Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was January 13th, 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're
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. And this is the 20th
episode, so I'm just gonna take a moment in the
intro here to tell you just a little bit more
about what is going on in this podcast. I don't
know if any of you have been listening to these
episodes one after the other in order, but you
really don't have to do that. This podcast is
designed for people to be able to just dip in
into the middle, much like how a historian might
open up a register of letters and just have to
figure out what's going on because they're finding
that they start in the middle of some ongoing
story that they don't have any prior knowledge
about. So this podcast is an outgrowth of my
own interest in how history gets made. That is
to say, how do historians look at the records
that we have of the past that are oftentimes
not already arranged in some kind of storytelling
form? Like these letters that we've been looking
at day after day. Well, some of them aren't even
letters. Some of them are official charters.
Some of them are rulings on petitions. Some of
them are financial records. How does a historian
work with all of that in order to present some
kind of coherent explanation? maybe in the form
of a narrative and maybe not so narrative, maybe
stepping back from the storytelling mode and
instead getting into some overarching argument
about what really caused what in a faraway time
and perhaps a faraway place. So that is the interest
that I am bringing to this project, and it's
also the result of my own graduate work at the
University of New Mexico, where there is an incredibly
strong medieval studies. program, not just in
history, but also in English literature and history
of art and music. It's a very multidisciplinary
strength at the University of New Mexico in their
humanities, this medieval studies. There's even
an institute of medieval studies at the University
of New Mexico. So I was able to get some really
great training and have some really amazing coursework
taught by the professors there that really added
to my interest in the Middle Ages and in medieval
Iberia in particular. And then I also benefited
from other experiences like going to some academic
conferences, like the big medieval studies conference
in, of all places, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and also
another one that I was able to attend last year
in Leeds in the UK. I've also done a few seminars.
So there's a wonderful seminar series put on
by an organization called the Mediterranean Seminar.
And that has to do with building skills in paleography
or in different aspects of what you might see
in the medieval Mediterranean. So I've taken
some awesome seminars through them too. I bring
all of this to bear on the way that I'm interacting
with these documents, but even then you can tell
that I still feel like a beginner. So you really
get an appreciation for the depth of expertise
on the part of the historians who've been working
with archives like these for sometimes decades.
But I don't only have interest in the Middle
Ages and the medieval era. I have other interests,
too, because my favorite subject when I was a
high school history teacher was AP World History.
And in that particular course, historical thinking
skills are emphasized, and the scope is, as the
title would suggest, global. And so I am interested
in these broader questions of how history gets
made in a variety of settings. So this season
focuses on medieval Crown of Aragon, but other
seasons are going to be in dramatically different
times and places. You might be wondering how
I got interested in all of this. Well, it helps
that I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the
University of New Mexico is located with its
strength and medieval studies. But as I was thinking
about my graduate work and what I would like
to study, I read some of the works that the history
professors at UNM had written, and one of those
books I just loved so much, and it was called
A Kingdom of Stargazers by Michael A. Ryan, and
I talked with Dr. Ryan about medieval astrology,
about Iberia, about gender, and how gender played
into the role that Joan and Violant were criticized
by their contemporaries, and it just really became
this fun puzzle trying to figure out what was
happening at the time, journeying back. 600 plus
years, and being able to see that there's just
this wealth of documentation to draw from, I
was completely shocked that there was so much
information in the archive from so long ago.
So it just kept snowballing my interest, and
as I dug more and more into it, the more fun
I was having and the more interesting of a puzzle
it became. So here we are in episode 20, and
I hope that that little check -in has been interesting
and worthwhile for you to listen to. Let's move
on and talk about today's document. Today's document
is a really good example of how I wish I could
just somehow download all of the experience and
expertise from some of those historians who've
been working on this for decades because I chose
the Latin document over one that was in Catalan
for January 13th and I knew going in that it
was going to be a challenge because the Latin
document are way more challenging for me, but
then I didn't realize just how much of a thicket
of confusion I was getting into with this document.
Well, it's its own joy. There's... these frustrations
that then are like challenges and then you're
like oh i just can't let go of trying to figure
this out but i can't no matter how many angles
i'm trying to use in order to figure this out
it's i'm not making progress so today's document
is one in which there's a person mentioned in
the third line some kind of master of of religion,
religious studies, maybe. The word is Magistrum
that's used to describe this person. It's that
person's title. And there's some adjectives preceding
that, the venerable, religious man, the master,
and then the name. And this particular name is
one that paleographically was extremely difficult
for me. The reason is that it's very clear that
it's a letter R, a capital letter R at the beginning,
but then the next letter for the longest time
I thought was an E, but actually it is a V, which
was interchangeable with the letter U. And so
this The letters that you can see on the page
are R -U -T -E -N. And that N looks like the
letter Y in modern script, but it is an N. And
then there's the line above the word, the person's
name, and it's a macron is the paleographical
term for that. And that indicates that there's
some other letters in there. Maybe just one extra
letter. Typically, if it's just one extra letter,
it's an M. But it could mean that there's more
extra letters in there. So at first, I was...
go into the AI chatbots being like, who is Reten?
What is Reten? And I wasn't getting anywhere.
And then I looked closer and noticed that the
second letter was not an E, but instead was a
U. And then I went into the chatbots again and
said, what is Ruten? And that got me some answers
that I'm just not sure if those are correct.
Ruten could be the shortened form of Ruthensis,
which is the Latin form of a town in southern
France named Rodez. And there were some notable
religious figures at this time in Rodez who
might have had connections to the Avignon Pope.
And that's as far as I got, and I don't feel
confident enough in any of the ideas that came
through in my Googling around or from the chatbots
to say with any more certainty who this person
is. So that was the most time -consuming challenge
of this document, but I've kind of gotten ahead
of myself because I haven't even told you yet.
who this document is addressed to and even who
wrote it. So this is from Violant. This is written
from Barcelona, of course on January 14th, and
Violent is writing to the Avignon Pope. The very
beginning of the letter has suffered some damage
and so you can't quite see the honorific that's
used before the PR with a curved macron. That
is an abbreviation for potter and having some
kind of honorific before the pater usually means
that it's the pope that's being addressed. And
then in the address line at the bottom there's
it's actually three lines long that address line
and there's a bunch of honorifics until you get
to the very end of the first of those three lines
and you'll see it's pretty easy to read just
knowing the modern letters clemet with a macron
and here that macron indicates the letter n clementi
clement Clement VII, the Avignon Pope at this
time. I got super confused when I saw on the
second line the word Romane. It's kind of in
the middle of that second line, and I just went
spinning out. I said, oh my gosh, is is Violant
also sending this to the pope in Rome, Urban
VI, the competing pope? That would be so weird.
And then I went to the end of the line, and I
misread that. I said, oh, that looks like Italy,
Italia, or something like that. No, that is the
letter E, a capital letter E, and then it's CC.
So that is the abbreviated form of ecclesiae,
like ecclesiastical. And the word that comes
before it is universalis. So what we're looking
at here is just a very long string of words attached
to the name of Clement. And this was a way of
emphasizing the status of the Pope. All of these
titles are maybe being invoked in this instance
because this might be one of the earliest letters
that Violant is sending to the Pope after she
has adopted the title of Queen. So this is all
it's not saying that there's someone else in
Rome what the address line is saying is that
Clement is the True inheritor of the Roman Institution
that is not in Rome anymore. It's in Avignon
in the opinion of the supporters of this side
of the Great Schism, they would say it's in Avignon
as it should be. And so the use of the word Roman
here is to further the argument that the Avignon
Pope is the true inheritor of what has sometimes
been called the throne of Saint Peter in Rome.
So That threw me through a loop. I went down
a whole misdirection on that, thinking that this
was somehow a letter that was also going to go
to Rome. Nope, not at all. Oh my gosh, we're
already at 16 minutes and I haven't even gotten
to one of the most important things about this
letter. In the very first line, there's this
phrase, Arduis Urgentibus. So urgent, okay, it's
like the English word. And then if you think
of the word arduous in English, difficulties,
right? There's some urgent difficulties happening.
And then further in the line is the word negociis,
like the affairs, like there's... there's urgency,
there's difficulties in the affairs that are
happening, and therefore Violent needs this person
to be sent by the Avignon Pope Clement to the
Crown of Aragon. And I just wish I knew who this
person is. If I find them later, I'm going to
be so happy. Hopefully they will reappear in
another document or in Joan's register, and
I'll figure out the mystery of who this person
was that Violant felt needed to be sent over
to the Crown of Aragon in this moment, when there's
some urgent difficulties. And by the way, that
phrase, arduis negociis, that was in yesterday's
document too, but I forgot to point it out. So
this is a phrase that's being used in order to
really reveal and admit that the succession process
is not going according to plan. They've run into
some difficulties. What are the difficulties?
Well, Joan's illness, of course, but we're not
using the word illness or sickness. We're not.
In this letter, Violent would never want to reveal
what the problem is, because as soon as you mention
that the king is suffering a severe illness,
you're throwing into doubt the succession. process,
and that'll just kind of have all kinds of ripple
effects as that news gets out. But certainly
the news is leaking out little by little because
Joan is not yet in Barcelona. One last thing
to mention at the end of this episode. Violant's
location according to the documents in this register.
January 13th, Barcelona. January 16th, Granollers
for the big meeting. January 18th, there's a
letter. The location is Barcelona. So this idea...
that Joan and Violant enter Barcelona together,
which I've seen mentioned in a bunch of secondary
sources. It is not quite as simple as they just
both arrived at the same time. Violant is going
back and forth and whatever kind of entrance
the two of them make on January 19th follows
a lot of back and forth that Violant is journeying
to be at Joann's side and then back to Barcelona
to make arrangements and then to back and forth.
So Violant is really moving and active. It also
shows just how possible it was to make the trip
from Granollers. to Barcelona, if Violant can
shuttle back and forth, how out of it and reduced
must Joan's condition be that he needs extra
time before making the journey to Barcelona?
All right. Thank you for listening to this episode
of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara
Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions
than you arrived with, I have done my job, because
remember, the motto of the Historian's Notebook
is dissatisfaction guaranteed, because When you're
trying to piece together a narrative out of what
you're finding in the records of the past, you're
never going to be fully satisfied. You're always
going to be missing so much just because not
everything can be saved. Visit the website to
see an image of today's document and additional
show notes and listen again tomorrow to hear
about the next day. in the first year of the
reign of King Joan of Aragon and Queen Violant
de Bar. In the meantime, take care.