WEBVTT 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:05.280 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.860 --> 00:00:12.199 it was February 2nd, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.199 --> 00:00:15.759 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:19.480 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:24.179 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.489 --> 00:00:29.309 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:29.309 --> 00:00:32.189 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:32.189 --> 00:00:36.490 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:41.689 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:10.219 Is everybody ready for more fun with Latin toponyms? 00:01:11.180 --> 00:01:16.120 Because we've got a Latin toponym for you today. 00:01:17.459 --> 00:01:21.000 The document of the day has at the top of it 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:32.340 a header. It's Episcopi Dertusen. Maybe der 00:01:32.340 --> 00:01:37.620 tu sens this sensei der tu sen see I can't 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:41.299 quite figure out what the macron stands for over 00:01:41.299 --> 00:01:46.859 der tu sen and it took a little doing and the 00:01:46.859 --> 00:01:54.040 help of the AI chatbot and I found out that 00:01:54.040 --> 00:02:01.260 Dertusen is the Latin toponym for Tortosa Oh my 00:02:01.260 --> 00:02:07.459 goodness. Yeah, I mean, if you say Dertus and 00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:10.520 Tortosa, you're kind of making similar noises, 00:02:11.080 --> 00:02:16.360 but it is not as intuitive as some of the other 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:20.759 Latin toponyms out there. So it goes to show 00:02:20.759 --> 00:02:24.370 that Sometimes there's a dramatic difference 00:02:24.370 --> 00:02:29.330 between the name of a place in Latin and the 00:02:29.330 --> 00:02:33.710 name of the place in the vernacular, Catalan 00:02:33.710 --> 00:02:38.990 Tortosa. Tortosa is about halfway between Barcelona 00:02:38.990 --> 00:02:44.030 and Valencia, not really on the coast of the 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:48.060 Mediterranean, but sort of within, I think, 60 00:02:48.060 --> 00:02:51.639 kilometers. So if you're journeying along the 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:56.979 coast from Barcelona to southward to, or I guess 00:02:56.979 --> 00:03:00.319 I should say southwestward to Valencia, once 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:03.520 you hit that halfway point, you're kind of around 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:09.120 where Tortosa is located. So today's document 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:14.259 is about Tortosa. It is located in a register 00:03:14.259 --> 00:03:21.800 titled Diversorum, like diverse stuff, which 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:26.259 I love because there's another register that's 00:03:26.259 --> 00:03:34.419 called Varia, for various. So I ask you, which 00:03:34.419 --> 00:03:39.060 kinds of documents would go into diverse things? 00:03:39.439 --> 00:03:43.419 and which kinds of documents would go into various 00:03:43.419 --> 00:03:50.120 things. I'm hoping to figure that out, but I 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:53.300 will also say that as I was researching the Archive 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:55.319 of the Crown of Aragon and the history of the 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:58.340 Archive of the Crown of Aragon, I came across 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:03.800 a historian named Udina i Martorell who wrote 00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:08.900 about the development of the archive under Pere 00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:12.180 the Ceremonious and the ballooning of categories 00:04:12.180 --> 00:04:16.300 that Pere wanted to have in the archive, and he 00:04:16.300 --> 00:04:19.459 said that the scribes and the chancery staff 00:04:19.459 --> 00:04:22.980 were sometimes just given tremendous headaches 00:04:22.980 --> 00:04:27.040 by trying to figure out which register a document 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:30.600 should go into. So sometimes they're just as 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:34.500 lost as the rest of us as to whether a document 00:04:34.500 --> 00:04:36.920 should go into one place or another. And that's 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:38.899 not even talking about a document that might 00:04:38.899 --> 00:04:43.639 cover more than one thing. So there were registers 00:04:43.639 --> 00:04:49.300 dedicated to documents about Sardinia or documents 00:04:49.300 --> 00:04:58.040 about, say, another region. And so... So basically 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:01.240 they had to figure out well if it overlaps if 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:04.740 a document is about more than one region which 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:09.379 one should it go into and I think that they had 00:05:09.379 --> 00:05:15.779 some difficulties on a regular basis well we 00:05:15.779 --> 00:05:18.240 have what we have they made these decisions one 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:24.139 way or another and today's document is I think 00:05:24.139 --> 00:05:30.370 a pretty straightforward Commission for the. 00:05:30.569 --> 00:05:40.329 The let's see some kind of. Staff person in the. 00:05:41.550 --> 00:05:45.029 Bishop the bishops office. I think I don't think 00:05:45.029 --> 00:05:50.160 it's for the bishop himself. So. The person's 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:53.100 name is on the first line, so that makes things 00:05:53.100 --> 00:05:57.839 pretty easy to figure out. Arnaldo Toreles. Pretty 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:01.899 easy to read on that first line. And then we 00:06:01.899 --> 00:06:08.100 get some other information about another fellow 00:06:08.100 --> 00:06:14.920 named Raimundo Barbera. And it's really hard 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:21.620 to understand what's going on. because I identify 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:25.959 this as something that's not really connected 00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:30.279 directly to my focus of study, and I'm not gonna 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:37.579 take the entire afternoon to go through and transcribe 00:06:37.579 --> 00:06:41.620 and translate this Latin document. But I will 00:06:41.620 --> 00:06:44.360 just note a couple things, and if something resonates 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:46.800 later on in the research process, I'll come back. 00:06:47.209 --> 00:06:51.569 and give this one more attention. One thing that 00:06:51.569 --> 00:06:55.870 I notice right away is that in the fourth line 00:06:55.870 --> 00:07:02.689 after the Salutem et Gratiam, there's a sentence 00:07:02.689 --> 00:07:05.589 that begins at the end of that line and goes 00:07:05.589 --> 00:07:09.470 on to the next, in which basically Joan here 00:07:09.470 --> 00:07:13.089 is referring back to an earlier document dated 00:07:13.089 --> 00:07:19.329 the 13th of January. So yesterday's podcast we 00:07:19.329 --> 00:07:23.389 had an update to a document in another register 00:07:23.389 --> 00:07:28.149 and in that situation the scribes felt that it 00:07:28.149 --> 00:07:32.319 merited squeezing the message in. to the space 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:35.420 that's typically empty space between the different 00:07:35.420 --> 00:07:38.740 entries of letters in that register and here 00:07:38.740 --> 00:07:42.540 we've got a reference to the earlier document 00:07:42.540 --> 00:07:46.800 and I don't think they went back and squeezed 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:53.379 in anything in the January 13th entry because 00:07:53.379 --> 00:07:57.300 those are really they're they're quite noticeable 00:07:57.300 --> 00:08:00.459 when the scribe does that, and I'm not saying 00:08:00.459 --> 00:08:03.360 I flip through every page of every register, 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:08.699 but I don't know. This is just another way of 00:08:08.699 --> 00:08:12.779 connecting across time that we can see happening 00:08:12.779 --> 00:08:15.019 in the registers. Maybe they did squish it in 00:08:15.019 --> 00:08:18.100 somewhere and I just missed it, but suffice it 00:08:18.100 --> 00:08:22.060 to say we've got a reference to an earlier document 00:08:22.060 --> 00:08:25.360 in this letter. And then further down something 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:28.519 else that stuck out to me toward the bottom of 00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:32.220 the first page of this document, seven lines 00:08:32.220 --> 00:08:36.940 from the bottom, we have a sentence about this 00:08:36.940 --> 00:08:41.220 Raymundo Barbera, and it seems like he might 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:46.139 have to pay a really hefty fine for something. 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:51.419 So we've got at the beginning of that line, Continuing 00:08:51.419 --> 00:09:12.419 from above. So I think that this Raymundo Barbera 00:09:12.419 --> 00:09:19.659 might be a problem some kind of way that he's 00:09:19.659 --> 00:09:23.440 causing some trouble. Or it could be that if 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:27.320 someone gets in the way of Raymundo Barbera doing 00:09:27.320 --> 00:09:30.200 what he is supposed to be doing, then they are 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:35.159 going to have to pay the 1 ,000 gold Florins. 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:40.279 So there's some heft behind this document, that's 00:09:40.279 --> 00:09:42.899 for sure, because that is a whole lot of money. 00:09:44.519 --> 00:09:48.559 That's what I know about this document. There 00:09:48.559 --> 00:09:51.980 were not a lot of documents written on February 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:59.440 2nd, I will confess. February 2nd in 1387 was 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:04.299 a Saturday, and I'm trying to figure out if I 00:10:04.299 --> 00:10:07.179 can notice patterns of when it's hard to find 00:10:07.179 --> 00:10:11.639 documents on a particular day or easy. and associating 00:10:11.639 --> 00:10:13.860 that with the day of the week, and I'm not quite 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:17.059 there yet. I haven't quite noticed any patterns, 00:10:17.179 --> 00:10:19.259 like I think there was a Saturday where there 00:10:19.259 --> 00:10:22.700 were tons of documents written, and likewise 00:10:22.700 --> 00:10:28.240 for Sunday, so I'll see what emerges as we get 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:32.519 further into this project. I do know that we 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:36.490 have at least one document from each day of the 00:10:36.490 --> 00:10:42.690 year from Joan, because Daniel Girona y Llagostera 00:10:42.690 --> 00:10:46.870 wrote the itinerary for Joan and has linked 00:10:46.870 --> 00:10:51.370 a document to every single day. And that's where 00:10:51.370 --> 00:10:54.850 I got today's document from. I was flipping through 00:10:54.850 --> 00:10:58.289 some of the usual registers that have the more 00:10:58.289 --> 00:11:01.129 interesting letters, and there didn't seem to 00:11:01.129 --> 00:11:04.889 be anything for February 2nd, so I used my backup 00:11:04.889 --> 00:11:08.029 plan of that itinerary, and this is what was 00:11:08.029 --> 00:11:11.210 listed there. So that's where today's document 00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:14.470 comes from. Something else that I want to touch 00:11:14.470 --> 00:11:19.629 on is that right below the end of this document 00:11:19.899 --> 00:11:24.639 that we looked at today on Folio20R, there's 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:31.980 a header that intrigued me. Domina Regina Sicilie, 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:37.600 the Queen of Sicily. So the story of Sicily is 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:44.480 one that has a lot of threads to it. And I will 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:47.940 summarize a couple salient things about Sicily 00:11:47.940 --> 00:11:52.960 here. This letter is actually for February 3rd, 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:56.500 so we could do it tomorrow. But now I'm in the 00:11:56.500 --> 00:11:58.480 opposite problem where I've got two interesting 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:02.240 letters, and I'm going to actually choose the 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:05.340 other one. So we're going back to Violant tomorrow. 00:12:06.200 --> 00:12:11.639 Now let's talk about Sicily. Sicily at this time 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:16.360 had kicked out the authorities from the Crown 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:21.100 of Aragon. Sicily at this exact moment is ruled 00:12:21.100 --> 00:12:26.159 by it seems like a oligarchy. Maybe I think it 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:30.500 was four lords who kind of maybe split up and 00:12:30.500 --> 00:12:34.620 power shared Sicily. Sicily had been conquered 00:12:34.620 --> 00:12:37.659 well okay wait hold on step back. Sicily was 00:12:37.659 --> 00:12:41.019 not conquered by the crown of Aragon. There was 00:12:41.019 --> 00:12:46.700 a rebellion in Sicily against Angevin rulership 00:12:46.700 --> 00:12:50.970 and the Crown of Aragon was invited in in order 00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:57.789 to replace the hated Angevins. And so what happened 00:12:57.789 --> 00:13:01.289 was that Sicily became a part of the Crown of 00:13:01.289 --> 00:13:06.269 Aragon, but at times it was really pushing back. 00:13:07.269 --> 00:13:12.659 The leadership in Sicily was growing uncomfortable 00:13:12.659 --> 00:13:16.620 with the arrangement, and by the time we get 00:13:16.620 --> 00:13:23.620 to 1381, the authorities from the Crown of Aragon 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:29.080 are essentially kicked out. The Queen of Sicily, 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:33.980 referred to in this letter, is named Maria, and 00:13:33.980 --> 00:13:38.740 she is the granddaughter of Pere the Ceremonious. 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:43.500 from Pere the Ceremonious's first wife. So this 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:49.659 is not Joan's sister that we're talking about 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:54.580 here, but half sister. The woman that Père married 00:13:54.580 --> 00:13:59.500 before, he married Joan's mother. They had 00:13:59.500 --> 00:14:04.279 a daughter named Constance. Constance married 00:14:04.279 --> 00:14:09.370 the... King of Sicily, if I've got that correctly. 00:14:10.490 --> 00:14:16.870 And then their daughter was Maria, who in 1387 00:14:16.870 --> 00:14:20.690 is the crown of Aragon's choice to be called 00:14:20.690 --> 00:14:25.370 the Queen of Sicily. As an interesting twist, 00:14:25.429 --> 00:14:28.190 I've talked about this once before on the podcast. 00:14:28.970 --> 00:14:33.820 When Joan in 1380 was, and actually leading 00:14:33.820 --> 00:14:38.480 into 1380, 1379 -1380, looking for who he was 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:44.080 going to marry after his first wife, Mata d 'Armagnac, 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:48.000 had died. And he eventually chose Violant de 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:53.759 Bar. Père's father wanted him to marry this 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:58.519 same Maria, who is about the same age as Violant, 00:14:58.679 --> 00:15:05.309 actually. But it's Père's granddaughter. So Pere 00:15:05.309 --> 00:15:10.389 the Ceremonious wanted his son from one marriage 00:15:10.389 --> 00:15:14.370 to marry his granddaughter from another marriage, 00:15:14.990 --> 00:15:20.889 which Joan did not want to do, but we would 00:15:20.889 --> 00:15:25.950 like to think that Joan's objection was consanguinity, 00:15:26.129 --> 00:15:30.389 like marrying a close relative. but it was more 00:15:30.389 --> 00:15:34.429 that he wanted a French wife. So it seems like, 00:15:34.429 --> 00:15:37.230 you know, a kind of double problem here from 00:15:37.230 --> 00:15:41.909 Joan's point of view. First, it's she's not 00:15:41.909 --> 00:15:46.590 French. And I think I don't know in Joan's 00:15:46.590 --> 00:15:49.429 mind if it was like an equal problem or a lesser 00:15:49.429 --> 00:15:55.529 problem that it was his father's granddaughter. 00:15:56.730 --> 00:16:02.259 So yeah. So, Joan went against his father's wishes 00:16:02.259 --> 00:16:06.159 and married Violant de Bar, and that's when 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:09.519 Père the Ceremonious writes that poem, saying 00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:12.500 you're making a dreadful mistake. The reason 00:16:12.500 --> 00:16:15.559 why Père the Ceremonious wanted Joan to marry 00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:21.100 Maria, Queen of Sicily, was to solidify the Crown 00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:26.519 of Aragon's hold and rule over Sicily, which 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:31.299 was a problem. And that problem became worse 00:16:31.299 --> 00:16:37.500 in the next year, in 1381, when Maria was actually 00:16:37.500 --> 00:16:43.519 kidnapped and then ransomed back to Père and 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:50.000 was then in exile out of Sicily. So in 1387, 00:16:50.559 --> 00:16:54.600 Joan is writing to the Queen of Sicily, who's 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:58.139 not in Sicily. She's in exile. I don't exactly 00:16:58.139 --> 00:17:01.360 know where she is, but maybe in Barcelona. I 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:05.319 don't know. What happens a little bit down the 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:11.259 road into the future is that Martí has his son, 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:17.400 who's also named Martí, marry Maria, Queen of 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:24.200 Sicily. So what's kind of confusing is that Martí 00:17:24.380 --> 00:17:29.279 the elder is married to Maria de Luna, and Marti 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:34.400 the younger is married to Maria of Sicily. So 00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:41.799 two couples named Marti and Maria, parent generation 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:46.900 and child generation. So that makes for some 00:17:46.900 --> 00:17:49.980 confusing history writing. And then what happens 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:56.059 is Marti, the elder, along with Marti the Younger 00:17:56.059 --> 00:18:00.859 and Maria of Sicily. They all go to Sicily in 00:18:00.859 --> 00:18:05.779 1392 with a whole lot of military force, and 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:11.420 they reassert the control, the rule over Sicily, 00:18:11.420 --> 00:18:16.240 and it actually stays under the rule of the Crown 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:21.559 of Aragon for a while, a while. so at least 10 00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:26.460 more years maybe further down the road but then 00:18:26.460 --> 00:18:29.660 oh even more complications come up because of 00:18:29.660 --> 00:18:32.920 people dying Marti the younger actually dies 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:38.500 before Marti the elder and so it's all just yeah 00:18:38.500 --> 00:18:44.460 it there's no lack of complication in this story 00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:51.829 of the Crown of Aragon and Sicily. But that gives 00:18:51.829 --> 00:18:54.410 you a little introduction to how complicated 00:18:54.410 --> 00:18:57.549 it got. Alright, so now you know a little bit 00:18:57.549 --> 00:19:00.390 more about the relationship between the Crown 00:19:00.390 --> 00:19:07.549 of Aragon and Sicily and how Marti is connected 00:19:07.549 --> 00:19:13.019 in to all of that. And this moment in this register, 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:16.099 we see Joan reaching out to the Queen of Sicily, 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:19.599 maybe doing something like, hey, I haven't forgotten 00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:22.099 you, and, you know, we're gonna try to restore 00:19:22.099 --> 00:19:28.380 you to your throne. By this time, the Queen of 00:19:28.380 --> 00:19:33.319 Sicily, Maria, is actually not yet married to 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:35.640 Marti the Younger. They get married in 1390. 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:41.970 So that's cookin'. and uh but but not done yet 00:19:41.970 --> 00:19:45.390 all right whoo hopefully you were able to keep 00:19:45.390 --> 00:19:47.789 up through all that my goodness i i almost feel 00:19:47.789 --> 00:19:52.710 like i need to make another kind of like Sicily 00:19:52.710 --> 00:19:57.329 family tree but that family tree that i made 00:19:57.329 --> 00:19:59.910 already that that took a long time so i don't 00:19:59.910 --> 00:20:02.170 know that's gonna have to be a project for later 00:20:02.170 --> 00:20:07.339 thanks for listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:20:07.339 --> 00:20:11.980 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you 00:20:11.980 --> 00:20:14.539 are leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:20:14.539 --> 00:20:18.980 with, and maybe the questions are not even about 00:20:18.980 --> 00:20:22.160 the document of the day, and they're about this 00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:27.000 very confusing history of Sicily, well, I've 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:29.980 done my job. Because remember, the motto of the 00:20:29.980 --> 00:20:33.500 Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:20:34.269 --> 00:20:36.809 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:20:36.809 --> 00:20:39.869 document and additional show notes, and listen 00:20:39.869 --> 00:20:43.589 again tomorrow to hear about the next day in 00:20:43.589 --> 00:20:47.210 the first year of the reign of King Joan I of 00:20:47.210 --> 00:20:51.670 Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, 00:20:52.490 --> 00:20:52.990 take care.