WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:05.280 Hello, in The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:05.860 --> 00:00:13.019 it was January 16th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.019 --> 00:00:16.399 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:20.899 University of New Mexico. And this is The Historian's 00:00:20.899 --> 00:00:24.879 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:29.399 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:29.399 --> 00:00:32.100 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:36.179 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:36.179 --> 00:00:41.140 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:09.409 So today is the big day. January 16th, I've mentioned 00:01:09.409 --> 00:01:12.510 it a bunch of times in the last few episodes, 00:01:12.930 --> 00:01:18.049 where all of the big officials converge on this 00:01:18.049 --> 00:01:21.569 relatively little town, Granollers, where Joan 00:01:21.569 --> 00:01:24.730 has been recuperating from his illness. And they 00:01:24.730 --> 00:01:27.989 make a plan for who's going to be in charge of 00:01:27.989 --> 00:01:33.079 what in the upcoming administration. And to say 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:36.180 upcoming is a little weird because as soon as 00:01:36.180 --> 00:01:41.739 Per died on January 5th, Joan became king. So 00:01:41.739 --> 00:01:45.219 it's not really upcoming. It's sort of this situation 00:01:45.219 --> 00:01:47.799 where they're building the plane as they're flying 00:01:47.799 --> 00:01:50.599 it because they're supposed to be governing. 00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:54.099 The new king is king. It really is, you know. 00:01:54.620 --> 00:01:58.579 The king is dead. Long live the king. but Joan 00:01:58.579 --> 00:02:00.799 has been out of commission and so we've seen 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:04.739 Violant stepping up and now today there's going 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:08.219 to be a bit more of an organization happening 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:11.419 and people will be given responsibilities and 00:02:11.419 --> 00:02:15.159 in fact something that takes place on this day 00:02:15.159 --> 00:02:23.139 is that Joan makes his son the dauphin of Girona. 00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:27.849 That is a new term for the Crown of Aragon. It 00:02:27.849 --> 00:02:30.949 used to be the Duke of Girona, but now it's the 00:02:30.949 --> 00:02:35.650 Dauphin. And that is the French word for the 00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:40.210 primogenit, the firstborn inheritor in line 00:02:40.210 --> 00:02:44.750 for the throne. So Jaume, their son, who at 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:48.150 this time is three years old, he is made into 00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:53.650 the Dauphin. And that is something that immediately 00:02:53.650 --> 00:02:56.849 sets off alarm bells for a lot of people in the 00:02:56.849 --> 00:03:00.270 Crown of Aragon who are really suspicious of 00:03:00.270 --> 00:03:04.250 Violant and her influence as what they perceive 00:03:04.250 --> 00:03:09.870 an outsider from France. And so this is really 00:03:09.870 --> 00:03:14.270 making a bad impression, but Joan doesn't care 00:03:14.270 --> 00:03:18.909 because he wants to bring more French culture 00:03:18.909 --> 00:03:22.750 and customs into the Crown of Aragon. Why? Because 00:03:22.750 --> 00:03:27.409 that's what's hot. So really, like, France is 00:03:27.409 --> 00:03:31.830 the place where a lot of the most innovative 00:03:31.830 --> 00:03:35.590 culture is happening at this time. It's almost 00:03:35.590 --> 00:03:42.039 like France is uh the Hollywood and so like in 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:45.639 today's culture in our world in the 21st century 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:48.639 Hollywood movies are very popular and they're 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:51.479 consumed around the world there's other really 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:55.379 important sources of filmmaking such as Bollywood 00:03:55.379 --> 00:04:00.479 in India but you kind of get the sense that what 00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:03.819 comes out of Hollywood sort of sets the cultural 00:04:03.819 --> 00:04:08.840 agenda in terms of representation and artistic 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:14.560 innovation for movies and TV series. And so the 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:19.379 same kind of thing is happening with France and 00:04:19.379 --> 00:04:23.699 its neighbors. And Joan is like, let's get 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:27.939 more of that produced and supported in The Crown 00:04:27.939 --> 00:04:31.949 of Aragon. There are really interesting artistic 00:04:31.949 --> 00:04:35.810 innovations that happen in Iberia at this time 00:04:35.810 --> 00:04:39.910 So it's not as if Iberia is not coming up with 00:04:39.910 --> 00:04:42.569 anything on its own It's just that the stuff 00:04:42.569 --> 00:04:47.329 that's the most popular and the stuff that is 00:04:47.329 --> 00:04:50.990 really getting a lot of you know, traction in 00:04:50.990 --> 00:04:53.610 terms of what people want to listen to from the 00:04:53.610 --> 00:04:57.389 troubadours and what kinds of literature gets 00:04:57.389 --> 00:05:00.370 copied again and again and again multiple times 00:05:00.370 --> 00:05:05.189 in new manuscripts. It's coming from France. 00:05:06.509 --> 00:05:09.129 So, Joan is really interested in that culture 00:05:09.129 --> 00:05:13.089 starting from his very early years. And one thing 00:05:13.089 --> 00:05:15.790 positive to say about Père is that he really 00:05:15.790 --> 00:05:20.769 liked big spending on cultural objects, and so 00:05:20.769 --> 00:05:25.889 Joan had a lot of access to works from all over 00:05:25.889 --> 00:05:30.269 the place, including France. And so Joan, from 00:05:30.269 --> 00:05:34.389 a very young age, is looking toward France and 00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:38.089 French culture. Also keep in mind that to talk 00:05:38.089 --> 00:05:43.129 about France as like one unified place is very 00:05:43.129 --> 00:05:47.310 misleading at this time because the France of 00:05:47.310 --> 00:05:51.550 Paris is very different culturally from the France 00:05:51.550 --> 00:05:56.230 of Provence and the French culture that comes 00:05:56.230 --> 00:05:59.529 out of Toulouse is a very particular kind of 00:05:59.529 --> 00:06:03.329 troubadour culture that Joan is really into 00:06:03.329 --> 00:06:08.050 and might not be quite as popular in Paris. So 00:06:08.050 --> 00:06:11.610 that's something to focus on as we're thinking 00:06:11.610 --> 00:06:17.319 about French culture as a category. So I digressed 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:19.680 a bit and talked about all this French stuff, 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:23.019 but it's all to underscore the point that when 00:06:23.019 --> 00:06:28.660 Joan starts officially calling his son the Dauphin, 00:06:29.379 --> 00:06:34.540 he is doing that very consciously as a move to 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:40.740 bring some of the cultural cache of France into 00:06:40.740 --> 00:06:45.220 the political conversation in the Crown of Aragon, 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:49.480 and there's a lot of people that don't like that. 00:06:50.779 --> 00:06:57.259 So he names his son the Dauphin. You would expect 00:06:57.259 --> 00:07:00.800 that today's document would be the document that 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:06.439 proclaims this. That document is not found yet. 00:07:07.180 --> 00:07:10.879 Where is it? We don't know where it is. There's 00:07:10.879 --> 00:07:15.740 an article all about the Dauphin Jaume that was 00:07:15.740 --> 00:07:22.459 written by a Catalan historian Jaume Riera i Sans 00:07:22.459 --> 00:07:27.939 and in that article Riera i Sans says yeah we 00:07:27.939 --> 00:07:29.939 don't know where this document is yet and in 00:07:29.939 --> 00:07:34.149 fact the first recorded attestation of the use 00:07:34.149 --> 00:07:38.089 of the term Dauphin for Jaume is actually in 00:07:38.089 --> 00:07:40.930 one of Violant's letters a couple days later, 00:07:40.970 --> 00:07:43.029 and we're going to look at that letter on that 00:07:43.029 --> 00:07:47.870 day. So we don't have that. And then the other 00:07:47.870 --> 00:07:51.290 thing that Joan does right away is he creates 00:07:51.290 --> 00:07:56.920 a new dukedom, a new duchy for his brother. So 00:07:56.920 --> 00:08:01.759 for Marti, he creates the Duchy of Montblanc. 00:08:02.620 --> 00:08:08.819 And now Marti gets to be a Duke, whereas normally 00:08:08.819 --> 00:08:13.560 the title of Duke and all of its powers and prestige 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:17.500 would have only been for the firstborn son of 00:08:17.500 --> 00:08:23.240 the king. And so Joan applies that to his brother, 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:27.889 which is a nice nice thing to do. That document 00:08:27.889 --> 00:08:32.190 is also not dated the 16th of January, which 00:08:32.190 --> 00:08:35.990 is when most historians are converging on saying, 00:08:36.129 --> 00:08:38.049 well, this is when Joan did these things right 00:08:38.049 --> 00:08:43.190 away. So the kind of thing that I would like 00:08:43.190 --> 00:08:47.830 in my fantasy world, my historian fantasy world, 00:08:48.149 --> 00:08:51.309 is for there to be some kind of like meeting 00:08:51.309 --> 00:08:57.200 minutes from this big day on January 16th. And 00:08:57.200 --> 00:09:03.240 we do not have that at all. They met, they made 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:07.539 decisions about which official would be in which 00:09:07.539 --> 00:09:11.679 position and what the division of labor was going 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:17.059 to be like for the new government. Joan ran 00:09:17.059 --> 00:09:20.200 the meeting, I'm assuming, but I'm sure that 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:22.899 Violant was really pulling a lot of the strings 00:09:22.899 --> 00:09:28.889 here. and we don't have meeting minutes. So when 00:09:28.889 --> 00:09:32.629 I'm looking around at the registers from this 00:09:32.629 --> 00:09:35.169 time period, and I'm flipping through them and 00:09:35.169 --> 00:09:36.950 looking, okay, let's look at the documents from 00:09:36.950 --> 00:09:42.649 January 16th, I'm really dissatisfied. Like, 00:09:43.049 --> 00:09:46.330 really, I'm living out the motto of the podcast, 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:51.370 dissatisfaction guaranteed, because I can't find 00:09:51.370 --> 00:09:56.779 any, like, really revealing documents from what 00:09:56.779 --> 00:10:00.360 went down on this day. And we know it was this 00:10:00.360 --> 00:10:04.700 day because Violant was there in Granollers 00:10:04.700 --> 00:10:10.480 on that day and not there afterward. So she shows 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:14.259 up for this meeting. All of these officials have 00:10:14.259 --> 00:10:16.240 shown up for this meeting. We know that it happened, 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:20.259 but the documentation of it is lacking and maybe 00:10:20.259 --> 00:10:22.340 I just haven't found the right secondary source 00:10:22.340 --> 00:10:24.940 yet but the secondary source literature I've 00:10:24.940 --> 00:10:27.919 really gotten into a lot and and I think that 00:10:27.919 --> 00:10:31.940 there's maybe it got written down somewhere besides 00:10:31.940 --> 00:10:34.460 a register maybe they're just verbalizing it 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:38.039 in there then gonna there's like a you know chancery 00:10:38.039 --> 00:10:40.039 backlog or something and so all the things that 00:10:40.039 --> 00:10:43.139 they decided they get sent out and documented 00:10:43.139 --> 00:10:47.570 with later dates because there is There's a lot 00:10:47.570 --> 00:10:52.149 of things that are dated, for example, like the 00:10:52.149 --> 00:10:57.269 18th. So it's really difficult to figure out 00:10:57.269 --> 00:11:02.590 exactly what took place at this big meeting. 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:09.490 And I feel like it's just like true to form that 00:11:09.490 --> 00:11:14.549 on this very dramatic day, the document that 00:11:14.549 --> 00:11:20.500 I have from Violant seemingly has nothing to 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:26.200 do with the major topic of the day, which is 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:30.879 forming a government. This document from January 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:35.879 16th, it's I think the only January 16th document 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:41.419 in Violant's registers, and what it is about 00:11:41.419 --> 00:11:49.850 is seemingly some friar going on pilgrimage. 00:11:51.090 --> 00:11:56.610 So the addressee is the bishop of Granollares. 00:11:56.929 --> 00:12:01.590 That makes sense. Violant is writing to the 00:12:01.590 --> 00:12:08.629 bishop that the journey of a certain Petrus, 00:12:09.769 --> 00:12:15.480 a friar Petrus. is something that is going to 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:20.159 be supported in whatever manner is necessary. 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:25.860 The word huismodi is in there. I really like 00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:29.299 that word in Latin. It's just, of this kind. 00:12:29.539 --> 00:12:31.659 It's the general, like, anything you need of 00:12:31.659 --> 00:12:35.620 this kind, huismodi, is going to be supported 00:12:35.620 --> 00:12:41.360 for the journey that this certain Petrus is going 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:46.370 to make. Where is this Petrus journeying to? 00:12:46.970 --> 00:12:51.830 Well, you know, I have my ChatGPT crutch for 00:12:51.830 --> 00:12:56.309 the Latin documents, and ChatGPT seems pretty 00:12:56.309 --> 00:13:00.710 convinced that this Petrus is going to be going 00:13:00.710 --> 00:13:06.789 to Jerusalem. ChatGPT is getting that from the 00:13:06.789 --> 00:13:11.970 phrase in the second line, Patrimonium crucifixi. 00:13:12.090 --> 00:13:15.889 the land of the crucifixion. That would make 00:13:15.889 --> 00:13:24.090 sense. There's also, before that, a phrase, sanctorum 00:13:24.090 --> 00:13:31.629 limina, the threshold of holiness. So I can see 00:13:31.629 --> 00:13:37.629 where ChatGPT is getting that and why ChatGPT 00:13:37.629 --> 00:13:41.850 would infer that this is a journey to the Holy 00:13:41.850 --> 00:13:47.049 Land all the way to Jerusalem. I am not sure 00:13:47.049 --> 00:13:51.389 that that's exactly what's being supported here. 00:13:51.389 --> 00:13:56.730 I am honestly not sure about the meaning of this 00:13:56.730 --> 00:14:04.970 letter overall, and what Petrus is doing, and 00:14:04.970 --> 00:14:10.429 the idea that it has nothing seemingly to do. 00:14:10.490 --> 00:14:13.850 with the major task at hand, which is forming 00:14:13.850 --> 00:14:19.429 the government. So all of this just generates 00:14:19.429 --> 00:14:24.029 a ton of questions in my mind about this. I have 00:14:24.029 --> 00:14:29.529 one theory. If this really is a letter that is 00:14:29.529 --> 00:14:34.610 providing resources and support for this Friar 00:14:34.610 --> 00:14:39.759 Petrus to go to Jerusalem, Maybe it is Violant's 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:47.799 way of thanking the Bishop of Granollers for providing 00:14:47.799 --> 00:14:52.259 the venue and maybe some food and other kinds 00:14:52.259 --> 00:14:58.460 of hospitality to the group of people that have 00:14:58.460 --> 00:15:04.220 unexpectedly descended on this little town for 00:15:04.220 --> 00:15:09.759 this very big meeting. So that's my working theory 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:17.259 that this is Violant's way of thanking, compensating 00:15:17.259 --> 00:15:23.259 the Bishop of Granollers for that. But I don't 00:15:23.259 --> 00:15:25.460 know. I don't know where the meeting took place. 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:29.500 I don't know if it was in any way connected to 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:34.100 the property of the church. It is full of questions. 00:15:35.019 --> 00:15:38.919 But that's our game. And maybe later on in the 00:15:38.919 --> 00:15:42.679 year, when my Latin is better, or when I come 00:15:42.679 --> 00:15:44.860 upon some other document that somehow connects 00:15:44.860 --> 00:15:51.299 back to this, I'll be able to get some better 00:15:51.299 --> 00:15:58.639 analysis. But that's it for this episode. Thanks 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:02.379 for listening to the Historian's Notebook, Season 00:16:02.379 --> 00:16:06.990 1, Molt Cara Campanyona. If you were leaving with 00:16:06.990 --> 00:16:08.970 more questions than you arrived with, I mean, 00:16:09.009 --> 00:16:14.009 how could you not? Why not? My Latin is, like, 00:16:14.090 --> 00:16:17.009 so bad I can't even say what is even happening 00:16:17.009 --> 00:16:20.889 in this letter generally. Well, I have fulfilled 00:16:20.889 --> 00:16:25.470 expectations. I have done my job. Remember, the 00:16:25.470 --> 00:16:28.830 motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:16:28.830 --> 00:16:32.210 guaranteed. visit the website to see an image 00:16:32.210 --> 00:16:35.409 of today's document and additional show notes. 00:16:36.210 --> 00:16:39.750 I promise I am just going to return to my Latin 00:16:39.750 --> 00:16:44.490 notes and try to get better at this. Or maybe 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:46.490 I'll just luck out and there will just be so 00:16:46.490 --> 00:16:49.070 few Latin documents that are not transcribed 00:16:49.070 --> 00:16:51.809 in the upcoming year and it's just a weird thing 00:16:51.809 --> 00:16:54.309 about right now in January that I don't even 00:16:54.309 --> 00:16:56.929 have to worry about it. That's what I thought 00:16:56.929 --> 00:17:01.340 when I started this podcast. Alright, okay. Thank 00:17:01.340 --> 00:17:05.500 you again for listening. Visit the website for 00:17:05.500 --> 00:17:08.279 an image of today's document and show notes. 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:12.400 That is jonathanseyfried.net. And listen again 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:16.079 tomorrow to hear about the next day in the first 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:20.319 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:24.420 Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take 00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:24.720 care.