WEBVTT 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:05.929 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:06.349 --> 00:00:13.390 it was February 1st, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.390 --> 00:00:16.769 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.769 --> 00:00:20.609 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:20.609 --> 00:00:25.170 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:26.050 --> 00:00:30.289 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:30.289 --> 00:00:33.469 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:33.469 --> 00:00:37.630 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:37.630 --> 00:00:41.990 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's 00:00:41.990 --> 00:01:08.109 document. There's a couple documents to choose 00:01:08.109 --> 00:01:14.349 from for February 1st and this is From today's 00:01:14.349 --> 00:01:18.430 document is from the officiallium register So 00:01:18.430 --> 00:01:23.670 it's not at that level of the secret seal But 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:27.590 we're gonna get into some interesting seal conversations 00:01:27.590 --> 00:01:32.560 in just a little bit and of course have gone 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:38.640 so many days of talking about seals on this podcast 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:45.640 while suppressing my desperate urge to make a 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:50.379 pun about seals so I just can't help myself gotta 00:01:50.379 --> 00:01:55.400 say it today when we are talking about seals 00:01:55.400 --> 00:02:01.620 we are not talking about the animal so Yeah, 00:02:02.219 --> 00:02:05.939 I I used to in class when I was a teacher Whenever 00:02:05.939 --> 00:02:08.919 the word seal came up, I would do the little 00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:12.860 seal bark. Oh It'd be it would be pretty funny. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:16.120 Everyone just loved my puns when I was a teacher 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:19.340 Any of my former students listening to this you 00:02:19.340 --> 00:02:23.280 can vouch for that Alright, we will be talking 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:28.080 about seals Did you hear that the seal bark? 00:02:28.409 --> 00:02:32.310 No, because I resisted the urge to do it. We 00:02:32.310 --> 00:02:34.849 will be talking about them later. Let's first 00:02:34.849 --> 00:02:38.169 start out with another fun observation about 00:02:38.169 --> 00:02:41.689 today's document, which is that there's another 00:02:41.689 --> 00:02:46.189 document squished in to this page. Like someone 00:02:46.189 --> 00:02:50.490 at a later time in April came back and squished 00:02:50.490 --> 00:02:54.030 it. It's so interesting why they felt the need 00:02:54.030 --> 00:02:58.370 to do this when I see all the time. these registers 00:02:58.370 --> 00:03:03.810 there's earlier documents being referenced so 00:03:03.810 --> 00:03:07.750 it's very typical in one document to have a line 00:03:07.750 --> 00:03:11.569 about oh yes in our letter of such and such earlier 00:03:11.569 --> 00:03:18.810 date so why was it that a chancery scribe felt 00:03:18.810 --> 00:03:22.610 the need in this situation to do something pretty 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:29.000 uncommon which is to put this note squeezed into 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:36.539 the space that is normally left unmarked between 00:03:36.539 --> 00:03:41.639 two documents. And try as I might, my friends, 00:03:42.219 --> 00:03:46.979 I could not figure out what was so special about 00:03:46.979 --> 00:03:52.780 this particular document. So living up to the 00:03:52.780 --> 00:03:58.389 motto of the podcast, dissatisfaction, guaranteed. 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:02.090 Let's talk about the sourcing of this, and we 00:04:02.090 --> 00:04:06.069 can maybe make some guesses about why this particular 00:04:06.069 --> 00:04:12.889 document merited the intrusion of this additional 00:04:12.889 --> 00:04:18.910 later update. This document is in the Officialium 00:04:18.910 --> 00:04:24.120 of Joan, and so that is the place where There 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:28.279 are commissions made for particular offices, 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:33.060 so someone will be appointed to some role, some 00:04:33.060 --> 00:04:38.500 job in the Crown of Aragon somewhere. The person 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:46.100 who is being addressed for the office is Johann 00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:50.420 Del Moli. That's the person who's getting the 00:04:50.420 --> 00:04:56.839 office. The recipient of the document I believe 00:04:56.839 --> 00:05:02.339 is a set of people who are in charge of the castle 00:05:02.339 --> 00:05:06.920 of Perpignan, but it's kind of hard for me to 00:05:06.920 --> 00:05:10.240 make out because something has been crossed out 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:12.920 in the first line and what was written above 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:17.889 it is hard to make out. something about maybe 00:05:17.889 --> 00:05:22.790 the custodians of the castle. The other thing 00:05:22.790 --> 00:05:26.949 that gets really confusing about this letter 00:05:26.949 --> 00:05:32.069 and its addressee is that there's this phrase 00:05:32.069 --> 00:05:44.069 that begins the second line. So that would seem 00:05:44.069 --> 00:05:50.459 to read our castle of our city of perpignan that 00:05:50.459 --> 00:05:53.899 seems pretty straightforward but then in the 00:05:53.899 --> 00:06:00.740 squished in part in line three there's n -o -r 00:06:00.740 --> 00:06:06.019 -a which i guess could mean nostra and that's 00:06:06.019 --> 00:06:08.660 what chat gpt was really convinced of because 00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:12.259 i went to the ai chat bot for help with this 00:06:12.259 --> 00:06:18.560 document because that N -O -R -A doesn't seem 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:22.879 to make grammatical sense, but maybe it does, 00:06:22.899 --> 00:06:26.480 and it's just a little bit beyond my ability 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:30.620 to read medieval Catalan at this time. So the 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:37.740 sentence that includes that capital N -O -R -A 00:06:37.740 --> 00:06:42.879 in the squished -in April update part of this 00:06:42.879 --> 00:07:08.730 document is And then after that, I think we've 00:07:08.730 --> 00:07:12.410 got... It's hard to see what that... Oh, it's 00:07:12.410 --> 00:07:18.699 N! En Johan Del Moli. And then a little bit more. 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:26.620 So en is like saying mister or sir. And so when 00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:30.379 you see en in front of somebody's name, it's 00:07:30.379 --> 00:07:35.860 just like saying mister. It could be more honorific, 00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:38.579 like it could be at the level of sir. not quite 00:07:38.579 --> 00:07:44.360 sure the rules for that EN, because I see it 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:46.560 a lot, and I see it in front of different people 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:50.439 who have different levels of status. So another 00:07:50.439 --> 00:07:54.060 open question there. What's happening in this 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:59.560 letter? this document, is that Joan is appointing 00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:04.800 a Johan del Moli to be some kind of custodian 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:12.199 in the castle at Perpignan. And honestly, I'm 00:08:12.199 --> 00:08:15.339 having some trouble figuring out what else there 00:08:15.339 --> 00:08:19.100 is to it besides that. I plugged the whole thing 00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:24.139 into ChatGPT. Seems like the chatbot boils it 00:08:24.139 --> 00:08:27.519 down to just that, but there's a lot more verbiage 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:32.940 here, and also there's the update. So the letter, 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:37.820 the original letter on the page is from February 00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:44.519 1st, the little update is from April 1st, and 00:08:44.519 --> 00:08:48.879 someone else is mentioned in the update. At the 00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:58.879 beginning of the update, You have le Duc as the 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:02.799 person who's sending the letter? So is it from 00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:06.100 Marti? Because yes, Marti is involved in this 00:09:06.100 --> 00:09:10.039 somehow. In the third line of the February 1st 00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:14.779 letter, you see Infantis Martini. That's, that's 00:09:14.779 --> 00:09:17.759 Joan's brother Marti. He's the Duke of Montplanc. 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:21.799 So maybe this is actually coming from Marti saying 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:29.779 that this actually did happen, that it was ex 00:09:29.779 --> 00:09:37.419 - that action was executed, and he was following 00:09:37.419 --> 00:09:43.279 up with this other person named, I think, uh, 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:50.379 something like Gal -Con Dorngase. It's hard to 00:09:50.379 --> 00:09:56.320 tell what's happening. One thing I can say, though, 00:09:56.679 --> 00:10:00.740 is that I successfully remembered the abbreviation 00:10:00.740 --> 00:10:04.259 for Juxta! It's in the second -to -the -last 00:10:04.259 --> 00:10:06.919 line of the February 1st portion of what we're 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:10.179 talking about today, and the sentence reads, 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:17.919 Juxta predicte commissionis carte serviam et 00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:23.200 tenorem. And this is a very standard expression, 00:10:23.419 --> 00:10:30.899 as I learned from the chatbot that told me. And 00:10:30.899 --> 00:10:34.240 I think it's, you know, a reliable thing to claim 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:38.559 that this is seen a lot. Basically means that 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:44.200 last part, this serviem et tenorem, it's form 00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:49.620 and tenor. So when you use the word juxta, at 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:52.659 the beginning, we're not quite saying next to, 00:10:52.899 --> 00:10:56.960 we're saying in accordance with, in the understanding 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:01.080 with. The understanding is what is proximate 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:05.000 here, as opposed to the way we would use the 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:07.919 word juxtaposition, putting two things next to 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:13.000 each other. So what this is saying is that here 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:18.690 we have a commission that has been aforesaid, 00:11:18.850 --> 00:11:25.129 predictem commissionis, in the letter. And so 00:11:25.129 --> 00:11:33.509 according to the form and tenor of the aforesaid 00:11:33.509 --> 00:11:38.429 letter of commission. So that particular phrase 00:11:38.429 --> 00:11:45.190 I feel very confident about. And everything else, 00:11:45.669 --> 00:11:50.039 it's The understanding is a little squishy, but, 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:55.000 you know, something about this Johann del Moli, 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:57.840 who I could not find any more information about 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:01.340 through various attempts to research, not just 00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:04.580 through the chatbot, but also Googling around 00:12:04.580 --> 00:12:08.539 and so forth. And also what was going on with 00:12:08.539 --> 00:12:11.379 the Perpignan Castle doesn't seem to have had 00:12:11.379 --> 00:12:15.600 any major historically significant transitions. 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:22.059 and also why Marti is involved in all of this. 00:12:22.340 --> 00:12:28.259 It seems like someone has been doing a good job 00:12:28.259 --> 00:12:35.080 for Marti, and I think it's Johan Del Moli, and 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:39.019 that's why Johan Del Moli is getting this commission. 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:44.190 So... After working with this letter a bit, I 00:12:44.190 --> 00:12:48.809 think I can fit this into the ongoing theme of 00:12:48.809 --> 00:12:53.789 Team NextGen, where they're working as a team, 00:12:54.370 --> 00:13:01.230 Joan, Violant, Marti, and to an extent Maria 00:13:01.230 --> 00:13:05.429 de Luna, and they're making decisions together 00:13:05.429 --> 00:13:09.250 based on each other's recommendations. They're 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:14.179 reinforcing the network connections that they've 00:13:14.179 --> 00:13:18.960 all brought in the time in the lead up to this 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:25.460 moment of the major changeover from the staff 00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:29.980 administration institutional behavior of Pere 00:13:29.980 --> 00:13:34.620 the Ceremonious to this new rain, and they're 00:13:34.620 --> 00:13:37.659 bringing their people in, they're making changes, 00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:42.200 and I think we see another example of that in 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:48.519 this document here. Alright, one other thing 00:13:48.519 --> 00:13:50.840 I want to mention before we get to the discussion 00:13:50.840 --> 00:13:57.980 of the seals. Look at February in the last line 00:13:57.980 --> 00:14:04.759 of the February 1st letter. It has two Fs. Also, 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:08.259 if you look at the top of this folio, there's 00:14:08.259 --> 00:14:12.840 the end of another letter that was written on 00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:17.480 the first day of February. You can see that in 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:21.539 that letter at the top of the page, the last 00:14:21.539 --> 00:14:25.360 line of it has Barcinone, which is the Latin 00:14:25.360 --> 00:14:31.549 form of Barcelona. And then P -M -A, and there's 00:14:31.549 --> 00:14:35.330 just, it's easy to miss, but there is that curving 00:14:35.330 --> 00:14:44.590 macron over the P for P -R -I, primera, and then 00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:51.769 dia de februari. Two F's. So they really liked 00:14:51.769 --> 00:14:56.850 to double the F when it was a proper noun. when 00:14:56.850 --> 00:14:59.669 it was the name of a person, or in this case 00:14:59.669 --> 00:15:01.870 the name of the month. So I think we'll pretty 00:15:01.870 --> 00:15:04.730 much always see the month of February spelled 00:15:04.730 --> 00:15:08.870 with two Fs. If this month we come across any 00:15:08.870 --> 00:15:13.370 instances where there's only one F for February, 00:15:14.049 --> 00:15:15.850 that's going to be really interesting, and that 00:15:15.850 --> 00:15:21.809 could be a quirk of that particular scribe. And, 00:15:21.850 --> 00:15:24.629 I mean, I think that would be interesting, because 00:15:24.629 --> 00:15:28.379 clearly we've got a pretty set convention to 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:33.299 double the F if we've got a proper noun that 00:15:33.299 --> 00:15:36.200 begins with an F. Let's talk about the seals. 00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:41.279 So in... did you do the little sound of the seal? 00:15:42.840 --> 00:15:50.820 All right. In the document from the 1st of February, 00:15:51.940 --> 00:16:00.659 we have the seal mentioned and Where is it? Sigello 00:16:00.659 --> 00:16:06.179 Nostro. It's in the one two three four 00:16:06.179 --> 00:16:14.220 Fifth line Nope, sorry. Yeah, fifth line down 00:16:14.220 --> 00:16:19.940 fifth line down sigello Nostro so They're 00:16:19.940 --> 00:16:23.519 mentioning in there which seal is being used 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:31.500 for this. And then we have it again at the very 00:16:31.500 --> 00:16:36.320 last line. The thing that I want to point out, 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:40.620 I think it's only in the little the little note 00:16:40.620 --> 00:16:45.350 and this gets super hard to read. So. What is 00:16:45.350 --> 00:16:48.429 part of the little addendum from April and what 00:16:48.429 --> 00:16:51.590 is part of the original? It's getting a little 00:16:51.590 --> 00:16:57.009 bit confused on the right side of the paper because 00:16:57.009 --> 00:17:07.430 we have the year from the last line's date, so 00:17:07.430 --> 00:17:12.049 looking at Primera, dia primera, February, and 00:17:12.049 --> 00:17:17.359 then we have ano, a Nativitat Domine, and then 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:25.079 we've got the Roman numerals for 1380, and then 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:32.039 Septimo on the next line. And then what we have 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:37.799 is something else, which I'm not quite sure what 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:41.240 it looks like. Almost a double F right there. 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:44.579 And then if we kind of just go right across on 00:17:44.579 --> 00:17:47.539 the bottom of that line, then we see some writing 00:17:47.539 --> 00:17:52.059 that I think is actually part of the April note, 00:17:52.059 --> 00:18:00.299 but you can make out suo siello annuli and then 00:18:00.299 --> 00:18:05.920 something that looks like sigularum. So this 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:12.920 is the ring. Okay. the seal of the ring talked 00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:15.720 about this in yesterday's episode and it comes 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:21.920 back this idea of the seal of the ring in the 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:26.920 last line of what was added in April so if you 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:30.779 look at the last line of the smaller handwriting, 00:18:31.420 --> 00:18:34.420 it comes, you can kind of track it because the 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:38.000 next letter starts with nos johannes. So right 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:45.460 above that, if you read along, it is saying K, 00:18:46.279 --> 00:18:56.440 I think that's la te scri, something I think 00:18:56.440 --> 00:19:00.599 that's Barchinona again. Then we've got a clear 00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:06.539 primera dia. This is in Catalan. De abril. First 00:19:06.539 --> 00:19:11.059 day of April. And then we've got something that's 00:19:11.059 --> 00:19:14.299 really hard to read. We've got a couple words 00:19:14.299 --> 00:19:16.299 that are hard to read, but then it's a clear 00:19:16.299 --> 00:19:21.940 segell. De nostra. It's abbreviated. You can 00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:27.339 see the n -r -e. And then I think that could 00:19:27.339 --> 00:19:33.839 be, again, another an l. It does look like the 00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:36.380 first letter is a, and then what comes after 00:19:36.380 --> 00:19:39.920 it might not be an l. It might not be an n. Then 00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:45.460 we do have the l's. So I think we've got a mention 00:19:45.460 --> 00:19:50.220 of the ring in association with the seal, but 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:55.029 it's iffy. It is iffy. I am not going to push 00:19:55.029 --> 00:19:58.569 this as like a certain interpretation here, but 00:19:58.569 --> 00:20:02.069 just because in yesterday's episode we saw that 00:20:02.069 --> 00:20:06.430 letter from January 6th when Violant is sending 00:20:06.430 --> 00:20:09.650 Joan the rings that are associated with at 00:20:09.650 --> 00:20:11.950 least one of the rings is associated with the 00:20:11.950 --> 00:20:15.809 seal. And now here we've we've got this mention 00:20:15.809 --> 00:20:19.930 of a maybe a certain type of seal that's associated 00:20:19.930 --> 00:20:24.410 with a ring. But it could just be I'm primed 00:20:24.410 --> 00:20:28.269 for that, and there's actually some kind of other 00:20:28.269 --> 00:20:32.990 meaning here for these words that I'm trying 00:20:32.990 --> 00:20:37.589 to read as related to Anell, the word for ring. 00:20:39.269 --> 00:20:43.829 Okay, that brings us to the end of this episode 00:20:43.829 --> 00:20:48.130 of the Historian's Notebook Season 1, Molt Cara 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:51.319 Companyona. Thanks for listening! If you are 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:53.319 leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:20:53.319 --> 00:20:56.200 with, I have done my job, and how could you not 00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:02.880 after this particular episode? And all of this, 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:08.460 remember, is covered by our promise here at the 00:21:08.460 --> 00:21:12.599 Historian's Notebook of dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:21:13.579 --> 00:21:15.880 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:18.779 document and additional show notes. and listen 00:21:18.779 --> 00:21:22.240 again tomorrow to hear about the next day in 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:25.359 the first year of the reign of King Joan I of 00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:29.819 Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:31.099 take care.