WEBVTT 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:05.459 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:12.099 it was January 13th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.099 --> 00:00:15.480 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:19.039 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:23.460 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:28.070 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. we're 00:00:28.070 --> 00:00:30.710 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:30.710 --> 00:00:35.030 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:35.030 --> 00:00:38.390 Queen Violant de Bar. And this is the 20th 00:00:38.390 --> 00:00:40.829 episode, so I'm just gonna take a moment in the 00:00:40.829 --> 00:00:44.170 intro here to tell you just a little bit more 00:00:44.170 --> 00:00:49.270 about what is going on in this podcast. I don't 00:00:49.270 --> 00:00:53.859 know if any of you have been listening to these 00:00:53.859 --> 00:00:56.979 episodes one after the other in order, but you 00:00:56.979 --> 00:01:00.600 really don't have to do that. This podcast is 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:03.880 designed for people to be able to just dip in 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:06.980 into the middle, much like how a historian might 00:01:06.980 --> 00:01:11.040 open up a register of letters and just have to 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:14.700 figure out what's going on because they're finding 00:01:14.700 --> 00:01:17.219 that they start in the middle of some ongoing 00:01:17.219 --> 00:01:20.760 story that they don't have any prior knowledge 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:25.609 about. So this podcast is an outgrowth of my 00:01:25.609 --> 00:01:31.609 own interest in how history gets made. That is 00:01:31.609 --> 00:01:34.870 to say, how do historians look at the records 00:01:34.870 --> 00:01:38.409 that we have of the past that are oftentimes 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:41.569 not already arranged in some kind of storytelling 00:01:41.569 --> 00:01:44.989 form? Like these letters that we've been looking 00:01:44.989 --> 00:01:48.129 at day after day. Well, some of them aren't even 00:01:48.129 --> 00:01:50.189 letters. Some of them are official charters. 00:01:50.469 --> 00:01:53.849 Some of them are rulings on petitions. Some of 00:01:53.849 --> 00:01:57.090 them are financial records. How does a historian 00:01:57.090 --> 00:02:00.629 work with all of that in order to present some 00:02:00.629 --> 00:02:04.620 kind of coherent explanation? maybe in the form 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:09.159 of a narrative and maybe not so narrative, maybe 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.000 stepping back from the storytelling mode and 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.080 instead getting into some overarching argument 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:21.620 about what really caused what in a faraway time 00:02:21.620 --> 00:02:25.960 and perhaps a faraway place. So that is the interest 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.199 that I am bringing to this project, and it's 00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:32.639 also the result of my own graduate work at the 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:35.800 University of New Mexico, where there is an incredibly 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:39.900 strong medieval studies. program, not just in 00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:43.979 history, but also in English literature and history 00:02:43.979 --> 00:02:47.840 of art and music. It's a very multidisciplinary 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:52.080 strength at the University of New Mexico in their 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:55.000 humanities, this medieval studies. There's even 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.039 an institute of medieval studies at the University 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:01.900 of New Mexico. So I was able to get some really 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:05.990 great training and have some really amazing coursework 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:09.780 taught by the professors there that really added 00:03:09.780 --> 00:03:14.039 to my interest in the Middle Ages and in medieval 00:03:14.039 --> 00:03:17.419 Iberia in particular. And then I also benefited 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:21.240 from other experiences like going to some academic 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:24.460 conferences, like the big medieval studies conference 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:29.680 in, of all places, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and also 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:32.199 another one that I was able to attend last year 00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:37.229 in Leeds in the UK. I've also done a few seminars. 00:03:37.550 --> 00:03:40.490 So there's a wonderful seminar series put on 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:44.229 by an organization called the Mediterranean Seminar. 00:03:44.490 --> 00:03:49.069 And that has to do with building skills in paleography 00:03:49.069 --> 00:03:52.969 or in different aspects of what you might see 00:03:52.969 --> 00:03:57.550 in the medieval Mediterranean. So I've taken 00:03:57.550 --> 00:04:01.979 some awesome seminars through them too. I bring 00:04:01.979 --> 00:04:04.560 all of this to bear on the way that I'm interacting 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:08.240 with these documents, but even then you can tell 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:11.759 that I still feel like a beginner. So you really 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:16.019 get an appreciation for the depth of expertise 00:04:16.019 --> 00:04:20.120 on the part of the historians who've been working 00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:24.939 with archives like these for sometimes decades. 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:31.750 But I don't only have interest in the Middle 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:35.689 Ages and the medieval era. I have other interests, 00:04:36.129 --> 00:04:39.029 too, because my favorite subject when I was a 00:04:39.029 --> 00:04:42.750 high school history teacher was AP World History. 00:04:43.490 --> 00:04:47.769 And in that particular course, historical thinking 00:04:47.769 --> 00:04:53.089 skills are emphasized, and the scope is, as the 00:04:53.089 --> 00:04:58.819 title would suggest, global. And so I am interested 00:04:58.819 --> 00:05:02.920 in these broader questions of how history gets 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:06.639 made in a variety of settings. So this season 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:12.120 focuses on medieval Crown of Aragon, but other 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.120 seasons are going to be in dramatically different 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:19.139 times and places. You might be wondering how 00:05:19.139 --> 00:05:24.000 I got interested in all of this. Well, it helps 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:27.490 that I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the 00:05:27.490 --> 00:05:30.110 University of New Mexico is located with its 00:05:30.110 --> 00:05:34.089 strength and medieval studies. But as I was thinking 00:05:34.089 --> 00:05:37.290 about my graduate work and what I would like 00:05:37.290 --> 00:05:42.870 to study, I read some of the works that the history 00:05:42.870 --> 00:05:47.829 professors at UNM had written, and one of those 00:05:47.829 --> 00:05:50.949 books I just loved so much, and it was called 00:05:50.949 --> 00:05:56.699 A Kingdom of Stargazers by Michael A. Ryan, and 00:05:56.699 --> 00:06:01.220 I talked with Dr. Ryan about medieval astrology, 00:06:01.660 --> 00:06:06.199 about Iberia, about gender, and how gender played 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:10.279 into the role that Joan and Violant were criticized 00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:14.120 by their contemporaries, and it just really became 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:18.300 this fun puzzle trying to figure out what was 00:06:18.300 --> 00:06:22.899 happening at the time, journeying back. 600 plus 00:06:22.899 --> 00:06:26.740 years, and being able to see that there's just 00:06:26.740 --> 00:06:29.980 this wealth of documentation to draw from, I 00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:33.680 was completely shocked that there was so much 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:37.360 information in the archive from so long ago. 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:42.660 So it just kept snowballing my interest, and 00:06:42.660 --> 00:06:46.339 as I dug more and more into it, the more fun 00:06:46.339 --> 00:06:49.439 I was having and the more interesting of a puzzle 00:06:49.439 --> 00:06:55.860 it became. So here we are in episode 20, and 00:06:55.860 --> 00:07:00.480 I hope that that little check -in has been interesting 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:03.480 and worthwhile for you to listen to. Let's move 00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:31.980 on and talk about today's document. Today's document 00:07:31.980 --> 00:07:35.839 is a really good example of how I wish I could 00:07:35.839 --> 00:07:38.759 just somehow download all of the experience and 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:41.779 expertise from some of those historians who've 00:07:41.779 --> 00:07:46.319 been working on this for decades because I chose 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:51.060 the Latin document over one that was in Catalan 00:07:51.060 --> 00:07:57.920 for January 13th and I knew going in that it 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.120 was going to be a challenge because the Latin 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:04.259 document are way more challenging for me, but 00:08:04.259 --> 00:08:11.139 then I didn't realize just how much of a thicket 00:08:11.139 --> 00:08:14.600 of confusion I was getting into with this document. 00:08:15.819 --> 00:08:21.470 Well, it's its own joy. There's... these frustrations 00:08:21.470 --> 00:08:24.470 that then are like challenges and then you're 00:08:24.470 --> 00:08:27.889 like oh i just can't let go of trying to figure 00:08:27.889 --> 00:08:30.310 this out but i can't no matter how many angles 00:08:30.310 --> 00:08:33.409 i'm trying to use in order to figure this out 00:08:33.409 --> 00:08:37.350 it's i'm not making progress so today's document 00:08:37.350 --> 00:08:42.629 is one in which there's a person mentioned in 00:08:42.629 --> 00:08:49.559 the third line some kind of master of of religion, 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:54.659 religious studies, maybe. The word is Magistrum 00:08:54.659 --> 00:08:57.179 that's used to describe this person. It's that 00:08:57.179 --> 00:09:02.820 person's title. And there's some adjectives preceding 00:09:02.820 --> 00:09:06.940 that, the venerable, religious man, the master, 00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:12.860 and then the name. And this particular name is 00:09:12.860 --> 00:09:17.200 one that paleographically was extremely difficult 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:20.860 for me. The reason is that it's very clear that 00:09:20.860 --> 00:09:24.340 it's a letter R, a capital letter R at the beginning, 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:28.820 but then the next letter for the longest time 00:09:28.820 --> 00:09:35.480 I thought was an E, but actually it is a V, which 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:40.220 was interchangeable with the letter U. And so 00:09:40.220 --> 00:09:43.879 this The letters that you can see on the page 00:09:43.879 --> 00:09:52.019 are R -U -T -E -N. And that N looks like the 00:09:52.019 --> 00:09:56.940 letter Y in modern script, but it is an N. And 00:09:56.940 --> 00:10:02.340 then there's the line above the word, the person's 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:06.019 name, and it's a macron is the paleographical 00:10:06.019 --> 00:10:10.100 term for that. And that indicates that there's 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:14.539 some other letters in there. Maybe just one extra 00:10:14.539 --> 00:10:17.759 letter. Typically, if it's just one extra letter, 00:10:17.940 --> 00:10:22.539 it's an M. But it could mean that there's more 00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:27.879 extra letters in there. So at first, I was... 00:10:27.909 --> 00:10:32.830 go into the AI chatbots being like, who is Reten? 00:10:33.090 --> 00:10:35.850 What is Reten? And I wasn't getting anywhere. 00:10:36.269 --> 00:10:39.289 And then I looked closer and noticed that the 00:10:39.289 --> 00:10:43.850 second letter was not an E, but instead was a 00:10:43.850 --> 00:10:49.370 U. And then I went into the chatbots again and 00:10:49.370 --> 00:10:53.970 said, what is Ruten? And that got me some answers 00:10:53.970 --> 00:10:56.490 that I'm just not sure if those are correct. 00:10:56.940 --> 00:11:04.200 Ruten could be the shortened form of Ruthensis, 00:11:04.580 --> 00:11:09.740 which is the Latin form of a town in southern 00:11:09.740 --> 00:11:15.200 France named Rodez. And there were some notable 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:20.240 religious figures at this time in Rodez who 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:24.919 might have had connections to the Avignon Pope. 00:11:26.029 --> 00:11:30.070 And that's as far as I got, and I don't feel 00:11:30.070 --> 00:11:32.730 confident enough in any of the ideas that came 00:11:32.730 --> 00:11:36.350 through in my Googling around or from the chatbots 00:11:36.350 --> 00:11:39.769 to say with any more certainty who this person 00:11:39.769 --> 00:11:45.909 is. So that was the most time -consuming challenge 00:11:45.909 --> 00:11:49.470 of this document, but I've kind of gotten ahead 00:11:49.470 --> 00:11:52.049 of myself because I haven't even told you yet. 00:11:52.460 --> 00:11:55.580 who this document is addressed to and even who 00:11:55.580 --> 00:12:00.299 wrote it. So this is from Violant. This is written 00:12:00.299 --> 00:12:07.100 from Barcelona, of course on January 14th, and 00:12:07.100 --> 00:12:13.120 Violent is writing to the Avignon Pope. The very 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:17.340 beginning of the letter has suffered some damage 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:22.029 and so you can't quite see the honorific that's 00:12:22.029 --> 00:12:28.070 used before the PR with a curved macron. That 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:34.110 is an abbreviation for potter and having some 00:12:34.110 --> 00:12:37.210 kind of honorific before the pater usually means 00:12:37.210 --> 00:12:41.190 that it's the pope that's being addressed. And 00:12:41.190 --> 00:12:45.120 then in the address line at the bottom there's 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:47.460 it's actually three lines long that address line 00:12:47.460 --> 00:12:50.440 and there's a bunch of honorifics until you get 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:54.039 to the very end of the first of those three lines 00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:58.580 and you'll see it's pretty easy to read just 00:12:58.580 --> 00:13:03.740 knowing the modern letters clemet with a macron 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:09.440 and here that macron indicates the letter n clementi 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:14.669 clement Clement VII, the Avignon Pope at this 00:13:14.669 --> 00:13:21.529 time. I got super confused when I saw on the 00:13:21.529 --> 00:13:25.429 second line the word Romane. It's kind of in 00:13:25.429 --> 00:13:29.250 the middle of that second line, and I just went 00:13:29.250 --> 00:13:33.070 spinning out. I said, oh my gosh, is is Violant 00:13:33.070 --> 00:13:38.830 also sending this to the pope in Rome, Urban 00:13:38.830 --> 00:13:42.929 VI, the competing pope? That would be so weird. 00:13:43.129 --> 00:13:45.129 And then I went to the end of the line, and I 00:13:45.129 --> 00:13:47.830 misread that. I said, oh, that looks like Italy, 00:13:48.529 --> 00:13:52.250 Italia, or something like that. No, that is the 00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:55.889 letter E, a capital letter E, and then it's CC. 00:13:56.590 --> 00:14:02.990 So that is the abbreviated form of ecclesiae, 00:14:03.149 --> 00:14:05.850 like ecclesiastical. And the word that comes 00:14:05.850 --> 00:14:10.809 before it is universalis. So what we're looking 00:14:10.809 --> 00:14:16.769 at here is just a very long string of words attached 00:14:16.769 --> 00:14:25.399 to the name of Clement. And this was a way of 00:14:25.399 --> 00:14:32.200 emphasizing the status of the Pope. All of these 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:37.480 titles are maybe being invoked in this instance 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:40.279 because this might be one of the earliest letters 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:45.539 that Violant is sending to the Pope after she 00:14:45.539 --> 00:14:50.980 has adopted the title of Queen. So this is all 00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:53.740 it's not saying that there's someone else in 00:14:53.740 --> 00:14:58.240 Rome what the address line is saying is that 00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:09.720 Clement is the True inheritor of the Roman Institution 00:15:09.720 --> 00:15:13.480 that is not in Rome anymore. It's in Avignon 00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:18.169 in the opinion of the supporters of this side 00:15:18.169 --> 00:15:21.070 of the Great Schism, they would say it's in Avignon 00:15:21.070 --> 00:15:26.730 as it should be. And so the use of the word Roman 00:15:26.730 --> 00:15:34.289 here is to further the argument that the Avignon 00:15:34.289 --> 00:15:39.509 Pope is the true inheritor of what has sometimes 00:15:39.509 --> 00:15:43.970 been called the throne of Saint Peter in Rome. 00:15:44.730 --> 00:15:47.899 So That threw me through a loop. I went down 00:15:47.899 --> 00:15:53.379 a whole misdirection on that, thinking that this 00:15:53.379 --> 00:15:56.200 was somehow a letter that was also going to go 00:15:56.200 --> 00:16:00.860 to Rome. Nope, not at all. Oh my gosh, we're 00:16:00.860 --> 00:16:04.200 already at 16 minutes and I haven't even gotten 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:06.759 to one of the most important things about this 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:10.700 letter. In the very first line, there's this 00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:17.690 phrase, Arduis Urgentibus. So urgent, okay, it's 00:16:17.690 --> 00:16:20.169 like the English word. And then if you think 00:16:20.169 --> 00:16:23.330 of the word arduous in English, difficulties, 00:16:23.830 --> 00:16:27.450 right? There's some urgent difficulties happening. 00:16:27.570 --> 00:16:30.870 And then further in the line is the word negociis, 00:16:31.149 --> 00:16:34.730 like the affairs, like there's... there's urgency, 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:38.250 there's difficulties in the affairs that are 00:16:38.250 --> 00:16:44.370 happening, and therefore Violent needs this person 00:16:44.370 --> 00:16:52.649 to be sent by the Avignon Pope Clement to the 00:16:52.649 --> 00:16:58.169 Crown of Aragon. And I just wish I knew who this 00:16:58.169 --> 00:17:01.190 person is. If I find them later, I'm going to 00:17:01.190 --> 00:17:05.130 be so happy. Hopefully they will reappear in 00:17:05.130 --> 00:17:08.230 another document or in Joan's register, and 00:17:08.230 --> 00:17:10.670 I'll figure out the mystery of who this person 00:17:10.670 --> 00:17:15.410 was that Violant felt needed to be sent over 00:17:15.410 --> 00:17:21.250 to the Crown of Aragon in this moment, when there's 00:17:21.250 --> 00:17:25.609 some urgent difficulties. And by the way, that 00:17:25.609 --> 00:17:30.430 phrase, arduis negociis, that was in yesterday's 00:17:30.430 --> 00:17:34.130 document too, but I forgot to point it out. So 00:17:34.130 --> 00:17:38.630 this is a phrase that's being used in order to 00:17:38.630 --> 00:17:43.069 really reveal and admit that the succession process 00:17:43.069 --> 00:17:47.390 is not going according to plan. They've run into 00:17:47.390 --> 00:17:50.230 some difficulties. What are the difficulties? 00:17:50.789 --> 00:17:55.700 Well, Joan's illness, of course, but we're not 00:17:55.700 --> 00:17:58.940 using the word illness or sickness. We're not. 00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:03.440 In this letter, Violent would never want to reveal 00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:07.859 what the problem is, because as soon as you mention 00:18:07.859 --> 00:18:12.359 that the king is suffering a severe illness, 00:18:12.779 --> 00:18:17.859 you're throwing into doubt the succession. process, 00:18:18.299 --> 00:18:20.700 and that'll just kind of have all kinds of ripple 00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:24.599 effects as that news gets out. But certainly 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:30.460 the news is leaking out little by little because 00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:36.420 Joan is not yet in Barcelona. One last thing 00:18:36.420 --> 00:18:40.559 to mention at the end of this episode. Violant's 00:18:40.559 --> 00:18:46.359 location according to the documents in this register. 00:18:48.399 --> 00:18:56.799 January 13th, Barcelona. January 16th, Granollers 00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:02.880 for the big meeting. January 18th, there's a 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:09.160 letter. The location is Barcelona. So this idea... 00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:14.319 that Joan and Violant enter Barcelona together, 00:19:14.339 --> 00:19:18.059 which I've seen mentioned in a bunch of secondary 00:19:18.059 --> 00:19:23.380 sources. It is not quite as simple as they just 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:26.839 both arrived at the same time. Violant is going 00:19:26.839 --> 00:19:31.680 back and forth and whatever kind of entrance 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:37.460 the two of them make on January 19th follows 00:19:38.730 --> 00:19:43.829 a lot of back and forth that Violant is journeying 00:19:43.829 --> 00:19:47.930 to be at Joann's side and then back to Barcelona 00:19:47.930 --> 00:19:52.130 to make arrangements and then to back and forth. 00:19:53.009 --> 00:19:57.569 So Violant is really moving and active. It also 00:19:57.569 --> 00:20:03.509 shows just how possible it was to make the trip 00:20:03.509 --> 00:20:09.160 from Granollers. to Barcelona, if Violant can 00:20:09.160 --> 00:20:14.259 shuttle back and forth, how out of it and reduced 00:20:14.259 --> 00:20:19.619 must Joan's condition be that he needs extra 00:20:19.619 --> 00:20:24.460 time before making the journey to Barcelona? 00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:31.680 All right. Thank you for listening to this episode 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:36.259 of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara 00:20:36.259 --> 00:20:40.059 Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:43.400 than you arrived with, I have done my job, because 00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:46.160 remember, the motto of the Historian's Notebook 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:51.990 is dissatisfaction guaranteed, because When you're 00:20:51.990 --> 00:20:55.069 trying to piece together a narrative out of what 00:20:55.069 --> 00:20:57.869 you're finding in the records of the past, you're 00:20:57.869 --> 00:20:59.809 never going to be fully satisfied. You're always 00:20:59.809 --> 00:21:02.809 going to be missing so much just because not 00:21:02.809 --> 00:21:06.750 everything can be saved. Visit the website to 00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:10.890 see an image of today's document and additional 00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:14.670 show notes and listen again tomorrow to hear 00:21:14.670 --> 00:21:17.940 about the next day. in the first year of the 00:21:17.940 --> 00:21:22.779 reign of King Joan of Aragon and Queen Violant 00:21:22.779 --> 00:21:25.980 de Bar. In the meantime, take care.