WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:05.580 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:12.759 it was January 30th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.759 --> 00:00:16.399 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:19.940 University of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's 00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:24.079 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:28.879 Season one is titled Molt Cara Comanyona. We're 00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:31.760 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:36.719 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:41.020 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:08.420 When I'm trying to do the initial sourcing for 00:01:08.420 --> 00:01:12.019 a document, I'm looking at the very beginning 00:01:12.019 --> 00:01:16.019 to figure out who it's addressed to, and also 00:01:16.019 --> 00:01:22.459 the very end to figure out who, when was it sent, 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:28.650 and right off the bat with this document I got 00:01:28.650 --> 00:01:33.430 stuck because it begins with a word that I actually 00:01:33.430 --> 00:01:39.590 have not seen before in my work with these documents 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:42.629 even the latin ones and this one is a latin one 00:01:42.629 --> 00:01:48.250 so the first word the letters are clear H E N 00:01:48.250 --> 00:01:55.609 D U M and then there's the macron, the abbreviation 00:01:55.609 --> 00:01:59.769 mark over the first half of the word, that horizontal 00:01:59.769 --> 00:02:03.489 line that indicates there is at least one letter 00:02:03.489 --> 00:02:07.250 that is omitted in order to save space, make 00:02:07.250 --> 00:02:11.270 the writing faster. And when I see that horizontal 00:02:11.270 --> 00:02:17.669 line, I think that it's most likely an M. Most 00:02:17.669 --> 00:02:21.849 of the time it's the letter M or the letter N, 00:02:22.129 --> 00:02:26.729 although occasionally it's used for a combination 00:02:26.729 --> 00:02:31.069 of letters like IS. But all of those possibilities 00:02:31.069 --> 00:02:35.770 just didn't seem to fit with this word, and I 00:02:35.770 --> 00:02:44.669 was stumped. So I went to chat GPT. And, indeed, 00:02:45.490 --> 00:02:49.250 it immediately got it, because I also put in 00:02:49.250 --> 00:02:52.810 the following three words, which are pretty clear. 00:02:54.930 --> 00:03:00.870 Gubernandum et defens... ooh, what is it? Defendendum. 00:03:01.310 --> 00:03:05.729 Defendendum. So, this turns out to be a phrase 00:03:05.729 --> 00:03:09.030 that is actually quite frequently used in... 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:16.080 chancery records, and it basically means to have, 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:22.180 to govern, and to defend. And it seems like this 00:03:22.180 --> 00:03:30.319 is in the gerundive, so it would be the ing ending 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:34.379 for translating into English, something like 00:03:34.379 --> 00:03:40.599 having, governing, and defending. But this doesn't 00:03:40.599 --> 00:03:45.840 exactly make sense in terms of figuring out, 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:53.020 well, what then would be the subject of the sentence? 00:03:53.180 --> 00:03:55.879 Is that the subject of the sentence? Where does 00:03:55.879 --> 00:04:01.060 the sentence end? I don't know. But I can cobble 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:04.840 together a general sense of what's going on in 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:15.490 this document. is a receipt of a sale, and I 00:04:15.490 --> 00:04:22.110 think that the money has been received by Violant's 00:04:22.110 --> 00:04:28.490 treasurer, someone by the name of Alatzario Golluff. 00:04:29.750 --> 00:04:33.449 And this, so taking a step back, where is this 00:04:33.449 --> 00:04:38.019 document? This is in one of Violant's registers. 00:04:38.420 --> 00:04:44.060 It's in a register labeled Varia, which means 00:04:44.060 --> 00:04:49.579 that there's actually some different seal levels 00:04:49.579 --> 00:04:55.819 here within the same register. I think this particular 00:04:55.819 --> 00:05:00.899 folio has two letters on it. They're both in 00:05:00.899 --> 00:05:07.519 the public level, the less restricted level of 00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:15.279 SEAL. It's the SIGILO ASSUETO or ASSUECO. Gosh, 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:17.180 I'm still figuring out which one of those that 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:22.139 is. All right, so we've got some kind of sale 00:05:22.139 --> 00:05:27.480 happening. It's very clear that money is being 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.930 transferred. in the fourth line we've got three 00:05:30.930 --> 00:05:34.209 words that clearly indicate there's some kind 00:05:34.209 --> 00:05:43.529 of sale going on there's venditionibus alienationibus 00:05:43.529 --> 00:05:48.949 and at the very end of the line apocham which 00:05:48.949 --> 00:05:53.310 is the word for a receipt of a sale and then 00:05:53.310 --> 00:05:57.189 the third line from the bottom there's the word 00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:12.980 So this is Violant's treasurer who has received 00:06:12.980 --> 00:06:15.980 some money. She's sending a letter, I think, 00:06:16.899 --> 00:06:21.579 to indicate that the funds have been received. 00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:27.439 that's mentioned in the second line and I can 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:33.180 tell it's a place name because that M is capitalized. 00:06:33.899 --> 00:06:37.139 So here's another instance where the paleography 00:06:37.139 --> 00:06:42.379 was a challenge for me. The word that I thought 00:06:42.379 --> 00:06:47.399 I was reading at my first glance was maresina 00:06:47.399 --> 00:06:52.550 and we have a situation where it's difficult 00:06:52.550 --> 00:06:58.870 to interpret the minims the minims minim is a 00:06:58.870 --> 00:07:02.769 term in paleography for when there's short vertical 00:07:02.769 --> 00:07:06.829 strokes and a lot of times there can just be 00:07:06.829 --> 00:07:09.730 a whole row of short vertical strokes and you 00:07:09.730 --> 00:07:14.110 have to figure out oh goodness is this a u or 00:07:14.110 --> 00:07:19.800 is it an n followed by an i or is it an m or 00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:28.279 are there two n's it's stressful and now we have 00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:32.600 one of my cats here who is vocalizing a little 00:07:32.600 --> 00:07:35.800 bit of the stress of interpreting minims so i 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:38.560 thought this said Maresina and i did a little 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:41.139 researching trying to find a place called Maresina 00:07:41.139 --> 00:07:47.410 i could not and so again ai Helped it really 00:07:47.410 --> 00:07:51.629 did No, it was it was helpful. I know we grumble 00:07:51.629 --> 00:07:56.069 when we admit that the AI really is useful but 00:07:56.069 --> 00:08:02.850 it was and so I Found out as soon as I as soon 00:08:02.850 --> 00:08:06.069 as I just plugged it into chat GPT said I'm looking 00:08:06.069 --> 00:08:10.529 at a place name looks like Maresina it returned 00:08:10.529 --> 00:08:16.920 with a likely interpretation of Maresme. So in 00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:21.740 Catalan, the last letter is E, and the Latin 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:24.379 rendering of it in this document has the last 00:08:24.379 --> 00:08:28.360 letter as A, and what comes before the A is the 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:36.840 letter M, which I had interpreted as an IN. Maresme 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:42.789 is actually a province... something like a region, 00:08:43.110 --> 00:08:47.610 a small region, that's to the northeast of Barcelona 00:08:47.610 --> 00:08:53.090 along the coast. Some kind of land sale happened 00:08:53.090 --> 00:08:59.009 in this region, and the funds have been received 00:08:59.009 --> 00:09:02.669 by Violant's treasurer. I think that's the meaning 00:09:02.669 --> 00:09:07.950 of this document. And it could be that there's 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:14.179 something else going on here, but I think that 00:09:14.179 --> 00:09:19.679 there's some phrases such as libre gubernare, 00:09:20.220 --> 00:09:23.820 like, like to be free to govern. So I think what's 00:09:23.820 --> 00:09:29.059 happened here is that people in Maresme, they 00:09:29.059 --> 00:09:37.080 have decided to govern, to pay to govern themselves. 00:09:38.110 --> 00:09:41.909 And what this indicates, I think, is that there's 00:09:41.909 --> 00:09:46.950 the selling of some royal land. So this is something 00:09:46.950 --> 00:09:49.649 that Joan and Violant took a lot of heat 00:09:49.649 --> 00:09:54.250 for, both from their contemporaries and also 00:09:54.250 --> 00:09:58.549 for later historians, for modern historians. 00:09:58.690 --> 00:10:02.710 Because when you sell off royal land, you're 00:10:02.710 --> 00:10:08.429 also selling off the income that comes from the 00:10:08.429 --> 00:10:11.990 rent of those lands. So you're getting a short 00:10:11.990 --> 00:10:17.789 term gain at a long term loss. So this could 00:10:17.789 --> 00:10:20.570 be a document that fits within that pattern. 00:10:20.970 --> 00:10:24.149 I don't know that they started off doing that 00:10:24.149 --> 00:10:27.750 so soon, but by the end of their reign, they're 00:10:27.750 --> 00:10:30.990 doing it a lot because they're big spenders. 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:38.000 and they are more interested in funding their 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:42.360 current projects, all of the troubadours and 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:45.279 poetry contests and all kinds of things that 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:48.340 they get going on in the later part of their 00:10:48.340 --> 00:10:51.840 reign especially. But yesterday's document was 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:55.600 all about Joan trying to get famous minstrels 00:10:55.600 --> 00:11:00.919 to come to the Crown of Aragon and to his court 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:05.419 in particular. And so I think they're already 00:11:05.419 --> 00:11:10.360 looking at the financial aspect of the culture 00:11:10.360 --> 00:11:13.659 that they want to patronize, and they're starting 00:11:13.659 --> 00:11:15.419 to think about, all right, well, where are we 00:11:15.419 --> 00:11:18.460 going to get money right away to pay for all 00:11:18.460 --> 00:11:22.120 of this exciting stuff now that we have access 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:28.620 to the royal coffers? I did a little bit of research 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:35.309 on Maresme, and tried to find some articles or 00:11:35.309 --> 00:11:39.610 publications that might have looked at this moment 00:11:39.610 --> 00:11:45.970 in 1387 when it appears that a group of people 00:11:45.970 --> 00:11:53.269 in this region paid money in order to take back 00:11:53.269 --> 00:12:00.039 the governance of the land. And I couldn't find 00:12:00.039 --> 00:12:05.000 anything about this, even though there is a monograph 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:10.980 by Montserrat Richou y Llimona. And I'll put a 00:12:10.980 --> 00:12:15.899 link to that monograph in the bibliography for 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:21.720 today's episode. So a bit of a mystery. Also, 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:26.769 one last thing to discuss is the existence of 00:12:26.769 --> 00:12:31.909 a financial transaction in the registers of letters. 00:12:32.590 --> 00:12:35.649 So what I have seen in some couple other examples 00:12:35.649 --> 00:12:42.029 is the letter getting sent to the person involved 00:12:42.029 --> 00:12:46.129 in the financial transaction confirming that 00:12:46.129 --> 00:12:51.389 payment was made. We actually saw that in an 00:12:51.389 --> 00:12:58.070 earlier episode with, I think, show on and sending 00:12:58.070 --> 00:13:02.409 like confirming that that the money had been 00:13:02.409 --> 00:13:07.909 received yeah by the treasurer and and so there's 00:13:07.909 --> 00:13:10.370 the letter in the register that gets sent saying 00:13:10.370 --> 00:13:15.549 okay got the money or sending the money and then 00:13:15.549 --> 00:13:22.110 there's also the record in the books of the treasury, 00:13:23.190 --> 00:13:28.049 the Patrimonio Real, in which there's an authorization 00:13:28.049 --> 00:13:31.710 to disperse the funds. And we've looked at a 00:13:31.710 --> 00:13:36.490 couple of those records. An early episode, we 00:13:36.490 --> 00:13:41.149 looked at a payment to a baker. in Violant's household, 00:13:41.710 --> 00:13:45.190 and then more recently we looked at a payment 00:13:45.190 --> 00:13:48.929 to the husband and wife minstrel team, the Portalberts 00:13:48.929 --> 00:13:54.289 So there's a number of places where 00:13:54.289 --> 00:13:59.139 you can find records of money moving. and the 00:13:59.139 --> 00:14:03.000 function of the document can be very different. 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:07.360 So in the treasury records, it's initiating the 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:10.820 payment process. It's releasing the money. There's 00:14:10.820 --> 00:14:17.740 going to be coins that are taken out of the treasury. 00:14:18.299 --> 00:14:21.600 and given to somebody, or if it's a larger amount, 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:26.200 it could simply be a paper transaction, because 00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:29.500 there definitely was money of account at this 00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:35.480 time, meaning that the accounts would be reconciled 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:39.980 and handled through payment intermediaries like 00:14:39.980 --> 00:14:44.110 banks. or notes of credit would simply be passed 00:14:44.110 --> 00:14:48.029 along, and so there's large financial transactions 00:14:48.029 --> 00:14:50.809 that happen quite frequently where there's no 00:14:50.809 --> 00:14:54.830 coinage at this time. So in that sense the economy 00:14:54.830 --> 00:15:01.389 is very financialized. So keep in mind as we're 00:15:01.389 --> 00:15:03.789 looking at documents like these that there's 00:15:03.789 --> 00:15:10.049 probably a related entry in a patrimonio real 00:15:10.049 --> 00:15:16.649 account book for the receipt of the money from 00:15:16.649 --> 00:15:21.549 whoever there's no names of the people of maresme 00:15:21.549 --> 00:15:24.789 in this document at least that i could locate 00:15:24.789 --> 00:15:28.649 i tried to find names other than uh at the end 00:15:28.649 --> 00:15:31.909 Violant's treasurer So it's interesting. There's 00:15:31.909 --> 00:15:35.549 definitely mysteries here, and I have a feeling 00:15:35.549 --> 00:15:40.070 that it's related to raising money for spending 00:15:40.070 --> 00:15:45.210 on troubadours and other cool stuff that Joan 00:15:45.210 --> 00:15:48.629 and Violant are excited to get going as they 00:15:48.629 --> 00:15:52.509 start their reign. Thanks for listening to this 00:15:52.509 --> 00:15:55.570 episode of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, 00:15:55.809 --> 00:15:59.200 Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving with 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:01.379 more questions than you arrived with, I have 00:16:01.379 --> 00:16:05.220 done my job. Because remember, the motto of the 00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:08.960 Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:16:09.450 --> 00:16:12.769 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:16:12.769 --> 00:16:15.950 document and additional show notes. And listen 00:16:15.950 --> 00:16:18.669 again tomorrow to hear more about the next day 00:16:18.669 --> 00:16:22.190 in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:16:22.190 --> 00:16:26.250 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. And 00:16:26.250 --> 00:16:29.250 who knows, maybe you'll get more cat noises in 00:16:29.250 --> 00:16:33.049 the background. It's been a little frustrating 00:16:33.049 --> 00:16:37.690 today. Alright, in the meantime, take care.