WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.379 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:12.500 it was February 3rd, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.500 --> 00:00:16.000 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.579 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.579 --> 00:00:23.839 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:28.460 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. we're 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:31.320 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:35.780 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:35.780 --> 00:00:39.479 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's 00:00:39.479 --> 00:01:08.280 document. Today's document is short, and it's 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:13.659 in Catalan, so one would think I've got this 00:01:13.659 --> 00:01:23.060 one solid. And to some extent, well, yeah. There's 00:01:23.060 --> 00:01:28.939 always some mystery, right? Because dissatisfaction 00:01:28.939 --> 00:01:33.420 is guaranteed. You can never know. for sure what's 00:01:33.420 --> 00:01:37.260 going on because you're only getting the tip 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:41.700 of the iceberg even though there's so many documents 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:45.859 in this archive so many tips of icebergs well 00:01:45.859 --> 00:01:48.340 let me tell you what i'm talking about here we've 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:52.140 got a letter it's very clear who the addressee 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:57.400 is it's from violant and to charles the third 00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:00.239 the king of Navarre the folio that we're looking 00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:05.439 at today is packed with a bunch of short missives. 00:02:06.260 --> 00:02:12.280 The top of the folio is the continuation of what 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:20.879 came before on 78R. And this particular letter 00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:23.479 is getting sent, the one that came before, is 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:26.319 getting sent to a bunch of different recipients 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:29.460 and that's why what we have at the beginning 00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:32.400 of each of those three lines at the top it well 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:34.840 actually there's four lines so three of the four 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:42.199 is i t with the macron abbreviating for the em 00:02:42.199 --> 00:02:46.620 Item likewise so it's going likewise to all these 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:50.159 different people then we've got a short letter 00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:55.020 going to a particular marquesa And that is from 00:02:55.020 --> 00:03:00.319 the 1st of February. And then the document that 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:04.919 is our focus for today to the King of Navarre 00:03:04.919 --> 00:03:11.340 from February 3rd is the next text block. So 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:16.740 it's the middle of the three text blocks on this 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:22.669 page. Interestingly, below it, we have someone 00:03:22.669 --> 00:03:27.030 who's written into this register at a far later 00:03:27.030 --> 00:03:31.550 date than the original composition. You can see 00:03:31.550 --> 00:03:35.409 that in a different style of handwriting, different 00:03:35.409 --> 00:03:39.349 form of cursive, a different script, we have 00:03:39.349 --> 00:03:46.770 someone who's written the words Pro Bernardis 00:03:46.770 --> 00:03:55.479 del I'm not quite sure what that that says actually 00:03:55.479 --> 00:03:58.900 at the end there, but that cursive handwriting 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:03.840 is of an obviously different style from the script 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:08.060 on the rest of the page, and I would say that 00:04:08.060 --> 00:04:11.900 this is either someone from the 19th century 00:04:11.900 --> 00:04:15.639 or the 18th century, but it could be earlier. 00:04:15.699 --> 00:04:22.110 I'm not too too studied up on my early modern 00:04:22.110 --> 00:04:28.389 to modern cursive scripts. So someone at a later 00:04:28.389 --> 00:04:33.110 time was looking through these and just decided 00:04:33.110 --> 00:04:37.910 to add a little helpful header to the top of 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:41.470 the next letter down on the page, the one that's 00:04:41.470 --> 00:04:45.430 at the bottom of the page. So You know, there's 00:04:45.430 --> 00:04:49.610 these intrusions of later archivists, later historians, 00:04:49.610 --> 00:04:55.230 and it's not always clear when that intrusion 00:04:55.230 --> 00:05:00.269 was written, but we have it there in certainly 00:05:00.269 --> 00:05:04.589 a script that just cannot be contemporaneous 00:05:04.589 --> 00:05:08.329 to the script that we see here. No one in the 00:05:08.329 --> 00:05:12.550 Crown of Aragon was writing in cursive like that 00:05:12.550 --> 00:05:16.699 at this time. I'm pretty confident in asserting 00:05:16.699 --> 00:05:21.060 that. So we've got a bunch of stuff on the page. 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:24.939 We've also got some like tape to repair some 00:05:24.939 --> 00:05:29.759 wormholes and tears. So just as a material object, 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:33.920 this particular page has some interesting aspects 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:37.639 to it. Let's get to the content of the letter 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:42.100 itself. So this one I plugged in my transcription 00:05:42.100 --> 00:05:48.100 to chat GPT and got some help and as always when 00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:53.660 I use AI I copy out the entire transcript of 00:05:53.660 --> 00:05:57.819 my chat and post that as a PDF that you can click 00:05:57.819 --> 00:06:03.399 on on the web page for today's episode. And what 00:06:03.399 --> 00:06:08.589 you'll see in there is that the chatbot had no 00:06:08.589 --> 00:06:12.910 hesitation translating a word that appears, it's 00:06:12.910 --> 00:06:15.110 the second to the last word on the first line, 00:06:15.910 --> 00:06:22.689 Al -Guatsar or Al -Guatzir. This is certainly 00:06:22.689 --> 00:06:30.769 a holdover from the Islamic period of Iberia 00:06:30.769 --> 00:06:36.250 when Muslims ruled Iberia all the way up until 00:06:36.250 --> 00:06:43.970 well i mean it was really only in 14 the 1492 00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:50.389 i think when the granada fell and so there's 00:06:50.389 --> 00:06:55.350 muslim rule on the iberian peninsula from around 00:06:55.350 --> 00:07:02.889 700 to that late date so seven centuries so there's 00:07:02.910 --> 00:07:08.329 these terms that you see in common usage in documents 00:07:08.329 --> 00:07:12.750 written in Catalan or Castilian or one of the 00:07:12.750 --> 00:07:17.769 other vernaculars that are clearly holdovers 00:07:17.769 --> 00:07:21.449 from Arabic and the way you can recognize them 00:07:21.449 --> 00:07:26.370 is the way that they began with al and then maybe 00:07:26.370 --> 00:07:30.970 have a g or a q but it's that al beginning that 00:07:30.970 --> 00:07:35.490 is such a common way to start words in arabic 00:07:35.490 --> 00:07:38.730 and so what we've got here is the name of some 00:07:38.730 --> 00:07:43.329 kind of category of official that was a term 00:07:43.329 --> 00:07:47.370 that had been used during the time of muslim 00:07:47.370 --> 00:07:53.540 rule and has stuck around Sometimes the term 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:58.980 is used in the context of someone who is specifically 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:03.939 an official for the Muslim community or the Jewish 00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:08.939 community within a particular municipality, and 00:08:08.939 --> 00:08:13.220 other times it's applied more generally. Yes, 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:16.139 Shadow. You've probably heard Shadow mewing. 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:23.180 And she has been contributing to today's work. 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:27.740 And I am just going to leave her in the podcast 00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:32.440 so you can enjoy the lovely sonorous intrusions 00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:36.519 from Shadow Cat here. Because I'm saying some 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:38.519 good stuff and I don't want to have to re -record 00:08:38.519 --> 00:08:46.500 it, Shadow. All right. So. Yes. Okay, we've heard 00:08:46.500 --> 00:08:50.860 enough from you. That's enough. All right. The 00:08:50.860 --> 00:08:55.740 al -Guatzir in this document seems to be just 00:08:55.740 --> 00:09:02.899 synonym to bailiff. Some kind of official that 00:09:02.899 --> 00:09:08.820 handles cases, like a chief bailiff maybe. I 00:09:08.820 --> 00:09:13.500 went to a really great resource for Catalan and 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:18.019 Medieval Catalan. It's an online dictionary that 00:09:18.019 --> 00:09:21.620 is a product of the Institut d 'Estudis Catalans, 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:25.480 and it's called the Diccionari Catala Valencia 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:29.419 Belear. So it's like the Oxford English Dictionary, 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:33.620 where it will give you an example of what has 00:09:33.620 --> 00:09:37.139 been identified as an early or earliest usage 00:09:37.139 --> 00:09:42.809 of the word. And when I went to the entry for 00:09:42.809 --> 00:09:49.049 Alghutzir, A -L -G -U -T -Z -I -R, I was 00:09:49.049 --> 00:09:54.129 able to find on site that the usage applied to 00:09:54.129 --> 00:09:57.230 it was actually a piece of writing by Pere the 00:09:57.230 --> 00:10:02.090 Ceremonious. Per the Ceremonious' name, his cognomen 00:10:02.090 --> 00:10:04.669 is ceremonious because he really liked 00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:08.320 ceremony and organizational behavior and I've 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:11.019 already talked about how he reworked the chancery. 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:15.299 He wrote this long document called the Ordinances 00:10:15.299 --> 00:10:22.019 and in it he made up all kinds of rules and codification 00:10:22.019 --> 00:10:24.779 for what different officials are supposed to 00:10:24.779 --> 00:10:29.259 do and I think he got like really hyper specific 00:10:29.259 --> 00:10:32.940 with like how to celebrate certain feast days 00:10:32.940 --> 00:10:37.960 and He just was he was really a control freak. 00:10:38.039 --> 00:10:43.320 He was he was just He was a micromanager and 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:45.759 these ordinances if you read these you're just 00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:50.700 like why? Why does the king need to be at this 00:10:50.700 --> 00:10:55.019 nitty gritty level of? Rulemaking for all these 00:10:55.019 --> 00:10:59.019 little things but Pere just loved that and I 00:10:59.019 --> 00:11:03.519 think that Paper is such a part of this story 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:09.100 that all of these little rules were able to be 00:11:09.100 --> 00:11:13.860 enforced and reiterated and communicated because 00:11:13.860 --> 00:11:18.320 there was just this abundance of paper in 14th 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.620 century Crown of Aragon as another holdover from 00:11:22.620 --> 00:11:26.039 the time of Muslim rule, where papermaking technology 00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:30.720 had made it to the Iberian Peninsula way earlier 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:34.419 than other parts of Europe. And there was this 00:11:34.419 --> 00:11:40.299 papermaking town basically, Xativa, that just 00:11:40.299 --> 00:11:43.500 churned out a lot of paper for people to use 00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:47.179 all over the place in Iberia. And so basically, 00:11:47.450 --> 00:11:51.549 because he's got this medium that can communicate 00:11:51.549 --> 00:11:56.750 out all of his little rules, he uses it. And 00:11:56.750 --> 00:12:00.789 as I'm talking about this, I'm really alluding 00:12:00.789 --> 00:12:03.330 to something that I've been reading recently. 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:06.049 I'll put it in the bibliography for this page. 00:12:06.750 --> 00:12:13.769 It's the book Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari. It's 00:12:13.769 --> 00:12:16.070 such a great read. It's just come out in the 00:12:16.070 --> 00:12:21.529 last, I think, year. And Harari makes these really 00:12:21.529 --> 00:12:26.059 interesting connections between the technology 00:12:26.059 --> 00:12:30.820 of a time and the definition of information and 00:12:30.820 --> 00:12:33.720 so I'm just seeing that I'm just seeing that 00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:37.120 connection in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:43.799 in words like Alguatzir that have their earliest 00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:48.419 attestation in Pere the ceremonious's long document 00:12:48.419 --> 00:12:54.070 of rules and it's just ah it just inspires me 00:12:54.070 --> 00:12:58.710 so much to be able to work with this stuff and 00:12:58.710 --> 00:13:01.710 connect in with just this information technology 00:13:01.710 --> 00:13:06.690 from so long ago. Ah, goodness gracious. I'm 00:13:06.690 --> 00:13:10.049 just having such a great time. Well, let's get 00:13:10.049 --> 00:13:13.889 back to this letter. What's it about? I just 00:13:13.889 --> 00:13:16.909 gave you just this gigantically broad context. 00:13:17.429 --> 00:13:20.009 What's happening in this letter? and it's so 00:13:20.009 --> 00:13:22.610 short because it's got a really simple message. 00:13:23.350 --> 00:13:28.289 Hey, Charles, buddy, I'm sending you this guy! 00:13:28.870 --> 00:13:33.029 His name is Geraud de Vullars, or Vullats. 00:13:33.269 --> 00:13:35.230 It's really hard to figure out whether that's 00:13:35.230 --> 00:13:38.629 an RS or a TS because his name is repeated in 00:13:38.629 --> 00:13:41.070 line three and it really looks like a T, but 00:13:41.070 --> 00:13:43.289 then in the first line it looks like an R. Anyway, 00:13:43.429 --> 00:13:46.309 this guy named Gerau, I'm sending him to you. 00:13:47.059 --> 00:13:52.539 And then there's this wonderful line about how 00:13:52.539 --> 00:13:56.080 you have to give him creyenza, you have to give 00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:04.419 him belief, as if I was saying it myself. So 00:14:04.419 --> 00:14:07.679 whatever this guy says, it's like you can trust 00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:11.360 it as if I was saying it, which is it's quite 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:14.460 a statement. And by the way, let me just share 00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:19.240 another medieval Catalan glossary moment with 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:24.059 you. I was curious about this Dehiem, and that 00:14:24.059 --> 00:14:27.710 there's an I after the H, or that there's an 00:14:27.710 --> 00:14:31.730 H at all, because the root of this is the infinitive 00:14:31.730 --> 00:14:36.309 dir, d -i -r, and that has one of the longest 00:14:36.309 --> 00:14:41.330 entries in my go -to, my short medieval Catalan 00:14:41.330 --> 00:14:45.230 glossary, and that's because a lot of people 00:14:45.230 --> 00:14:48.610 talk about what people say, and the infinitive 00:14:48.610 --> 00:14:52.820 dir is to say. And so there's a lot of variations, 00:14:52.860 --> 00:14:58.580 a lot of ways to spell out and conjugate the 00:14:58.580 --> 00:15:06.620 verb for to speak or to say. So here we have 00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:11.960 basically this chief bailiff person, job title 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:16.820 alguatzir, being sent from Violant to the 00:15:16.820 --> 00:15:20.950 king of Navarre, her buddy Charles III. who she 00:15:20.950 --> 00:15:26.289 danced with so hard, and he's basically just 00:15:26.289 --> 00:15:30.750 going to give a message verbally. So remember 00:15:30.750 --> 00:15:33.250 how I said at the beginning of today's podcast 00:15:33.250 --> 00:15:36.269 that each document is the tip of its own iceberg? 00:15:37.269 --> 00:15:41.450 We don't know the information that is going to 00:15:41.450 --> 00:15:47.049 be transmitted from Violant to Charles through 00:15:47.049 --> 00:15:52.409 the person of Gerau. we don't know what the message 00:15:52.409 --> 00:15:57.809 is. The letter is basically vouching for the 00:15:57.809 --> 00:16:01.070 accuracy and truthfulness and fidelity of what 00:16:01.070 --> 00:16:05.330 Gerau is going to say. So, I mean, obviously 00:16:05.330 --> 00:16:11.529 Violant trusts Gerau to be truthful to her 00:16:11.529 --> 00:16:15.850 message, but what this is indicating is that 00:16:15.850 --> 00:16:19.600 there's certain matters that are not going to 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:26.179 be written about. So what kind of topic would 00:16:26.179 --> 00:16:31.000 necessitate a personal messenger to verbally 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:34.539 transmit it versus just writing it down? I mean, 00:16:34.539 --> 00:16:36.639 they certainly don't have a problem writing down 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:43.440 all kinds of stuff, right? But what is it that 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:51.950 is in this situation creating the need for Gerau 00:16:51.950 --> 00:16:55.350 to make the journey. Is it because it's super 00:16:55.350 --> 00:16:59.330 sensitive? Is it because it's just long and Violant 00:16:59.330 --> 00:17:00.750 is like, I just don't want to have to bother 00:17:00.750 --> 00:17:04.230 writing this out? Is it because Gerau is just 00:17:04.230 --> 00:17:07.150 going there anyway, and it's just like random 00:17:07.150 --> 00:17:09.710 updates and it's not sensitive at all, but he's 00:17:09.710 --> 00:17:13.450 heading up there to do other stuff. And so might 00:17:13.450 --> 00:17:16.990 as well just stop by and, you know, give a nice 00:17:17.180 --> 00:17:21.000 sort of like singing telegram kind of experience. 00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:25.099 I'm pretty sure he was not a singing telegram. 00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:30.319 A talking telegram is more like it. Ooh, I like 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:32.579 that phrase. I'm going to keep using that. So 00:17:32.579 --> 00:17:36.619 what I want to do is corroborate. I want to find 00:17:36.619 --> 00:17:42.089 other documents that are indicating that there's 00:17:42.089 --> 00:17:44.269 going to be a talking telegram, there's going 00:17:44.269 --> 00:17:47.769 to be a person sent with a verbal message, and 00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:51.710 what's going on around that time, and can I identify 00:17:51.710 --> 00:17:58.029 when that would be needed and desired, and topics 00:17:58.029 --> 00:18:01.650 that were okay to just write about, and didn't 00:18:01.650 --> 00:18:04.950 necessitate having this kind of messenger, or 00:18:04.950 --> 00:18:07.150 whether it was just like a bonus, maybe it wasn't 00:18:07.150 --> 00:18:10.430 even a need at all. questions questions questions 00:18:10.430 --> 00:18:15.230 right that's why we are here and as we move forward 00:18:15.230 --> 00:18:21.410 we accumulate more questions and generally something 00:18:21.410 --> 00:18:27.029 might come into focus and we can maybe make some 00:18:27.029 --> 00:18:33.329 guesses all right that brings us to the end of 00:18:33.329 --> 00:18:36.880 today's episode Thanks for listening to this 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.900 latest installment of The Historian's Notebook, 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.619 Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving 00:18:44.619 --> 00:18:47.279 with more questions than you arrived with, I've 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:51.319 done my job. Remember, the motto of The Historian's 00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:55.559 Notebook is, dissatisfaction guaranteed. And 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:59.099 speaking of dissatisfaction, how many podcast 00:18:59.099 --> 00:19:02.869 episodes has it been? since we talked about Joan 00:19:02.869 --> 00:19:05.910 and Violant and how they related to each other. 00:19:06.529 --> 00:19:10.210 We're not getting it very easily because they 00:19:10.210 --> 00:19:12.130 are together and they don't need to write to 00:19:12.130 --> 00:19:13.490 each other right now because they're both in 00:19:13.490 --> 00:19:19.210 Barcelona. So we have to go at it from a kind 00:19:19.210 --> 00:19:23.950 of oblique angle in order to try to infer some 00:19:23.950 --> 00:19:26.569 of what's going on here. It's very difficult 00:19:26.569 --> 00:19:32.079 in this particular stage of their story, but 00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:35.240 who knows what we'll see tomorrow? Maybe we'll 00:19:35.240 --> 00:19:39.099 be less dissatisfied, but there's always some 00:19:39.099 --> 00:19:41.440 dissatisfaction guaranteed. That's our motto. 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:44.740 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:19:44.740 --> 00:19:48.119 document and additional show notes, and listen 00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:51.140 again tomorrow to hear about the next day in 00:19:51.140 --> 00:19:55.200 the first year of the reign of King John... King 00:19:55.200 --> 00:20:00.839 John? Oh, goodness. I've been a little loopy 00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:04.720 today. What's going on here? King Joan I of 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:09.279 Aragón and Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, 00:20:10.180 --> 00:20:10.779 take care.