WEBVTT

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Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,

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it was January 11th, 1387. My name is Jonathan

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Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the

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University of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's

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Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made.

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Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. we're

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looking at a document from each day of the first

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year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and

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Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's

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document. Before we get into the content of today's

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document, I want to focus on some of the sourcing

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information in it. And in the last, well, it

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starts at the end of the third to last line of

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the text block, and then we have the day the

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ninth day of January in the year of the nativity

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of our lord and then 1387 and then rex and then

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Johan okay so the place is listed as near Granollers

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And this is a document by Joan. We've just had

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a series of documents from Violant. And during

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the time of those documents, during the last

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few days, Joan really is writing consistently.

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There's no particular day, as I've looked at

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the register and paged through it, that seems

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to have like a dramatic dip. It's just sort of,

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you know, a few letters and documents a day.

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And so it's really hard for me to see when Joan

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gets into the most trouble with his illness.

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And Josep Roca... the scholar from the early

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20th century is convinced that at a certain point

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in January, Joan gets seriously ill to the extent

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that he's given last rites. So I'm trying to

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figure out exactly when that would be, and part

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of what I'm looking at is the location tracking

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of Joan. It's clear that he's not well enough

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to make a journey in one day to Barcelona. Violant

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can do that, and she did. So he's kind of making

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his way through the different locations between

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Girona and Barcelona, and Granollers is about

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halfway between the two. So he really pauses

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for a while in Granollers, and the first thought

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I had about that was that's where he runs into

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real trouble. But then when I've been looking

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at the documents from the time that he's in Granollers,

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like this one today, They seem to be pretty active.

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And on the 16th, we're going to look at a document

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that is from the day that he had a big meeting

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of his main counselors for his reign. And so

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he was certainly up to having a very active day

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on the 16th. And then on the 19th of January,

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he and Violant enter Barcelona. And I figured

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that one out. Violant comes back to Granollers

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to be with Joan on the day of that big meeting

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on the 16th. So she's there with him the 16th,

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the 17th. the 18th, and then the both of them

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arrive to Barcelona on the 19th of January, and

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then after that they're in Barcelona pretty consistently

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for many months. So I'm going to post onto the

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web page for today's document images from the

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itinerary that Daniel Girona y Llagostera created

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for Joan based on several of the registers of

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his letters and charters around this time in

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these exact days. And, you know, it's kind of

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hard for me to figure out, like, where he got

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into, like, major trouble. And then also, it's

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leading me to think that possibly it was before

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January 5th. I mean, it's very hard to understand

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why Violant leaves his side if he's so, so sick.

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So maybe that's like all the more reason to leave

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his side to make sure there's no trouble at the

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very start of the reign I don't know. It's really

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hard to figure out and I don't want to I don't

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want to doubt Josep Roca because he worked so

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much on the documents from this time I just wish

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he had something better than that April 30th

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letter that he quotes at length. So we're going

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to see. I'm going to really look at that very

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closely in the upcoming weeks. And as we get

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to April 30th, hopefully I'll crack it and figure

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out exactly what Roca is doing there as he's

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making this claim that Joan becomes really deathly

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ill in this period that we're looking at right

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now. All right, let's talk about the document

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itself for today. This is a recommendation letter

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that Joan has written for a friar named Miguel

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Rossell. And that name is in the middle of the

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third line. He's writing to the people who are

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in charge of sort of the guests or hospitality

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at the monastery of Montserrat. This monastery

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is a really big deal. The name means like serrated

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mountain. It's a monastery that is situated on

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a very high up and sharp, almost cliff -like

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location. It's a bit to the northwest of Barcelona,

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about 60 kilometers, I think. And this location

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was identified as a very spiritually powerful

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location even before Christianity. The Romans

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had a temple to Venus there, for example, and

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as Christianity then became the state religion

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of Rome and so on and so forth over the centuries,

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it became a Christian holy place. And it actually

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is one of the most high -status holy places in

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Spain for being a Christian in the kind of list

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of Christian devotional sites. And part of it

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is the tradition of its kind of long -lasting

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location as a spiritual place. There's also a

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statue there that has purported to have brought

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about miracles. So there's a lot of pilgrimage

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that goes to Montserrat, and in fact we're going

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to see later on in this very year, Violant herself

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makes a pilgrimage to Montserrat. So it's a big

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deal, and I was still though trying to figure

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out why in these very sensitive, busy early days

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of the reign is Joan taking time to recommend

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some seemingly random friar to go to Montserrat

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and kind of have Joann's letter to give him lodging

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and, you know, room and board there. And so I

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did a little bit of research And this is an instance

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where I think I can model a way to use the AI

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chatbots responsibly for historical research.

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So I'm going to put up the chat GPT transcript

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of my questions to the chatbot about Montserrat

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and about Joan in this particular time period.

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And what you'll see in that transcript is that

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it originally gave me a source that is full of

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information, but it's a website that seems to

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be primarily for maybe like tourists or people

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who just aren't really concerned about authorship

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and sourcing of information because none of the

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information on that website is attributed to

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any person. It's all just kind of here's information

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and I can't even figure out exactly who made

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this website. So I asked ChatGPT to take the

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information it had gathered from that website

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and to locate a scholarly article or publication,

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like a book maybe, about this topic, about the

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Montserrat Monastery and Joan's reign, and indeed

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it found an article by a scholar at the University

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of Barcelona. Well, it's actually a book chapter

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in a book of collected essays, and it's by Prim

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Bertran i Roige. And in this article, Bertran

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i Roige discusses how in the long context of

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the Great Western Schism, where there was a pope

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in Avignon and a pope in Rome, there were a lot

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of disputes within the Crown of Aragon that were

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ripple effects of that big dispute. And you can

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sort of imagine this, like everybody kind of

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has to pick sides all over Western Christendom

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about, well, are you on the side of the Avignon

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Pope or are you on the side of the Roman Pope?

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And it turns out that Montserrat was apparently

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one of the flashpoints for this conflict. And

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Joan is aware that there has been some kind

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of conflict between two contenders for the office

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of Prior of the Monastery of Montserrat. One

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is Rigal de Verne and the other one is Vicens

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de Ribes. And in a twist that I'm still trying

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to get my head around Bertran i Roige says

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that Joan, a little bit later in his reign,

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ended up supporting the candidate that was the

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favored one by Rome, and that would be Vicens

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de Ribes, even though Joan is firmly taking

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sides with the Avignon pope. So, oh, it's convoluted,

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that's for sure. And this letter, I think, is

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probably like the initial move that Joan is

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making in order to place somebody in the monastery

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that might be able to give him information. as

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he's going to be weighing in on this dispute

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between the two candidates to become prior of

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the monastery of Montserrat. That's my reading

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of this at the moment. I really cannot say that

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definitively. It could just be like, oh, this

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person is well connected. Miguel Rossell is well

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connected and just wants to have lodging at Montserrat

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and maybe just you know, caught Joan at a good

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time when he was, you know, not in a fevered

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state and could write him a recommendation letter.

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I don't know. In my mind, it's like any document

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that surfaces from Joan in these days has got

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to have kind of earned its place in Joan's attention

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when he's fighting off illness or just recovering

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from it. But that might not be a good assumption.

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It might just be that there's, you know, a big

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backlog of stuff that Joan has to take care

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of and that this is just next in the list. Hard

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to know, but... We'll continue looking at the

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documents and try to figure out the little hints,

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and that's what this game is all about. All right,

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that brings us to the close of this episode.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of The Historian's

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Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you

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are leaving with more questions than you arrived

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with, I've done my job. Remember, the motto of

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the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed.

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Visit the website jonathanseyfried.net to see

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an image of today's document as well as an image

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of the Monastery of Montserrat and also the images

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of the pages from Daniel Girona i Llagostera's

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itinerary for Joan, and then also additional

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show notes and bibliographic citations. And listen

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tomorrow to hear about the next day in the first

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year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and

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Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take

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care.