WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.700 Hello! In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:11.880 it was January 24th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:15.300 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.300 --> 00:00:19.019 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.019 --> 00:00:23.339 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:28.239 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:30.760 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:35.119 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:40.600 Queen Violant de Bar. So much of the documentation 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:44.880 from the 14th century Crown of Aragon has been 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:48.539 digitized by the Spanish government and is available 00:00:48.539 --> 00:00:53.280 on the website Pares, along with millions of 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:58.450 documents from all kinds of archives across Iberia 00:00:58.450 --> 00:01:02.469 all right let's get started with today's document 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:33.019 Today's document is a short, just six -line letter 00:01:33.019 --> 00:01:38.599 from Violant de Bar to the Pope. And when 00:01:38.599 --> 00:01:46.799 I say Pope, I mean Clement VII, the Anti -Pope. 00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:52.980 So the term Anti -Pope is very dramatic. And 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:57.750 of course, the Anti -Pope according to Clement 00:01:57.750 --> 00:02:01.670 VII, would have been Urban VI. We're talking 00:02:01.670 --> 00:02:06.170 about a time when there were two popes, one in 00:02:06.170 --> 00:02:10.710 Rome and another in Avignon. This is the Great 00:02:10.710 --> 00:02:16.469 Schism of the 14th century, also known as the 00:02:16.469 --> 00:02:22.509 Great Western Schism. In the 14th century, the 00:02:22.509 --> 00:02:28.080 cardinals got into major conflict not because 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:33.960 of some kind of doctrinal disagreement, but simply 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:38.340 because they disagreed about who should be the 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:43.580 next pope. And so out of that disagreement came 00:02:43.580 --> 00:02:48.539 these two different institutions, one based in 00:02:48.539 --> 00:02:52.740 Rome and the other continuing on in Avignon. 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:56.360 where the papacy had been located for several 00:02:56.360 --> 00:03:00.539 decades, and eventually this did get resolved 00:03:00.539 --> 00:03:05.020 at the very beginning of the 15th century. But 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:09.460 in the time that Joan and Violant ruled, there 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:14.280 was tremendous pressure for secular elites to 00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:18.280 pick a side, and Pere the Ceremonious had refused 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:22.550 to do so. and was probably just holding out for 00:03:22.550 --> 00:03:25.490 some kind of resolution to happen and for the 00:03:25.490 --> 00:03:29.569 schism to end, but he did not live to see that 00:03:29.569 --> 00:03:33.889 happen and also Joan would not live to see 00:03:33.889 --> 00:03:37.849 that happen. The schism continued on into the 00:03:37.849 --> 00:03:43.629 beginning of the 15th century. When Joan was 00:03:43.629 --> 00:03:48.099 preparing to ascend to the throne of the Crown 00:03:48.099 --> 00:03:52.039 of Aragon, he decided that he was going to support 00:03:52.039 --> 00:03:56.800 Clement VII, the Avignon Pope. And this really 00:03:56.800 --> 00:04:00.979 tracked with Joan's francophilia, his desire 00:04:00.979 --> 00:04:04.539 to adopt all kinds of culture and customs from 00:04:04.539 --> 00:04:11.699 France. Now, Violant, she was French. Very French. 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.759 she was the granddaughter of a French king and 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:19.220 queen. Her uncle was the current French king. 00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:26.100 And so, like most elites in France, she chose 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:32.879 to align with the Avignon Pope. And so what's 00:04:32.879 --> 00:04:37.860 interesting is that I've been noticing that when 00:04:38.569 --> 00:04:42.410 Joan and Violant wanted something from the Pope. 00:04:43.829 --> 00:04:47.389 I'm seeing that it's Violant who's writing to 00:04:47.389 --> 00:04:51.790 the Pope more often than Joan. Joan, I have seen 00:04:51.790 --> 00:04:55.069 some letters from Joan to the Pope, but it's 00:04:55.069 --> 00:04:58.449 Violant and the Pope doesn't have any major 00:04:58.449 --> 00:05:04.329 familial connections to the French royal family, 00:05:04.490 --> 00:05:09.800 the Valois. But there's a lot of other kinds 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:15.240 of mutually beneficial relationship going on 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:20.459 between the ruling elites in France and the Avignon 00:05:20.459 --> 00:05:25.160 Papacy, even before this current pope. And so 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:31.060 the allegiance that exists between the French 00:05:31.060 --> 00:05:35.519 elites and the Avignon Pope is one that Violant, 00:05:35.540 --> 00:05:40.480 I think, feels very at home in. And Joan understands 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:45.060 this. And so that's why Violant is the one who's 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:49.389 doing a lot of the writing to the Pope about 00:05:49.389 --> 00:05:53.970 maybe some some low -level matters I have a feeling 00:05:53.970 --> 00:05:57.790 that this particular letter is rather low -level 00:05:57.790 --> 00:06:02.709 and I wonder if the Pope actually read this I've 00:06:02.709 --> 00:06:06.470 got a theory that I mentioned in an earlier instance 00:06:06.470 --> 00:06:10.029 when we were looking at a letter to the pope, 00:06:10.310 --> 00:06:13.170 I think from Violant too, which is that the 00:06:13.170 --> 00:06:15.189 pope didn't really get involved in some of this 00:06:15.189 --> 00:06:17.709 lower -level stuff, and everyone understood that 00:06:17.709 --> 00:06:21.509 it would be handled by the papal bureaucracy. 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.560 That's my theory with this one, too. In this 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:30.660 instance, Violant is writing to gain a promotion 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:34.220 or an ecclesiastical post for someone in the 00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:39.300 letter who's identified as Johann Fernandes de 00:06:39.300 --> 00:06:43.180 Aranda. And then after his name, this is in line 00:06:43.180 --> 00:06:48.180 three, it says baccalaureo de legibus. That would 00:06:48.180 --> 00:06:53.920 be a bachelor of law. He has a law degree. He 00:06:53.920 --> 00:07:01.620 went to some university and is seen as trained. 00:07:01.899 --> 00:07:05.990 It got a degree. It's not a doctorate. It's not 00:07:05.990 --> 00:07:09.829 a doctor of law. We would see that title used 00:07:09.829 --> 00:07:16.990 a master of law or a doctor of law, but here 00:07:16.990 --> 00:07:21.689 it's I guess the lower level, which we also associate 00:07:21.689 --> 00:07:26.769 with the undergraduate degree in our time, the 00:07:26.769 --> 00:07:30.410 bachelor's degree. And Violant is advocating 00:07:30.410 --> 00:07:36.930 for this particular individual to get a seat 00:07:36.930 --> 00:07:41.310 in the Barcelona ecclesiastical structure. I 00:07:41.310 --> 00:07:47.649 can't quite tell where in the official hierarchy 00:07:47.649 --> 00:07:51.810 this position, this open position, is in the 00:07:51.810 --> 00:07:56.790 Barcelona see, but it's some kind of opening. 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:00.899 So she's advocating for this person, and I had 00:08:00.899 --> 00:08:07.879 never heard of Johan Fernando de Aranda before, 00:08:08.139 --> 00:08:11.300 and so I did a Google search, got all kinds of 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:14.399 random stuff, not from this time period. I added 00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:17.139 in the date, didn't really do any better, and 00:08:17.139 --> 00:08:20.879 this was an instance that I can say the AI chatbot 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:25.759 was really helpful because I prompted that chat 00:08:25.759 --> 00:08:30.779 to retrieve a by -priority scholarly results, 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:34.980 and the chatbot came through and found an article 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:38.779 from a very well -respected and prolific scholar 00:08:38.779 --> 00:08:44.200 of this time period, whose name is Maria Teresa 00:08:44.200 --> 00:08:48.639 Ferrer Mallol, and she had written an article 00:08:48.639 --> 00:08:55.740 about this person's brother. So the brother's 00:08:55.740 --> 00:09:01.059 name is Francisco de Aranda, and within this 00:09:01.059 --> 00:09:07.860 article about his efforts to get all kinds of 00:09:07.860 --> 00:09:11.940 glory and riches and promotions in the Crown 00:09:11.940 --> 00:09:16.700 of Aragon, Maria Teresa Ferrer Mallol is describing 00:09:16.700 --> 00:09:22.059 how the monarchs would try to promote people 00:09:22.059 --> 00:09:25.100 in the ecclesiastical hierarchy through a lot 00:09:25.100 --> 00:09:29.559 of correspondence to the popes, and really focuses 00:09:29.559 --> 00:09:33.240 a lot on the reign of Marti in making this argument. 00:09:33.980 --> 00:09:38.100 But in the course of highlighting the journey 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:42.620 of Francisco de Aranda, Ferrer i Mallol also 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:46.539 talks about his brother, who is the subject of 00:09:46.539 --> 00:09:51.399 this letter from Violant. And it turns out that 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:56.820 later on, Joan and Violant tried to get Joan 00:09:56.820 --> 00:10:02.840 Fernandez to get... promoted even higher in the 00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:06.740 ecclesiastical hierarchy in Taragon, and it didn't 00:10:06.740 --> 00:10:10.080 work initially. They just kept advocating for 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.440 him. Not quite sure why it was such an uphill 00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:16.840 battle, but it was, and so that there's documentation 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:22.480 of them writing again and again to advocate for 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:29.710 for Joan Ferran de Aranda. So we see this again 00:10:29.710 --> 00:10:34.710 and again where the people who are in charge 00:10:34.710 --> 00:10:39.049 of the state, the royal family, they're trying 00:10:39.049 --> 00:10:44.450 to also influence who gets jobs in the church. 00:10:44.850 --> 00:10:48.610 And I think that this is all part and parcel 00:10:48.610 --> 00:10:54.669 of the way that, well, elites will, everybody 00:10:54.669 --> 00:10:58.039 does, it's networking, okay? So. you're trying 00:10:58.039 --> 00:11:02.299 to promote the people that you know, and then 00:11:02.299 --> 00:11:08.259 they will then be grateful to you, and it's all 00:11:08.259 --> 00:11:12.480 cooperative. It can get into corruption and graft 00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:15.759 and selling of offices and so forth. But, you 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:20.309 know, it can also have a very innocent, just, 00:11:20.389 --> 00:11:22.250 you know, I know this person's a good person. 00:11:22.309 --> 00:11:24.409 I think they should get the job. Their family 00:11:24.409 --> 00:11:26.669 has done good work for me. They continue to do 00:11:26.669 --> 00:11:29.830 good work. They've benefited me. It'll benefit 00:11:29.830 --> 00:11:34.090 everybody and myself if they get this job. There's 00:11:34.090 --> 00:11:36.769 a lot of ways to read this. It can be read as 00:11:36.769 --> 00:11:40.809 interference. It can be read as recommending 00:11:40.809 --> 00:11:44.210 somebody who's high quality for all the virtuous, 00:11:44.610 --> 00:11:48.019 selfless reasons you might do so. But it all 00:11:48.019 --> 00:11:53.000 is about the ties that all of these folks are 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.759 building with each other because authority, legitimacy, 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:02.500 power, status, they are all network -based phenomena. 00:12:03.539 --> 00:12:07.919 And the more that you extend your ties and the 00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:11.000 more that your recommendations are accepted and 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:14.980 the more that your people your trusted confidants, 00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:18.879 the people who've been there for you are rising 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:23.679 up in the ranks, the more power and prestige 00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:26.840 you are going to have. So it's a constant activity 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:30.740 that all of the elites are engaged in, recommending 00:12:30.740 --> 00:12:34.039 people, promoting people, trying to advocate 00:12:34.039 --> 00:12:40.279 for people. And this was just a way that people 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:45.480 of the past as well as people in our time build 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:53.700 up their own power base and also build up communities 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:57.360 that function according to the priorities that 00:12:57.360 --> 00:13:02.440 they have. So the more that you have people who 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:05.059 see things the way you do in positions of power, 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:09.320 the more you are going to see the goals and the 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:16.220 values that you hold dear, further promoted and 00:13:16.220 --> 00:13:20.960 achieved. So this is something that we can observe 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.980 in these documents and say, oh, it was some kind 00:13:24.980 --> 00:13:29.120 of, you know, weird blending of church and state 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.799 that was like interference or something we can 00:13:32.799 --> 00:13:36.159 see as a problem but I think you know you have 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:40.700 to remember that the church was like it was definitely 00:13:40.700 --> 00:13:45.279 religious but it was also very much like the 00:13:45.279 --> 00:13:50.799 largest corporation in town that the the people 00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:54.960 who were in these offices they had a huge amount 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:58.919 of authority as the people who were government 00:13:58.919 --> 00:14:01.139 officials also had a huge amount of authority 00:14:01.139 --> 00:14:04.659 and so they wanted to cooperate with each other 00:14:04.659 --> 00:14:08.159 and there was a lot of overlap. So that's why 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:11.879 we see this level of involvement from the royal 00:14:11.879 --> 00:14:18.960 family in advocating for people in these ecclesiastical 00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:23.019 positions. But there's another twist to this. 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:28.419 In Ferrer -Mallol's article, she talks about 00:14:28.419 --> 00:14:34.159 how the brother of Joan Ferran de Aranda, the 00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:38.139 person in this letter, his brother had been a 00:14:38.139 --> 00:14:42.860 long -time ally of Martí and had been engaged 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:47.220 in a lot of activities like battles and struggles 00:14:47.220 --> 00:14:53.179 and whatever that Martí had been doing and In 00:14:53.179 --> 00:14:57.500 the more recent past, as in the previous few 00:14:57.500 --> 00:15:01.299 weeks, the brother of this person in the article, 00:15:01.740 --> 00:15:05.000 the brother's name is Francisco, Francisco de 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.679 Aranda had been with Marti as they were pursuing 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:17.919 Sibylla. And so Violant, maybe as she's advocating 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:26.100 for Johann Fernando de Aranda in this letter. 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:34.019 Maybe she is also trying to boost up a family 00:15:34.019 --> 00:15:39.000 member of someone that she has heard was assisting 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:46.179 in the apprehension of Sibilla, her rival. So 00:15:46.179 --> 00:15:52.600 we have here the interaction between Violant 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:58.639 and Marti coming to fore, potentially, if that 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:01.740 really is an accurate reading of the subtext 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:05.620 of this letter. So I think this letter can be 00:16:05.620 --> 00:16:10.320 seen as another example of what I'm calling team 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:16.019 next -gen, where Violant, Marti, and Joanne 00:16:16.360 --> 00:16:19.159 And to an extent, Marti's wife, Maria de Luna, 00:16:19.659 --> 00:16:25.059 they are operating as a team and trying to set 00:16:25.059 --> 00:16:30.620 up something new after the end of the long reign 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:36.019 of Pere the Ceremonious. I want to make a note 00:16:36.019 --> 00:16:38.259 of something that I've been doing in this episode, 00:16:38.259 --> 00:16:41.059 and you might have noticed in other episodes, 00:16:41.779 --> 00:16:46.220 which has to do with an alternation between the 00:16:46.299 --> 00:16:51.519 way of saying somebody's name in Latin, and in 00:16:51.519 --> 00:17:00.259 Catalan, and in Castilian, which is known colloquially 00:17:00.259 --> 00:17:06.400 as Spanish. The Spanish that's spoken most populously, 00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:12.259 like for example in Latin America, is the Castilian 00:17:12.259 --> 00:17:15.619 language. that then became known as Spanish. 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:19.059 But there's actually quite a number of languages 00:17:19.059 --> 00:17:23.059 spoken in Spain, including the Basque language 00:17:23.059 --> 00:17:28.539 in the north, the Catalan language in the region 00:17:28.539 --> 00:17:33.079 Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragonese. So there's 00:17:33.079 --> 00:17:36.220 a lot of languages in Iberia, even persisting 00:17:36.220 --> 00:17:39.940 to this day. And something that's actually quite 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:43.180 common is to see the same names in these multiple 00:17:43.180 --> 00:17:47.839 languages, which happened today. So in the article 00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:51.200 by Maria Teresa Ferrer Mallol, she's writing 00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:54.759 in Castilian, although she's absolutely fluent 00:17:54.759 --> 00:18:00.720 and does a lot of writing in Catalan. And then 00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:05.720 the document itself is written in Latin, but 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:11.269 then the person was someone who most likely was 00:18:11.269 --> 00:18:16.309 in their life most commonly referred to in Catalan. 00:18:16.829 --> 00:18:20.190 So we've got, you know, three different ways 00:18:20.190 --> 00:18:23.829 of talking about someone named in English John. 00:18:24.230 --> 00:18:30.009 So we have the Catalan Joan, we have the Latin 00:18:30.009 --> 00:18:35.019 Johan, and we have the Castilian Juan. And so 00:18:35.019 --> 00:18:37.559 I've just been going all back and forth in today's 00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:39.579 episode, and hopefully that wasn't too confusing. 00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:43.579 Alright, thanks for listening to this episode 00:18:43.579 --> 00:18:47.000 of The Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:50.640 Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:54.480 than you arrived with, I have done my job. Remember, 00:18:54.819 --> 00:18:58.400 the motto of The Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:01.869 guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image 00:19:01.869 --> 00:19:04.670 of today's document and additional show notes. 00:19:05.609 --> 00:19:08.029 The article that I've been referring to by Maria 00:19:08.029 --> 00:19:11.309 Teresa Ferrer-Mallol is actually available for 00:19:11.309 --> 00:19:14.210 free, so I'll put a link onto the webpage for 00:19:14.210 --> 00:19:17.289 today's episode so you can look at that. And 00:19:17.289 --> 00:19:19.750 listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:19:19.750 --> 00:19:23.069 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:19:23.069 --> 00:19:27.869 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:19:27.869 --> 00:19:29.240 meantime... Take care.