WEBVTT 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:05.160 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:13.820 it was January 12th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:17.320 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:20.780 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:24.920 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:29.609 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:29.609 --> 00:00:32.509 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:32.509 --> 00:00:37.049 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:37.049 --> 00:00:42.030 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:10.159 So this is a short document, only five lines 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:15.260 long, from Joan, but there's a whole lot to 00:01:15.260 --> 00:01:19.920 talk about in this one little letter. First of 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:24.239 all, it's in Latin, and actually this time I 00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:27.540 was able to work through the Latin pretty confidently. 00:01:28.330 --> 00:01:33.329 And I did run it through ChatGPT to see if there 00:01:33.329 --> 00:01:37.049 was anything that I might be missing. And in 00:01:37.049 --> 00:01:41.730 fact, the sense that I got from it on my own 00:01:41.730 --> 00:01:46.370 was pretty close to what ChatGPT came up with. 00:01:46.590 --> 00:01:49.709 But both of us agree that there's some urgency 00:01:49.709 --> 00:01:53.150 in this letter that we had not seen in other 00:01:53.150 --> 00:01:59.319 letters. So one thing about this particular piece 00:01:59.319 --> 00:02:03.439 is that it appears on a folio that we have looked 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:08.000 at before. Right above it is the letter that 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:13.460 Joan wrote to Marti about Sibilla and saying, 00:02:13.719 --> 00:02:16.860 don't let Sibilla get back into Barcelona unless 00:02:16.860 --> 00:02:21.300 you hear from me. don't let her back in the city 00:02:21.300 --> 00:02:25.719 and then below it we've got a little latin inscription 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:31.120 that basically says that the duke has become 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:35.819 king and then at the bottom of the folio we've 00:02:35.819 --> 00:02:39.319 got a letter dated much later so we're looking 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:43.120 at january 12th and the letter right above it 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:47.860 on the same page was january 4th and this register 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:54.620 I mean, it is all out of order. It's not as dramatic 00:02:54.620 --> 00:02:58.599 as some other registers that I've seen, but it 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:03.759 is scattered. Part of me thinks that there is 00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:07.979 a decision being made that has to do with the 00:03:07.979 --> 00:03:13.430 number of lines. Isn't it just so coincidental 00:03:13.430 --> 00:03:18.210 that this little letter at the bottom is a perfect 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:22.210 fit for how much space there was left after the 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:26.150 longer letter to Marti. So I'm kind of toying 00:03:26.150 --> 00:03:28.810 with this idea, and I'm going to need to run 00:03:28.810 --> 00:03:31.210 it by some people who have more experience with 00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:35.830 the registers than I do, but I'm starting to 00:03:35.830 --> 00:03:41.840 think that maybe the order of the letters is 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:46.340 determined relatively chronologically, but would 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:51.400 be adjusted according to the space on the page 00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:54.560 that each one takes up, and this would be a perfect 00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:01.719 example. So there's that. Oh, I also want to 00:04:01.719 --> 00:04:04.680 say, just when I said this register isn't as 00:04:04.680 --> 00:04:06.659 bad as some of the others, what I can tell you 00:04:06.659 --> 00:04:11.629 is that This register has letters from May in 00:04:11.629 --> 00:04:14.669 the middle of letters from January. So, I mean, 00:04:14.930 --> 00:04:18.189 to say that that's, you know, better than some 00:04:18.189 --> 00:04:23.110 is it's really saying something. This letter 00:04:23.110 --> 00:04:28.870 is to somebody whose first name is Esperandeu. 00:04:30.009 --> 00:04:38.920 And the name Esperandeu is a conglomeration of 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:43.740 the phrase that you can see at the bottom after 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:53.399 dirigiter and then you see speranti in Deu and 00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:59.079 then the last name Cardona. So I have a couple 00:04:59.079 --> 00:05:01.920 questions in my mind about the name of this person 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:06.959 and whether this person was actually given a 00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:10.079 different name at birth, and I'll explain that 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:15.300 by mentioning a couple other pieces of information 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:18.360 about this person. First of all, this person 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:24.480 is Jewish, and also he is later appearing in 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:30.660 documents that put him as one of the top counselor's 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:36.259 advisors to Joan at the end of Joan's reign in 00:05:36.259 --> 00:05:45.800 1396. So in 1396, Joan dies in a sudden accident, 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:53.040 and right afterward there is a criminal trial 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:59.000 of his advisors. And the advisors are brought 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:04.279 up on charges of mostly financial misdeeds. I 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:08.740 think there's some specific charges of moral 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:12.240 indecency here and there, but really like the 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:16.360 bulk of this criminal proceeding is about financial 00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:19.339 misdeeds. Something that I've already mentioned 00:06:19.339 --> 00:06:21.279 about Joan and Violant is that they're big 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:26.759 spenders. And... In our time, we have certain 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:30.839 ideas about financial responsibility that do 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:34.720 not really translate into the medieval context 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:38.220 or to any pre -modern context, and some of them 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:43.439 do. So getting into whether Joan and Violant 00:06:43.439 --> 00:06:48.920 were irresponsible with their finances is something 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:52.930 that I'm trying to figure out. But then there's 00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:56.889 this other twist on it, which is that Pere was 00:06:56.889 --> 00:06:59.910 also really irresponsible with finances in his 00:06:59.910 --> 00:07:04.149 own way, and no one really brought up criminal 00:07:04.149 --> 00:07:09.050 charges for a lot of the financial mess that 00:07:09.050 --> 00:07:13.490 happened during Pere's reign. So I think we're 00:07:13.490 --> 00:07:17.259 seeing a bit of a double standard. I'll have 00:07:17.259 --> 00:07:20.560 to just kind of leave it at that and come back 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:23.259 to it later and give you more details about all 00:07:23.259 --> 00:07:28.360 of that business. Suffice it to say for now that 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:31.959 Esperandeu Cardona is going to be with Joan 00:07:31.959 --> 00:07:35.399 from the beginning of his reign until the end 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:40.980 and placed in a very high up position. We know 00:07:40.980 --> 00:07:45.439 that he has close connection to the Jewish community. 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:51.050 I'm still trying to find attribution that mentions 00:07:51.050 --> 00:07:56.189 him as a Jew. Usually at this time, if someone 00:07:56.189 --> 00:08:00.449 is known as a Jew, it'll be in the documents. 00:08:00.769 --> 00:08:04.569 They'll be referred to as the Jew so -and -so. 00:08:04.910 --> 00:08:07.389 And same thing for Muslims, the Muslim so -and 00:08:07.389 --> 00:08:12.910 -so. That's a reflection of the dynamics of the 00:08:12.910 --> 00:08:18.819 interfaith context here. There's a lot to talk 00:08:18.819 --> 00:08:22.439 about when we're talking about the interaction 00:08:22.439 --> 00:08:27.339 between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the 00:08:27.339 --> 00:08:32.080 Crown of Aragon. In different times and in different 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:34.820 localities, even within the Crown of Aragon, 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:38.279 the picture could be very different in terms 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:41.860 of how much cooperation there was or how much 00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:46.889 separation and conflict there was. It also varies 00:08:46.889 --> 00:08:51.669 according to social class. Those in the royal 00:08:51.669 --> 00:08:57.090 family were way more likely to have regular interaction 00:08:57.090 --> 00:09:03.330 with Jews than everyday folk. The reason for 00:09:03.330 --> 00:09:08.600 this is that there were a lot of very learned 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:13.279 Jews that took advantage of the social mobility 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:16.539 available in the burgeoning bureaucracy of the 00:09:16.539 --> 00:09:21.179 state in order to work their way up or through 00:09:21.179 --> 00:09:25.639 learning to gain access. And part of this has 00:09:25.639 --> 00:09:32.399 to do with the management of the finances, but 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:38.139 just as well, there's a lot of scholars. astronomers, 00:09:38.139 --> 00:09:41.860 astrologers, even musicians that are Jewish that 00:09:41.860 --> 00:09:48.019 are in the royal court on a very regular basis. 00:09:49.100 --> 00:09:52.700 Not only that, but I have mentioned this before 00:09:52.700 --> 00:09:57.570 on the podcast, the communities of Jews and Muslims. 00:09:57.570 --> 00:10:01.029 They were governed as their own municipalities 00:10:01.029 --> 00:10:05.649 inside the municipalities of the Crown of Aragon. 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:10.269 And those neighborhoods, their taxation went 00:10:10.269 --> 00:10:16.190 directly to the crown instead of going through 00:10:16.190 --> 00:10:20.490 the municipality. Now, this is something that 00:10:20.490 --> 00:10:26.870 certainly benefited the royal family, but it's 00:10:26.870 --> 00:10:31.029 one of the things that caused dissension between 00:10:31.029 --> 00:10:38.210 officials of the municipalities and the minority 00:10:38.210 --> 00:10:44.210 faith communities in the municipalities. So we're 00:10:44.210 --> 00:10:49.509 looking at a very diverse picture of how people 00:10:49.509 --> 00:10:53.049 of different faiths interacted with each other. 00:10:53.370 --> 00:10:58.990 One thing to make really clear is that multiculturalism 00:10:58.990 --> 00:11:06.250 and diversity were not a value in the Middle 00:11:06.250 --> 00:11:12.710 Ages. So today we see if there's people from 00:11:12.710 --> 00:11:15.649 different backgrounds getting along very well, 00:11:16.129 --> 00:11:19.840 we assign very positive value to that. this was 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:25.779 not something that came naturally to people in 00:11:25.779 --> 00:11:28.299 the medieval era. Certainly if there's like a 00:11:28.299 --> 00:11:31.779 lack of violence and people are you know doing 00:11:31.779 --> 00:11:33.159 business with each other and they're helping 00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:34.960 each other to make money and everybody's growing 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:37.639 rich and times are good people will see that 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:41.279 as okay yeah it's good stuff but just in and 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:47.090 of itself multiculturalism was not seen as a 00:11:47.090 --> 00:11:50.710 positive goal, or even like on the spectrum of 00:11:50.710 --> 00:11:55.789 like what your goals would be. So the idea that 00:11:55.789 --> 00:12:01.570 you have like a kind of greater than the sum 00:12:01.570 --> 00:12:07.259 of its parts cultural situation is just not something 00:12:07.259 --> 00:12:09.600 that would have been consciously pursued. It 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:12.320 could have been happening in certain places, 00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:17.779 and that's, I'm alluding to the convivencia metanarrative 00:12:17.779 --> 00:12:22.600 of a kind of historiography of Iberian history. 00:12:23.460 --> 00:12:26.879 But you really, you know, couldn't count on it 00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:31.059 as being seen as a positive goal just in and 00:12:31.059 --> 00:12:36.830 of itself. more frequently it was something that 00:12:36.830 --> 00:12:40.509 felt very comfortable and natural to people in 00:12:40.509 --> 00:12:45.210 the Middle Ages to see those of other faiths 00:12:45.210 --> 00:12:50.429 as others and to try to distinguish them both 00:12:50.429 --> 00:12:53.309 in terms of where they lived but also in terms 00:12:53.309 --> 00:12:55.750 of even how they looked. So there were different 00:12:55.750 --> 00:12:59.929 customs in terms of dress. So people of different 00:12:59.929 --> 00:13:04.309 faiths would wear different clothes, and there 00:13:04.309 --> 00:13:07.929 were also customs according to different religious 00:13:07.929 --> 00:13:12.129 holidays where certain neighborhoods or streets 00:13:12.129 --> 00:13:15.110 would be off limits. There were certain procedures 00:13:15.110 --> 00:13:17.909 in the markets that would be different based 00:13:17.909 --> 00:13:22.809 on the faith group of the merchant or the customer. 00:13:23.799 --> 00:13:28.580 So there's a whole set of customs and traditions 00:13:28.580 --> 00:13:33.200 and practices that reinforce the separation between 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:36.320 the faith groups even as they're interacting 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:39.500 with each other. So it's this constant kind of 00:13:39.500 --> 00:13:45.200 push and pull tension and we can see that in 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:50.639 the character of the royal family itself and 00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:54.299 the individuals making it up. Joan is a really 00:13:54.299 --> 00:13:58.919 good example of this. So if you're kind of building 00:13:58.919 --> 00:14:02.960 this tendency to see Joan and Violant as heroes 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:06.919 of the story, you need to be very careful. These 00:14:06.919 --> 00:14:10.519 are not heroic people. I think they're interesting. 00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:15.779 I think, especially with Joan, there's some 00:14:15.779 --> 00:14:19.840 major problems with just automatically being 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:23.629 a cheerleader for Joan. And one of the major 00:14:23.629 --> 00:14:28.009 problems is his treatment of Jews, especially 00:14:28.009 --> 00:14:32.570 before he began his reign. It does change after 00:14:32.570 --> 00:14:37.590 he becomes king, where he is not as cruel to 00:14:37.590 --> 00:14:44.409 particular Jews. But before, during the 1380s, 00:14:44.649 --> 00:14:50.269 Joan famously pursued Jews that were suspected 00:14:50.269 --> 00:14:58.230 of stealing the host, the bread wafers from Christian 00:14:58.230 --> 00:15:02.370 churches. This was something that's like really 00:15:02.370 --> 00:15:07.450 hard for us to imagine as an issue, but it was 00:15:07.450 --> 00:15:11.309 like a really big deal in Christendom during 00:15:11.309 --> 00:15:16.629 the Middle Ages. This kind of intense fear that 00:15:16.629 --> 00:15:23.049 the body of Christ was being taken and misappropriated 00:15:23.049 --> 00:15:29.529 by, you know, the enemy within. And so it really, 00:15:29.850 --> 00:15:33.429 it's a lot like the kind of conspiracy theory 00:15:33.429 --> 00:15:37.629 mentalities that we can see in our society where 00:15:37.629 --> 00:15:41.379 basically, the more you kind of think about this 00:15:41.379 --> 00:15:43.879 conspiracy theory the more you kind of start 00:15:43.879 --> 00:15:47.100 to get into confirmation bias and you just it 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:49.159 just kind of snowballs on itself and then it 00:15:49.159 --> 00:15:52.720 gets like a following and soon it becomes like 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:55.480 almost like a conventional wisdom level kind 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:59.220 of thing like with the john f kennedy assassination 00:15:59.220 --> 00:16:06.179 for example so all of this is to say that it 00:16:06.179 --> 00:16:12.840 is a common trope around different parts of Western 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:17.519 Europe to have these fears that Jews took the 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:21.840 communion wafer and used them for like, you know, 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:25.899 with the intent to desecrate them. So Joan 00:16:25.899 --> 00:16:31.820 pursues some kind of wild accusations in different 00:16:31.820 --> 00:16:35.799 cities around. There's one really heinous example 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:41.720 in the city of Lleda. and he really orders the 00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:48.139 torture of particular Jewish people in that town 00:16:48.139 --> 00:16:52.259 all in an effort to figure out who stole the 00:16:52.259 --> 00:16:54.600 communion wafers when it's likely that nobody 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:58.179 did and that someone just lost them or something. 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:05.180 So, Joan is not a hero. He did horrendous things 00:17:05.180 --> 00:17:12.309 based on religious animus toward Jews, and is 00:17:12.309 --> 00:17:18.769 part of a long context of anti -Judaism that 00:17:18.769 --> 00:17:25.410 is just so prominent in Western Europe, and I 00:17:25.410 --> 00:17:27.230 think also in Eastern Europe, but I know Western 00:17:27.230 --> 00:17:30.849 Europe the most during the Middle Ages and beyond. 00:17:34.690 --> 00:17:42.339 So, Joan... is somebody that has seen Jews as 00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:48.700 the enemy and has hurt them. And yet, here he 00:17:48.700 --> 00:17:54.640 is writing this letter to someone who is very 00:17:54.640 --> 00:17:57.079 closely connected to the Jewish community, if 00:17:57.079 --> 00:18:03.460 not a Jew himself, than a recent convert to Christianity. 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:08.650 So he has kind of like a a sort of ethnic connection 00:18:08.650 --> 00:18:12.470 to the Jewish community still, although the term 00:18:12.470 --> 00:18:16.509 ethnic is a little complicated to use. And he's 00:18:16.509 --> 00:18:22.390 saying to Esperandeu Cardona, we need you. The 00:18:22.390 --> 00:18:29.190 first line says in part, vos summe necessarium 00:18:29.190 --> 00:18:32.769 habemus, which is basically saying that you are 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:38.220 of the highest need and we have the highest need 00:18:38.220 --> 00:18:43.980 for you and then in the third line Joan says 00:18:43.980 --> 00:18:53.279 get here immediately and says that if you delay 00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:57.480 it's like dangerous the word periculum is there 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:01.119 at the end of the fourth line Joan really needs 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:05.920 Esperandeu Cardona to make it to Granollers to 00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:08.380 attend this meeting that's going to be taking 00:19:08.380 --> 00:19:14.279 place on January 16th, the big assembly of his 00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:19.480 governing council. And so we can see how highly 00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:25.779 valued Esperandeu Cardona was. There's so much 00:19:25.779 --> 00:19:28.990 more to say about Jewish history in the crown 00:19:28.990 --> 00:19:32.329 of Aragon in the 14th century and the Middle 00:19:32.329 --> 00:19:36.329 Ages. There's also so much more to say about 00:19:36.329 --> 00:19:41.309 the finances of the crown and how to understand 00:19:41.309 --> 00:19:46.210 them. I'm going to put in two sources into the 00:19:46.210 --> 00:19:49.970 bibliography on the webpage for today's document. 00:19:50.829 --> 00:19:55.500 The first one is in Catalan and Latin, so there's 00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:58.200 a little bit of a language demand to access it, 00:19:58.339 --> 00:20:02.160 but it's basically a transcript of the criminal 00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:05.740 proceedings against Esperandeu de Cardona and a 00:20:05.740 --> 00:20:09.440 bunch of others who are high up in Joan's government. 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:13.819 That article, it's got also a little commentary 00:20:13.819 --> 00:20:18.460 too, it's by Marina Mitja. And then the second 00:20:18.460 --> 00:20:20.900 book is an English language book that I have 00:20:20.900 --> 00:20:24.890 found to be one of the most insightful works 00:20:24.890 --> 00:20:30.049 about Joan and Violant and Marti and everything 00:20:30.049 --> 00:20:33.769 about them. And it's focused, though, on the 00:20:33.769 --> 00:20:39.230 experience of the Jews during a pogrom, basically, 00:20:39.670 --> 00:20:42.910 an uprising of violence against the Jewish communities 00:20:42.910 --> 00:20:46.710 that spread from Castile into the Crown of Aragon 00:20:46.710 --> 00:20:53.279 during Joan's reign in 1391. That book is by 00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:56.920 Benjamin Gampel. It's a really, really great 00:20:56.920 --> 00:21:02.279 read and incredibly well -sourced. Thanks for 00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:05.119 listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:21:05.119 --> 00:21:09.779 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you 00:21:09.779 --> 00:21:12.500 are leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:17.339 with about the interfaith encounters of the Middle 00:21:17.339 --> 00:21:21.799 Ages, especially Well, I've done my job, and 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:25.660 don't worry, we will be coming back to this topic 00:21:25.660 --> 00:21:30.819 many, many times. But no more for today. Because 00:21:30.819 --> 00:21:33.960 remember, the motto of the Historian's Notebook 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:38.980 is dissatisfaction guaranteed. visit the website 00:21:38.980 --> 00:21:43.019 jonathanseyfried.net to see an image of today's 00:21:43.019 --> 00:21:46.039 document and additional show notes, and listen 00:21:46.039 --> 00:21:49.299 again tomorrow to hear about the next day in 00:21:49.299 --> 00:21:52.500 the first year of the reign of King Joan I of 00:21:52.500 --> 00:21:56.680 Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, 00:21:57.500 --> 00:21:57.920 take care.