the paleography 00:09:43.909 --> 00:09:47.549 to see that in the middle of a word in a letter 00:09:47.549 --> 00:09:50.850 and to remember that that is how the letter x 00:09:50.850 --> 00:09:54.029 is written Oh, it took me so much getting used 00:09:54.029 --> 00:09:57.269 to, but now it feels like very obvious when I 00:09:57.269 --> 00:10:03.309 see that that is an X. So the 10th day of the 00:10:03.309 --> 00:10:09.789 month in that year mentioned before. So remember 00:10:09.789 --> 00:10:13.870 how Violant in a document we looked at a little 00:10:13.870 --> 00:10:18.190 while ago said we're burying Pear on Tuesday? 00:10:18.269 --> 00:10:21.850 She was writing that to Marti. Well, the 10th 00:10:21.820 --> 00:10:28.940 was not the next Tuesday. It's Thursday. And 00:10:28.940 --> 00:10:34.259 so why is the plan changed? Maybe they were waiting 00:10:34.259 --> 00:10:37.799 for Marti. They weren't waiting for Joan, because 00:10:37.799 --> 00:10:41.259 I think Joan is pretty sick at this point, 00:10:41.620 --> 00:10:45.340 but you know, Joan, I think, had written off 00:10:45.340 --> 00:10:47.720 his father at this point and was like, you can 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:49.919 just put the dude in the ground and don't wait 00:10:49.919 --> 00:10:54.240 for me. I don't know, maybe Joan was a little 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:57.019 torn up that he couldn't be there for his father's 00:10:57.019 --> 00:11:01.980 funeral. You know, speaking of this, I don't 00:11:01.980 --> 00:11:07.580 know if you had the chance to see the HBO TV 00:11:07.580 --> 00:11:11.539 show Succession, but whenever I think of Pere 00:11:11.539 --> 00:11:13.299 the Ceremonious, and part of it is that I was 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:15.940 watching that show as I was first learning about 00:11:15.940 --> 00:11:22.000 Pere . He's such a Logan Roy type of person. Logan 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:26.519 Roy in the TV show succession is like this, you 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:29.220 know, the patriarch who's kind of at the end 00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:31.299 of his life, but he's still trying to like do 00:11:31.299 --> 00:11:35.480 power plays and like mess with the heads of his 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:39.419 kids. And it's all ego driven and total like 00:11:39.419 --> 00:11:42.720 sort of narcissist and womanizer whole kind of 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:48.490 deal. So I really see a lot of similarity between 00:11:48.490 --> 00:11:53.470 the character of Logan Roy in the HBO series 00:11:53.470 --> 00:11:58.470 Succession and Pere the Ceremonious. And I just 00:11:58.470 --> 00:12:00.950 want to say you know, maybe I can give a little 00:12:00.950 --> 00:12:03.990 eulogy about the eulogy scene, the funeral scene 00:12:03.990 --> 00:12:06.110 in succession. That's what I was also trying 00:12:06.110 --> 00:12:09.470 to talk about, which is that that whole funeral 00:12:09.470 --> 00:12:13.870 scene is really like how I imagine a lot of the 00:12:13.870 --> 00:12:16.629 way that this funeral must have gone for Pere 00:12:16.629 --> 00:12:20.509 because he just made so many people angry at 00:12:20.509 --> 00:12:24.629 the very end. But, you know, he he he had his 00:12:24.629 --> 00:12:27.970 cultured moments like, you know, he when he wanted 00:12:27.970 --> 00:12:30.809 to tell Joan not to marry Violant, what did 00:12:30.809 --> 00:12:34.909 he do? He wrote a poem. And he did have some 00:12:34.909 --> 00:12:37.529 cultural interests and did patronize the arts. 00:12:38.269 --> 00:12:41.169 And there were some, he was a multi -dimensional 00:12:41.169 --> 00:12:45.289 person. But, you know, I cannot let Pere go without 00:12:45.289 --> 00:12:48.889 relating to you my favorite anecdote that to 00:12:48.889 --> 00:12:52.509 me really encapsulates all that Pere the Ceremonious 00:12:52.509 --> 00:12:56.370 was capable of. Because remember, This guy, he 00:12:56.370 --> 00:12:59.330 was forged in fire. When he started his reign, 00:12:59.590 --> 00:13:03.169 he was super young and he had a rebellion right 00:13:03.169 --> 00:13:07.649 away from those pretenders that his stepmother 00:13:07.649 --> 00:13:12.830 had kind of used as a way to try to contest Pere's 00:13:12.830 --> 00:13:15.629 reign at the very beginning and then after that 00:13:15.629 --> 00:13:19.490 he had some of the cities rise up against him 00:13:19.490 --> 00:13:21.830 and try to break off from the crown of aragon 00:13:21.830 --> 00:13:24.269 so this rebellion that i'm talking about now 00:13:24.269 --> 00:13:29.490 is called the the union rebellion and so there's 00:13:29.490 --> 00:13:33.990 this moment at the end of it when Pere has crushed 00:13:33.990 --> 00:13:40.559 the union uprising and the city of Valencia had 00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:44.440 been really like the the most rebellious of all 00:13:44.440 --> 00:13:49.200 the cities and part of what they did well at 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:52.100 one point they had captured Pere and like humiliated 00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:54.720 him like paraded him through the town and like 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:57.220 made him dance at one point it was like really 00:13:57.220 --> 00:14:01.789 like you know brutal humiliation tactics. So 00:14:01.789 --> 00:14:09.070 at the end, Pere is so incensed with the rebels 00:14:09.070 --> 00:14:13.970 of Valencia that he comes up with his own very 00:14:13.970 --> 00:14:18.049 special way of executing them when they're defeated. 00:14:19.980 --> 00:14:23.580 Leaders, the rebel leaders of Valencia had used 00:14:23.580 --> 00:14:28.299 the town's bell tower as a way to organize themselves 00:14:28.299 --> 00:14:32.840 and rally themselves for military conflict against 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:36.100 Pere's forces. So the bells were like very much 00:14:36.100 --> 00:14:39.960 associated with the rebellion. And so what Pere 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:44.100 did is he took those bells, he had them taken 00:14:44.100 --> 00:14:49.139 out of the tower and melted down and then he 00:14:49.139 --> 00:14:52.440 rounded up all of the defeated rebel leaders 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:59.460 that he had captured and he had the molten iron 00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:08.259 from those bells poured down their throats. Just 00:15:08.259 --> 00:15:14.610 really like Game of Thrones level kind of execution 00:15:14.610 --> 00:15:20.409 method here. So, you know, that's my eulogy for 00:15:20.409 --> 00:15:24.549 Pere the Ceremonious. Oh, but I do have to say 00:15:24.549 --> 00:15:29.570 the man loved his archive. He really did. There's 00:15:29.570 --> 00:15:32.509 these stories of the scribes just like losing 00:15:32.509 --> 00:15:36.049 their minds because Pere is ordering them to 00:15:36.049 --> 00:15:38.570 reorganize the way that they're doing all the 00:15:38.570 --> 00:15:41.549 record keeping, developing all these additional 00:15:41.549 --> 00:15:45.950 categories of, okay, everything about Sardinia 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:48.009 is going to go into this and everything about 00:15:48.009 --> 00:15:50.269 Majorca is going to go into this. Oh, but if 00:15:50.269 --> 00:15:51.950 it has to do with this person, it's going to 00:15:51.950 --> 00:15:54.210 go here and like all these different so they're 00:15:54.210 --> 00:15:56.710 going crazy trying to figure out like, oh my 00:15:56.710 --> 00:15:59.350 gosh, which register should I write down this 00:15:59.350 --> 00:16:02.330 letter in because the number of types of registers 00:16:02.330 --> 00:16:06.720 completely ballooned because Pere. He had ideas 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:10.480 about organizational behavior and record -keeping 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:12.940 and that was one of his passions. That's one 00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:17.980 of the reasons why his cognomen is Pere the ceremonious. 00:16:19.299 --> 00:16:24.960 So okay I gave you maybe like a little bit of 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:31.279 a backhanded uh positive spin on Pere there oh 00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:34.500 Pere the ceremonious I think there are people 00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:38.340 that really consider his reign very successful 00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:43.779 a lot of military historians in particular so 00:16:43.779 --> 00:16:48.860 here we've got a guy who was I think, very much 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:53.559 the kind of traditional masculine type of medieval 00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:57.600 king. And just keep all this in mind as we move 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:01.519 forward and look at how Joan is going to be 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:05.680 very different and how Violent is going to be 00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:12.180 involved in creating that difference. All right, 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:16.109 I think that does it for today's episode. Thanks 00:17:16.109 --> 00:17:19.809 for listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:17:19.809 --> 00:17:23.950 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you 00:17:23.950 --> 00:17:26.089 are leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:17:26.089 --> 00:17:30.130 with, I have done my job. Remember, the motto 00:17:30.130 --> 00:17:34.269 of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:17:34.269 --> 00:17:38.450 guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image 00:17:38.450 --> 00:17:41.349 of today's document and additional show notes, 00:17:42.230 --> 00:17:45.369 and listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:17:45.369 --> 00:17:48.950 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:17:48.950 --> 00:17:53.849 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:17:53.849 --> 00:17:55.450 meantime, take care.