WEBVTT 00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:05.469 Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:05.969 --> 00:00:13.250 it was January 15th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.250 --> 00:00:16.850 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.850 --> 00:00:20.789 University of New Mexico. And this is The Historian's 00:00:20.789 --> 00:00:24.809 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:25.370 --> 00:00:29.239 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:32.100 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:36.280 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:39.750 Queen Violant de Bar. The Spanish government 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:44.710 financed a major digitization effort of archives 00:00:44.710 --> 00:00:47.710 from throughout Spanish history and the archive 00:00:47.710 --> 00:00:52.289 of the Crown of Aragon is just so amazingly abundant 00:00:52.289 --> 00:00:55.929 in its hundreds actually thousands and thousands 00:00:55.929 --> 00:01:01.390 of pages from as early as the 12th century but 00:01:01.390 --> 00:01:04.950 in major abundance in the 14th century. So we've 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:09.750 got so many to choose from. that we can do very 00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:15.549 easily, one from every day. Let's begin today's 00:01:15.549 --> 00:01:42.760 document. Well, I am so excited about today's 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:48.959 document because finally getting away from the 00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:54.819 weird hard to comprehend little authorizations 00:01:54.819 --> 00:02:02.280 of sales in towns or like petitions or Any of 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:04.819 this kind of like political stuff and I'm getting 00:02:04.819 --> 00:02:09.870 into something about the arts and this is something 00:02:09.870 --> 00:02:14.810 that drew me to Joan and Violant really kind 00:02:14.810 --> 00:02:19.729 of kept my interest going, which is that they 00:02:19.729 --> 00:02:28.289 have been celebrated in music history for their 00:02:28.289 --> 00:02:32.889 patronage of a lot of the innovative music that 00:02:32.889 --> 00:02:39.750 was being produced at this time. So one of the 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:43.569 wonderful things about researching their reign 00:02:43.569 --> 00:02:48.129 is that I've been able to learn about some of 00:02:48.129 --> 00:02:52.590 the very weird music that was being produced. 00:02:52.610 --> 00:02:55.349 It was like very cutting edge. It's like... the 00:02:55.349 --> 00:02:59.150 kind of stuff that is in our time considered 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:03.229 experimental music and in fact I read one music 00:03:03.229 --> 00:03:05.909 historian who said that the innovations that 00:03:05.909 --> 00:03:10.229 were happening in the late 14th century in France 00:03:10.229 --> 00:03:15.409 and then also in the crown of Aragon those innovations 00:03:15.409 --> 00:03:19.210 in terms of how creative and like out -of -the 00:03:19.210 --> 00:03:24.379 -box thinking they were in music those types 00:03:24.379 --> 00:03:28.439 of experiments were not really taken on again 00:03:28.439 --> 00:03:33.840 until the 20th century. And so there's this level 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:38.819 of creativity that's happening. With music at 00:03:38.819 --> 00:03:43.560 this time, Joan and Violant are all about it. 00:03:43.819 --> 00:03:48.580 They're constantly trying to get the most famous, 00:03:48.620 --> 00:03:53.680 but also just any troubadours to come over to 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:59.219 perform. And Joan is really interested in how 00:03:59.219 --> 00:04:03.080 music works and he collects musical instruments, 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:06.560 which is what today's document is about. I just 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:09.939 want to mention two musical styles that if you're 00:04:09.939 --> 00:04:11.819 interested in the innovation that I'm talking 00:04:11.819 --> 00:04:16.779 about, you can read more about them. One is called 00:04:16.779 --> 00:04:25.100 Ars Nova, the new art. It's really a term that 00:04:25.100 --> 00:04:31.259 captures the innovation brought about with polyphonic 00:04:31.259 --> 00:04:37.300 music. And the composer who is really the exemplar 00:04:37.300 --> 00:04:42.709 of this is named Guillaume Machaut. Machaut 00:04:42.709 --> 00:04:48.589 has just a tremendous amount of scholarship about 00:04:48.589 --> 00:04:53.370 him in music history, and my knowledge of music 00:04:53.370 --> 00:04:56.009 and music history is still at the beginning level, 00:04:56.009 --> 00:04:59.370 so I can't really do a really decent job of explaining 00:04:59.370 --> 00:05:04.189 exactly what about his music is so special. And 00:05:04.189 --> 00:05:07.370 I'll add some sources in the bibliography for 00:05:07.370 --> 00:05:10.339 today's episode so that you can get into that, 00:05:10.839 --> 00:05:14.180 but Guillaume Machaut was very famous in his 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:18.300 day in the late 14th century, and it's very likely 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:25.079 that when Violant was a child, she saw Guillaume 00:05:25.079 --> 00:05:31.279 Machaut perform. By the time of the start of 00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:35.079 their reign, Guillaume Machaut is no longer alive, 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:38.259 but there's a lot of imitators, and also there's 00:05:38.259 --> 00:05:41.839 a lot of books of his musical composition and 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:47.579 poetry that get created during their reign, and 00:05:47.579 --> 00:05:51.639 we have a lot of documentation of Violant's 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:56.839 letters being sent to France to contacts like 00:05:56.839 --> 00:06:01.980 the Duc de Berry requesting copies of the latest 00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:06.079 release or the or the latest manuscript production 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:10.819 of Guillaume Machaut's work. So Guillaume Machaut 00:06:10.819 --> 00:06:15.800 was a composer in the Ars Nova style. The second 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:18.720 term that I want to share with you so you can 00:06:18.889 --> 00:06:21.509 take next steps in your own research if you're 00:06:21.509 --> 00:06:26.550 curious about this is the term ars subtilior 00:06:26.550 --> 00:06:32.930 now ars subtilior is the one that's like really 00:06:32.930 --> 00:06:38.550 highly experimental it's also very much polyphonic 00:06:38.990 --> 00:06:43.810 And when you listen to some Ars subtilior, it's 00:06:43.810 --> 00:06:48.870 really like weird. It's I think an acquired taste, 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:55.639 but it is it is very strange. And so it really 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:59.660 wasn't the kind of music that people would like 00:06:59.660 --> 00:07:03.740 have parties to at the time. It was more of like 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:10.680 a music theoretician's kind of thing. And Joann 00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:13.680 was all about it. He loved it. There was also 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.060 like a kind of interesting connection between 00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:21.649 the written word and music. with ars subtilior 00:07:21.649 --> 00:07:25.889 where the composer would do some kind of crossovers 00:07:25.889 --> 00:07:31.410 between written word or like letters in the name 00:07:31.410 --> 00:07:34.290 of say their patron and then weave that into 00:07:34.290 --> 00:07:37.670 the way the music was constructed so it's all 00:07:37.670 --> 00:07:43.230 just very wild and in order to really understand 00:07:43.230 --> 00:07:47.519 it you have to know a lot about music and music 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:55.439 theory and so again I am really just not as able 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:59.019 to explain it in better detail but it sounds 00:07:59.019 --> 00:08:02.980 cool and the stuff that I love is reading about 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:08.279 how Joan and Violant really just were recruiting 00:08:08.279 --> 00:08:11.300 troubadours from all over the place and just 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:15.779 having them as a constant presence in their lives. 00:08:16.139 --> 00:08:21.180 In fact, I found out from Benjamin Gampel in 00:08:21.180 --> 00:08:24.579 his book on a completely different subject that 00:08:24.579 --> 00:08:31.060 at times Joan would attend up to four concerts 00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:37.769 per day. So these folks were like really into 00:08:37.769 --> 00:08:41.090 music and artistic patronage. They were into 00:08:41.090 --> 00:08:43.750 literature too, of course. We'll definitely see 00:08:43.750 --> 00:08:47.389 all kinds of literary pursuits from them. But 00:08:47.389 --> 00:08:54.210 today's document is the first one in a long series. 00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:59.799 that were transcribed and identified in a wonderful 00:08:59.799 --> 00:09:05.179 publication, a document collection by the music 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:11.379 historians Josep Trenchs i Odena and Ignasi Baiges 00:09:11.379 --> 00:09:15.840 i Jardi. They put together a wonderful collection. 00:09:16.419 --> 00:09:19.539 It's got to have something like 400 documents 00:09:19.539 --> 00:09:25.870 from the time of Joan and Violant's reign all 00:09:25.870 --> 00:09:31.190 related to music. So either particular troubadours 00:09:31.190 --> 00:09:37.490 or the purchase of musical instruments or just 00:09:37.490 --> 00:09:42.929 anything having to do with music. The document 00:09:42.929 --> 00:09:48.190 that we looked at in the beginning of the podcast 00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:55.360 Episode 5 was actually on the same page as one 00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:59.100 of the documents in this document collection 00:09:59.100 --> 00:10:05.559 by Trenchs i Odena and Baiges i Jardi. So I have 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:10.539 another one waiting from Violant and her treasurer, 00:10:11.139 --> 00:10:16.840 but today's is from Joan and his treasurer. 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:22.220 His treasurer is listed here as Ramon de Soler, 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:24.860 a name that we keep hearing again and again, 00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:29.500 because I think he's the go -to money man for 00:10:29.500 --> 00:10:33.379 Joan. And in today's document, it's in Latin, 00:10:33.919 --> 00:10:38.799 but Trenchs i Odena and Baiges i Jardi, they transcribed 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:43.600 it fully. So I know. what every letter is and 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:46.899 all the expanded abbreviations. It's such a relief. 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:50.399 I can't even tell you after this like banging 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:53.580 my head against the wall with a bunch of Latin 00:10:53.580 --> 00:10:56.340 documents thus far to have one that's just already 00:10:56.340 --> 00:11:01.059 transcribed. Oh hooray. So it's very clear that 00:11:01.059 --> 00:11:06.279 what's happening here is that there is a a harp 00:11:06.490 --> 00:11:12.870 maker, an artisan, a maker of musical instruments. 00:11:13.269 --> 00:11:18.990 His name is Petro Palau, and Joan has commissioned 00:11:18.990 --> 00:11:24.610 Petro Palau to make two musical instruments for 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:30.649 him, two harps. So special kinds of harps have 00:11:30.649 --> 00:11:35.169 been constructed for Joan, and in this document 00:11:35.169 --> 00:11:39.490 he's instructing his treasurer Ramon de Soler 00:11:39.490 --> 00:11:48.570 to release the funds to pay Petro Palau. In fact, 00:11:49.490 --> 00:11:55.750 in a different register, on the next day, Joan 00:11:55.750 --> 00:12:02.120 has a document that says that he has And this 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:04.000 is kind of a hard phrase to figure out exactly 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.659 what it's describing. It says that he has recognized 00:12:07.659 --> 00:12:13.740 the receipt of the money from the treasury. This 00:12:13.740 --> 00:12:16.620 is interesting, first of all, because it gets 00:12:16.620 --> 00:12:20.220 into the different register types. And sometimes 00:12:20.220 --> 00:12:22.960 you see a letter and you're like, why is this 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:26.419 not in the secret seal register? And then other 00:12:26.419 --> 00:12:29.860 times you see one in the secret seal register. 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:32.700 and you're like, why did this have to be so secret? 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:36.340 It doesn't seem to merit any secrecy at all. 00:12:36.779 --> 00:12:39.240 So basically, in the Archive of the Crown of 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.559 Aragon, you've got all these different categories. 00:12:43.179 --> 00:12:47.919 And a lot of it had to do with when the author 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:51.679 of the document instructed the chancery staff 00:12:51.679 --> 00:12:54.559 to put a type of seal on it, or was like, you 00:12:54.559 --> 00:12:56.559 know what, this doesn't need to be sealed. There's 00:12:56.559 --> 00:13:02.200 nothing sensitive in here. So if The sender of 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:05.080 the letter said this has to be of the utmost 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:09.940 secrecy, put like a really secure seal, wax seal 00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:13.379 on this letter. Then it would be recorded in 00:13:13.379 --> 00:13:18.919 the register for the secret seal. This letter 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:22.440 in today's document is an example of that. In 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:28.080 the second to the last line, it has the phrase 00:13:28.509 --> 00:13:37.850 sub nostro sigalo secreto the secret seal if 00:13:37.850 --> 00:13:42.350 the document was not sensitive and honestly I 00:13:42.350 --> 00:13:44.190 can't figure out exactly what's so sensitive 00:13:44.190 --> 00:13:46.730 about this he's just authorizing the release 00:13:46.730 --> 00:13:50.070 of funds for payment to a certain person but 00:13:50.070 --> 00:13:58.480 anyway if it was if it was not as secret or private, 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:04.059 then it would go out in another type of register. 00:14:04.059 --> 00:14:05.700 It would get recorded in one of the other books. 00:14:06.039 --> 00:14:13.159 So the document that we see on January 16th from 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:19.480 Joan is communicating that Joan has received 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:24.240 the coins, I think. The amount of payment here 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:31.590 is 100 Aragonese florins. And so I think that 00:14:31.590 --> 00:14:38.169 Joan notes in the other register, not in the 00:14:38.169 --> 00:14:42.590 secret seal, but just in the secret register, 00:14:43.230 --> 00:14:49.110 that he's gotten the coins and now the coins 00:14:49.110 --> 00:14:54.330 are gonna go to Petro Palau. The way that this 00:14:54.330 --> 00:14:59.090 is all happening is very confusing to me. Like, 00:14:59.090 --> 00:15:03.529 why would Joan need to interact with this again 00:15:03.529 --> 00:15:06.250 after this initial letter that we're looking 00:15:06.250 --> 00:15:11.350 at today is saying, pay this person for the harps 00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:14.629 that they made? Why do we have to have something 00:15:14.629 --> 00:15:19.889 again the next day from Joan saying that he 00:15:19.889 --> 00:15:24.370 recognizes the receipt? Maybe he's noting down? 00:15:24.750 --> 00:15:28.830 that there's been the next stage in the payment 00:15:28.830 --> 00:15:35.110 process, it's confusing to me. But oh well, I 00:15:35.110 --> 00:15:39.090 think Petro Palau is just really insured of getting 00:15:39.090 --> 00:15:42.070 his payment because it's in two different places 00:15:42.070 --> 00:15:47.230 in the documentation now. By the way, secret, 00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:51.950 like secreto, that word to us means, ooh, you're 00:15:51.950 --> 00:15:55.470 hiding something, you have a secret, but Actually, 00:15:56.450 --> 00:16:00.450 in medieval usage, that could just mean private. 00:16:01.450 --> 00:16:04.669 So it's not necessarily that you're, like, hiding 00:16:04.669 --> 00:16:07.649 something. It's just that it's your private business, 00:16:07.909 --> 00:16:11.919 and it's not like a public... a public act but 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:15.399 at the same time i see this secreto and sigilo 00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:17.679 secreto on all kinds of stuff anyway it's just 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.220 like all the time so i'm not even sure that that 00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:25.419 has like this this actual higher level of meaning 00:16:25.419 --> 00:16:28.779 or if it just became like the standard level 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:31.379 I'm still trying to figure that out. That's one 00:16:31.379 --> 00:16:33.820 of the projects that I have for this year is 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:36.820 to get a better sense of why certain documents 00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:40.720 wound up in some registers and others wound up 00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:43.720 in other registers. Like there's a register called 00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:48.320 Diversorum. Like, is that just like miscellaneous? 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:51.659 But there's so many different categories of registers. 00:16:51.679 --> 00:16:54.000 Why do you even need a miscellaneous? It's all 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.899 just very confusing. And who is to blame for 00:16:56.899 --> 00:17:03.480 that? Do you remember? Pere the Ceremonious reorganized 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:11.539 the chancery about 30 years before and he created 00:17:11.539 --> 00:17:14.519 all these categories and then the chancery staff 00:17:14.519 --> 00:17:17.579 just like were complaining about how they had 00:17:17.579 --> 00:17:20.140 no idea what letter to put where anymore because 00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:23.599 there were so many different categories. Okay, 00:17:23.660 --> 00:17:26.140 before we wrap up today's episode, I just wanted 00:17:26.140 --> 00:17:29.579 to come back to the amount of money mentioned 00:17:29.579 --> 00:17:35.759 here for the harp maker Petro Palau. The amount 00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:39.440 of money being paid out to Petro Palau is 100 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:47.759 florins. That is about 1100 solides. 1100 solides? 00:17:48.319 --> 00:17:54.420 is about three times the amount of money that 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:59.960 Violant paid to her bread maker, which we talked 00:17:59.960 --> 00:18:04.400 about in episode five, for his services for a 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.880 three -month period. So it kind of gives you 00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:12.170 the scale of how much these harps cost. They 00:18:12.170 --> 00:18:15.609 actually costed three times as much for what 00:18:15.609 --> 00:18:18.809 you would pay a baker who's working for you for 00:18:18.809 --> 00:18:21.890 a period of three months. So these are expensive 00:18:21.890 --> 00:18:26.750 instruments. As fine musical instruments should 00:18:26.750 --> 00:18:30.369 be expensive. There's real craftsmanship there. 00:18:31.650 --> 00:18:35.329 Not to diminish the craftsmanship of amazing 00:18:35.329 --> 00:18:43.460 bakers. Okay, we have made it to the end of this 00:18:43.460 --> 00:18:51.579 episode. I am feeling bad that I have somehow 00:18:51.579 --> 00:18:57.359 implied that artisan instrument makers should 00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:02.460 be paid more than talented bakers. I want to 00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:06.380 go on the record and say that I do not believe 00:19:06.380 --> 00:19:09.480 that is the case. I believe that highly skilled 00:19:09.480 --> 00:19:14.279 bakers should be paid just as much as highly 00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:20.880 skilled music instrument makers. These are artisan 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:25.500 skills. All right. Thanks for listening to this 00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:28.980 episode of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, 00:19:29.259 --> 00:19:32.299 Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving with 00:19:32.299 --> 00:19:34.940 more questions than you arrived with, I've done 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:38.420 my job. Remember, the motto of the Historian's 00:19:38.420 --> 00:19:43.109 Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. visit 00:19:43.109 --> 00:19:47.230 the website jonathanseyfried.net to see an image 00:19:47.230 --> 00:19:50.730 of today's document and additional show notes 00:19:50.730 --> 00:19:54.789 and some really good bibliographic citations 00:19:54.789 --> 00:19:59.230 for the history of music at this time. And one 00:19:59.230 --> 00:20:02.369 article in particular by Maria del Carmen Gomez 00:20:02.369 --> 00:20:08.509 Muntane is amazing for an explanation of Joan's 00:20:08.509 --> 00:20:14.119 role in the spread of this music from France 00:20:14.119 --> 00:20:17.559 into Iberia, so check that out. It's a really 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:22.779 good article. And listen again tomorrow to hear 00:20:22.779 --> 00:20:25.839 more about the next day in the first year of 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:30.180 the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:20:30.180 --> 00:20:34.059 Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take care.