Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was January 28th, 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. Let's begin today's
document. Woo, there is so much to talk about
in today's document. It's one that I think is
really exciting for a lot of reasons. Okay, first
of all, let's source it. The sender is Violant,
the Queen. At the top of the letter, it says
La Reyna. The recipient is someone whose title
is Vescomte de Roda, the Viscount of Roda. Joan
has been in Barcelona for nine days now, and
the two of them are really into their rule. So
we had this period of a couple weeks in early
January where things were looking dicey. Violant
was in Barcelona, Joan was in Granollers, but
now we're starting to see things really going
on a roll. And by the way, you might hear a certain
cat noise appearing in today's podcast, because
I've got one of my kittens, Shadow, here at the
desk. she tends to pipe in. And if I'm saying
something really great, and she happens to make
a cat noise, I'm not going to re -record it,
because there's just a kind of, you know, joy
to the spontaneity, and also you sometimes can't
replicate the way that you talk about something
in the tone that you did. It'll sound false.
So... All right, might have some cat audience
participation here, but there she is. Hopefully
you got to hear that. Okay, so they are into
their period of governance. They're off to the
races. We've seen in the last two days that they're
starting to reposition a lot of the portfolio
holdings of Sibilla de Fortia, and now we've
got a document that, in my mind, just opens up
a lot of really fun questions. First of all,
the recipient is not just some random Viscount.
The Viscount of Roda is one of Violant's most
trusted correspondents. The Viscountess, the
Viscount of Rhoda's wife, is someone who Violant
sometimes shares really personal details, like
at a different year a little bit later on, Violant
writes to the Viscountess of Rhoda about what's
going on as she's pregnant, and she tells her
in a letter that's copied into the chancery,
I've been barfing a lot. She uses the term gran
vomit, and so she includes these really interesting
personal tidbits that I think is one of the things
that makes Violant such a fascinating person
to study. And I really have to thank Dawn Bratsch-
Prince, who in the early 2000s into the 2010s
wrote some wonderful articles and one monograph
about Violant de Bar and highlighted some
of these letters that I talk about when I refer
to things other than what we're looking at in
the document of the day. So I'll put a link to
the article that Dawn Bratsch Prince wrote and
that really just stuck with me, that one letter
where she's, where Violant is writing to the
Viscountess of Roda with that musing. So here
we've got a letter to the Viscount of Roda,
but part of the sourcing is just, well, who are
these people? And the Viscount of Roda is really
easy to research. That is Ramón de Pérellos. Ramón
de Pérellos is one of the major actors in the
late 14th century story of the diplomacy conducted
by the Crown of Aragon. You see Ramon de Perellos
representing the monarch of the Crown of Aragon
in a variety of settings, and I say the monarch
because he did this for Père, Joan, and Marti.
And Ramon de Perellos has been described as, quote,
an essential statesman. unquote, by one of another
one of the foremost historians of Violant and
Joan right now, Lledo Ruiz Dominguez. So I'll
put a link to her article in the web page for
this episode too. Ramon de Perellos, a very capable
diplomat and official, and Père had sent him
to do negotiations of different kinds in France.
At one point later on, Ramon de Perellos is in
charge, it seems, of a small fleet of ships for
Pope Clement VII, the Avignon Pope, and so he's
really good. It's also possible, I'm still researching
this, it's also possible that Ramon de Perellos
was the person who Violant met in France ahead
of the marriage to Joan. It could be that Ramon
de Perellos was one of the people that negotiated
the marriage. between Joan and Violant. So it's
possible that when we see Violant writing to
Ramon de Perellos here in 1387, she's writing
to somebody who she's had a chance to develop
a lot of trust with and a friendship. Also, there
was this moment in 1381 when Sibilla de Fortia
got really antagonistic toward Violant and basically
the short story is Ramon de Perellos wound up
kind of in the middle due to some family ties
he had with someone who was close to Violant,
his sister -in -law actually, and Ramon de Perellos
at that point took the side of Joan and Violant.
and in a way turned his back on King Pere because
of this issue that was instigated by Sibilla
de Fortia. Essentially an accusation about Ramon's
sister -in -law being an improper person and
basically demanding that Violant dismiss her
from her role as a lady in Violant's, as Duchess
of Girona in Violant's household. So Lledo Ruiz
Domingo does a great job explaining all this.
I have to give you a super short version. All
of this is just to say that in this letter What
we have before we even get to the content of
the letter is this high level of trust, a history
between these people, and now, when we get into
the content of the letter, we see, oh my goodness,
this is Violant informing Ramon de Perellos, Viscount
of Rhoda, that the King of Navarre has died.
Which is something that is super revealing about
the way news travels, because it's weird to me
that when a king dies in the neighboring kingdom,
someone of the stature in diplomatic circles
of the Viscount of Rhoda, Ramón de Perellos, wouldn't
have already known. But maybe this is more of
a rhetorical thing and Violant is simply setting
this groundwork saying you know this already
but you know because of this is the reason why
this other stuff is in the letter. And what's
the other stuff? Well, it's also general and
vague. So Violant is talking about there's
these affairs and things that are happening and
messages and I want the information and I'm delivering
you information and there's new things happening
and there's just there's hardly anything at all
specific in this letter. The only thing that
is specific in this letter, it's not a long letter,
but still there's enough lines, like eight lines
or something, to have something specific. And,
well, what's that? It's the name of someone.
Guillaume des Copons. I want to say that in French,
but it's probably copons in the Catalan pronunciation.
is someone who appears again and again as a trusted
go -between for both Joan and Violant. Sometimes
I've seen Guillaume de Copons appear as someone
who's trying to get a highly valued manuscript
from the Duc de Berry in France, and it's Guillaume
de Copons who's in the letter that is saying,
hey, we'd like this manuscript. Guillaume de
Copons is coming to get it or is there with this
letter. So he is the person that shows up to
get the thing or to get the information. And
I think what's going on in this letter is a wonderful
window into the way that they operated. They're
not going to necessarily write down all of the
juicy details in a letter for a couple reasons.
The letter could be intercepted, could maybe
be taken the wrong way. I mean, now in our time,
how many of us have gotten into trouble when
you send an email and the the person receiving
it is reading it in a different way than you
intended it just showed my age there maybe a
text message you've had that experience so when
you send a person to deliver more detailed information
that person can be equipped to answer for you
and clarify the tone, the situation, reveal secrets
that maybe are just even too dangerous, even
under the secret seal to send in a letter. And
by the way, today we're looking at a register
that is the secret seal level of correspondence.
So even with the secret seal, This letter is
showing us that there needed to be a person who
would be the actual bearer of the information,
and that this letter is sort of like a letter
of introduction or just setting the groundwork.
It's highly possible that Guillaume de Copon
had visited the Viscount of Roda on behalf of
Joan and Violant prior to this. So it doesn't
sound to me like he's being introduced for the
first time here, but maybe he is. I'm not sure.
So this document is just one that I think is
revealing about how the exchange of information
happened between elites at this time. One last
thing I want to mention about Ramon de Perellos,
and we'll probably see at least a few letters
involving him, the Viscount de Roda in the year
ahead here, but I just want to mention there's
something that is very touching about him and
his connection to Joan and Violant. When Joann
died it was a sudden death and it happened during
a hunting trip and when somebody dies suddenly
at this time and in this culture, their soul
cannot go directly to heaven because they didn't
get last rites before they died. So a sudden
death will automatically send you to purgatory.
I mean, unless you're going to hell. But if you're
not going to hell, you have to, because you didn't
get last rites, spend at least some time in purgatory.
There was a legend at this time that the entrance
to purgatory could be found in the physical world
at a particular site in Ireland. And even though
Dante puts Purgatory at the southern hemisphere
of the earth, by the time we get to the late
14th century, it's very common to see people
referring to the entrance of Purgatory, at least.
as in Ireland. When Joann dies, Ramon de Perellos
decides he's going to go to Ireland in order
to encounter Joan's soul and to bring back the
message that Joan is going to be moving beyond
purgatory and into heaven. And he writes this
as a literary piece. So he goes, yeah, he goes
to Ireland, like he really takes the journey.
So he really physically goes there. And then
he writes about it. And we even, we have this
text, it's survived. And so you can read about
this guy, this person receiving this letter,
going to Ireland, encountering Joan's soul,
in purgatory, and then coming back to tell the
tale. So it's an interesting text. Thanks for
listening to this episode of the Historian's
Notebook, season one, Molt Cara Companyona. If
you are leaving with more questions than you
arrived with, I've done my job. Because remember,
the motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction
guaranteed. 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
I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. Shadow
also wishes you a wonderful time. for the rest
of your day, looking at the materials on the
webpage at jonathanseyfried.net. Right, Shadow?
All right. In the meantime, take care.