WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:04.960 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:11.640 it was February 4th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:14.740 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:18.399 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:18.399 --> 00:00:22.379 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:27.120 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:29.760 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:33.740 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:37.700 Queen Violant de Bar. We have so many documents 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:42.539 to choose from due to the huge abundance of paper 00:00:42.539 --> 00:00:47.500 in the 14th century Crown of Aragon and the amazing 00:00:47.500 --> 00:00:51.719 digitization effort carried out by the Archive 00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:55.060 of the Crown of Aragon in the last 20 years. 00:00:55.200 --> 00:01:26.739 Let's begin today's document. knocked my socks 00:01:26.739 --> 00:01:33.819 off This is why I'm doing this project and We're 00:01:33.819 --> 00:01:37.519 in February and if I had just stuck with January 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:42.480 I wouldn't have found this so There is an advantage 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:48.920 to my method There's still flaws disadvantages, 00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:53.719 but oh my gosh. Okay. This is this is wild I 00:01:53.719 --> 00:01:58.599 didn't have a February 4th document lined up 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:02.379 from, like, another secondary source or anything. 00:02:02.939 --> 00:02:07.859 I didn't have the document for today already 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:12.539 chosen when I recorded yesterday's episode. And 00:02:12.539 --> 00:02:18.139 I just had this desire to go back to the secret 00:02:18.139 --> 00:02:23.139 seal documents for Joan. because I had a Violant 00:02:23.139 --> 00:02:26.120 document already chosen for tomorrow. So I kind 00:02:26.120 --> 00:02:29.020 of as much as I can like to alternate them. So 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:33.280 I'm going into one of the secret seal registers 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:37.560 that I had used before and I find I'm just kind 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:41.139 of looking at the end of the letter to try to 00:02:41.139 --> 00:02:45.840 ascertain. OK, is this date even close to the 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:48.479 date that I'm looking for for the document of 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:53.060 the day? And generally looking at a couple words 00:02:53.060 --> 00:02:55.900 in the letter to get a sense of what it's about. 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:59.879 I noticed that it was a letter from February 00:02:59.879 --> 00:03:03.960 4th. We've got a minim situation there where 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:07.240 it's just four short strokes. That's how they 00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:10.280 did Roman numeral four instead of what we do 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:14.120 today. When we do Roman numerals, we do an IV, 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:17.680 but they didn't do that at this time. They wrote 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:22.460 four I's in a row. All right. Then I look down 00:03:22.460 --> 00:03:27.199 to see who the addressee was, and I see Comte 00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:33.439 Fuxen. And there's a macron there. I can't quite 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:36.680 figure out what the macron is standing for, but 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:41.900 this is clearly the Count of Foix. So that's 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:48.479 F -O -I -X. And the Count of Foix -Bearn was 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:52.400 Gaston Febus. And I've talked about Gaston Febus 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:57.639 in a previous episode. He is quite the towering 00:03:57.639 --> 00:04:05.360 figure in the politics and culture of the border 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:09.379 zone between France and Iberia at this time. 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:15.680 The biographer of Febus, one of the recent biographers, 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:19.339 Richard Vernier, who wrote a fantastic book about 00:04:19.470 --> 00:04:23.709 Gaston Febus called him the lord of the Pyrenees 00:04:23.709 --> 00:04:27.389 so he's really the most politically powerful 00:04:27.389 --> 00:04:31.949 person in that zone that border zone between 00:04:31.949 --> 00:04:36.069 iberia and france and he's also a cultural luminary 00:04:36.069 --> 00:04:41.029 he wrote what has been probably the iconic book 00:04:41.029 --> 00:04:46.699 about hunting in the late middle ages the livre 00:04:46.699 --> 00:04:50.720 de la chasse the book of the chase which is has 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:55.860 had some amazing illustrated copies produced 00:04:55.860 --> 00:05:02.160 in the time around when gaston febus was around 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:05.439 and i think shortly after his death was the one 00:05:05.439 --> 00:05:09.740 that that was illustrated by i think the the 00:05:09.740 --> 00:05:13.379 same people that did the Tres Riches Hueres the 00:05:13.379 --> 00:05:16.399 one that was commissioned by the Duc de Berry. 00:05:16.740 --> 00:05:18.560 I think the duc de Berry might have commissioned 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:21.360 this other illustrated manuscript I'm getting. 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:24.720 I'm digressing, but basically we've got some 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:30.139 magnificent illustrated manuscripts of the book 00:05:30.139 --> 00:05:34.420 on hunting by Gaston Febus. really into hunting, 00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:37.860 really into the luxurious hunting, the rituals 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:43.139 around hunting, and the whole kind of majestic 00:05:43.139 --> 00:05:48.660 culture of it all. And the intersection between 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:51.199 political dominance and the dominance over the 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:55.519 natural world, that is something that Gaston 00:05:55.519 --> 00:06:01.209 Febus really epitomizes. in his persona and in 00:06:01.209 --> 00:06:04.629 his writing and I think Joan was really impressed 00:06:04.629 --> 00:06:08.509 by that and wanted to emulate it. So when I see 00:06:08.509 --> 00:06:14.709 a letter from Joan to Gaston Febus, I am really 00:06:14.709 --> 00:06:21.339 looking for this kind of desire to make more 00:06:21.339 --> 00:06:24.939 connections with this figure who he deeply admires 00:06:24.939 --> 00:06:29.439 and so I start reading this letter and I get 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:32.480 into the content of it and in the second line 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:40.079 this phrase pops out contra nostra persona propria 00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:45.819 against our own person so there is something 00:06:45.819 --> 00:06:49.920 that Joan is saying here about some kind of 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:53.540 action that was taken against him. And we can 00:06:53.540 --> 00:06:59.100 think of Kantorowicz's whole thesis about the 00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:02.879 king's two bodies and imagine that, well, maybe 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:06.319 Joan is talking about this in a metaphorical 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:11.660 way, like it was something against his new government. 00:07:12.139 --> 00:07:16.129 But the word propria at the end of that phrase 00:07:16.129 --> 00:07:20.170 makes me think that no there was some there was 00:07:20.170 --> 00:07:25.329 something done that was against himself like 00:07:25.329 --> 00:07:29.970 his his own personal body there was some kind 00:07:29.970 --> 00:07:34.310 of attack on him or at least like a political 00:07:34.310 --> 00:07:38.449 maneuver against him himself but it it sounds 00:07:38.449 --> 00:07:43.569 so personal when we add that word propria after 00:07:44.539 --> 00:07:51.060 contra nostra persona, our person, our own person. 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:56.100 So I immediately got intrigued by what is being 00:07:56.100 --> 00:07:59.519 referred to in this letter and I kept on reading 00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:02.540 and then the next line, oh my gosh I couldn't 00:08:02.540 --> 00:08:05.579 believe this, I couldn't believe this, the next 00:08:05.579 --> 00:08:11.730 line mentions the same guy that Violant was 00:08:11.730 --> 00:08:13.889 talking about in her letter that we talked about 00:08:13.889 --> 00:08:21.430 yesterday. She sent Gerau des Vullats to Navarre, 00:08:21.730 --> 00:08:24.529 to Charles III of Navarre, saying, I'm sending 00:08:24.529 --> 00:08:27.889 this guy what he tells you. You need to give 00:08:27.889 --> 00:08:30.009 it the same amount of credence as if you heard 00:08:30.009 --> 00:08:34.990 it from me directly. And now Joan is sending 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:38.889 the same person who's also referred to here as 00:08:38.889 --> 00:08:43.309 an Alguazir, but we have another word added in, 00:08:44.230 --> 00:08:49.309 Lieutenant d 'Alguazir. So it's sort of this 00:08:49.309 --> 00:08:52.370 riff on that title of Alguazir yesterday that 00:08:52.370 --> 00:08:54.950 we didn't see, so why is Joan calling him the 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:58.710 Lieutenant d 'Alguazir and Violant just calls 00:08:58.710 --> 00:09:02.879 him the Alguazir? I don't know, I think it speaks 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:06.940 to some of the looseness of these job titles, 00:09:07.179 --> 00:09:11.519 but that's beside the point. The point, the point 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:17.100 is that we see Joan and Violant once again 00:09:17.100 --> 00:09:22.039 working in tandem. Is every royal couple doing 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:26.940 this? I just don't think so. Where we just, we 00:09:26.940 --> 00:09:31.889 see this level of cooperation. where it's literally 00:09:31.889 --> 00:09:37.149 they're sending the same person who speaks for 00:09:37.149 --> 00:09:42.470 both of them. It's got this incredible symbolic 00:09:42.470 --> 00:09:47.549 resonance. There's this one guy, Gerau, and he 00:09:47.549 --> 00:09:54.129 is going to Navarre and he vocalizes. Violant he 00:09:54.129 --> 00:09:58.129 channels Violant and the same guy is now gonna 00:09:58.129 --> 00:10:03.590 go to Gaston Febus and is gonna channel Joan 00:10:03.590 --> 00:10:08.360 so it's just this like yeah I don't even I'm 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:11.179 I'm verklempt I don't even know what to say 00:10:11.179 --> 00:10:15.820 about this other than it's just got this resonance 00:10:15.820 --> 00:10:18.519 for me that I'm just completely excited about 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:21.700 it and it took me like a second to it was just 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:25.360 so serendipitous that I found this particular 00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:30.720 letter in conjunction with yesterday's oh this 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:34.519 project it's charmed telling you it's charmed 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:39.019 Oh, one detail before I forget. You might be 00:10:39.019 --> 00:10:42.919 wondering, how can this Gerau person be in two 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:47.700 places at once? He's going to Navarre and vocalizing 00:10:47.700 --> 00:10:53.740 Violant, and then he's going to the land of 00:10:53.740 --> 00:10:58.779 Gaston Febus, which I think would be the capital 00:10:58.779 --> 00:11:01.820 of that foix bearn territory, which is Orthèz, 00:11:02.059 --> 00:11:07.429 today in France. And So how can he be in Pamplona, 00:11:07.710 --> 00:11:12.009 in Navarre, and Orthès, in Foix-Bearn, at the same 00:11:12.009 --> 00:11:14.610 time? Well, he's not going to be there at the 00:11:14.610 --> 00:11:17.769 same time. If you look at the geographical relationship 00:11:17.769 --> 00:11:21.929 between these two places, Navarre, Pamplona, 00:11:22.090 --> 00:11:26.309 is on the way. If you're journeying northward, 00:11:26.629 --> 00:11:31.600 you can go from Barcelona to Pamplona. generally, 00:11:31.740 --> 00:11:35.700 and then you can go through one of the passageways 00:11:35.700 --> 00:11:39.019 through the Pyrenees and get to Orthez afterward. 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:44.779 So basically, Gerau has an itinerary. He's going 00:11:44.779 --> 00:11:50.539 to first stop in Navarre and vocalize Violant 00:11:50.539 --> 00:11:54.360 for Charles III, and then he's going to go to 00:11:54.360 --> 00:12:02.779 Orthez and channel Joan for Gaston Febus. And 00:12:02.779 --> 00:12:08.039 there's more. We haven't even finished with the 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:12.379 wildness of this letter, because in line two, 00:12:12.940 --> 00:12:15.840 in line two, there was a word that I couldn't 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:19.799 figure out because of the paleographical challenge. 00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:25.419 So before the phrase, contra nostra persona propria, 00:12:26.779 --> 00:12:31.120 we have two words. And they both seem to start 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.360 with the letter C, although the letter C is written 00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:37.120 differently in the initial letter for both these 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:40.840 words. The word right before contra seems to 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:52.240 be cameses, so something like carried out. Alright, 00:12:52.379 --> 00:12:55.159 and then the word before that I was really struggling 00:12:55.159 --> 00:13:00.980 with because the first letter is a C and then 00:13:00.980 --> 00:13:02.919 it looked like the second letter was like another 00:13:02.919 --> 00:13:08.899 C but one of the keys to recognizing the letter 00:13:08.899 --> 00:13:13.960 R is there's always like this little curl that 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:18.159 comes up at the at the bottom of the R and I 00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:20.120 mean not always but a lot of times when it's 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:21.860 in the middle especially when it's in the middle 00:13:21.860 --> 00:13:26.639 of the word and so there's also more of a curl 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:30.840 at the top. So it's almost like when you see 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:33.639 the letter R in the middle of a word, it almost 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:35.879 looks like the way today we write the letter 00:13:35.879 --> 00:13:40.000 C. And then it gets connected back to the letter 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.039 beforehand at its top on the left side of the 00:13:44.039 --> 00:13:48.460 character. So we have CR and then we've got a 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:53.820 bunch of minims again. So is it an m is it an 00:13:53.820 --> 00:14:03.120 n it's an m it's an im and that is c -r -i -m 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:09.820 and in medieval catalan crimance or crims that 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:16.159 is a cognate for the english word crime so there 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:23.250 were crimes against joan himself there was a 00:14:23.250 --> 00:14:28.269 crime carried out. And a crime can be a word 00:14:28.269 --> 00:14:32.370 for like an attempted murder. So it's not just 00:14:32.370 --> 00:14:37.129 like, you know, some kind of shenanigan or like 00:14:37.129 --> 00:14:41.049 someone was rude. A crime is a word that's used 00:14:41.049 --> 00:14:48.149 for serious attacks. So somebody, somebody carried 00:14:48.149 --> 00:14:53.659 out some kind of attack on Joan. And I'm telling 00:14:53.659 --> 00:14:57.980 you, like, I've not encountered information about 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:02.340 this before. I've read quite a bit about this 00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:04.399 initial period. I think I've read everything 00:15:04.399 --> 00:15:10.679 there is to read about the first months of January, 00:15:10.940 --> 00:15:14.259 or first months of this year, 1387, and Joan 00:15:14.259 --> 00:15:17.500 and Violant. The only thing that comes close 00:15:17.980 --> 00:15:22.820 is this notion that develops that Sibilla had 00:15:22.820 --> 00:15:27.620 carried out some sorcery and caused Joan to 00:15:27.620 --> 00:15:30.019 fall ill. That is something that we're going 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:33.639 to see in some letters later on this year. It's 00:15:33.639 --> 00:15:35.440 something that I think maybe they're verbally 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:39.279 talking about but not writing down. It's something 00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:45.269 that is connected to the way Violant writes about 00:15:45.269 --> 00:15:48.330 this time period when she's writing about it 00:15:48.330 --> 00:15:53.610 later especially in a document that Josep Roca 00:15:53.610 --> 00:15:59.289 found from April and it seems that there's some 00:15:59.289 --> 00:16:02.549 other documents out there that haven't that I 00:16:02.549 --> 00:16:06.429 haven't seen cited in the secondary literature 00:16:06.429 --> 00:16:08.889 but are referred to in the secondary literature 00:16:08.889 --> 00:16:13.370 and those documents are the basis for this idea 00:16:13.370 --> 00:16:19.269 that people around Joan and Joan himself 00:16:19.269 --> 00:16:26.509 concluded that Sibilla or someone in her employ 00:16:26.509 --> 00:16:31.549 had carried out a curse had put a curse on Joan 00:16:31.549 --> 00:16:37.759 and that's why he became so ill in the early 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:45.740 weeks of January 1387. So this crime against 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:50.720 Nostra Persona propria could could have been 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:54.940 that. It could have been someone that Joan thinks 00:16:54.940 --> 00:16:59.500 put a curse on him. But in the first line, I 00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:00.960 didn't even talk about the first line, kind of 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:04.480 working backward through the text here, it starts 00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:13.069 out with the addressee comte car cosi the count 00:17:13.069 --> 00:17:17.970 cousin most dear cousin count so i'm not quite 00:17:17.970 --> 00:17:21.150 sure there's an actual like uh blood relationship 00:17:21.150 --> 00:17:26.349 that connects Gaston Febus and Joan but there 00:17:26.349 --> 00:17:31.569 might be so he he starts out the letter uh most 00:17:31.569 --> 00:17:35.210 or not we don't have most it's just dear dear 00:17:35.450 --> 00:17:51.869 cousin count and then the letter begins and we 00:17:51.869 --> 00:17:55.250 talked about the crimes so the letter starts 00:17:55.250 --> 00:18:03.490 there is somebody who has left this city somebody 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:12.259 has fled Barcelona and I'm sending Gerau to fill 00:18:12.259 --> 00:18:19.759 you in on the details and he is possibly going 00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:26.640 to be in your land and you'd better apprehend 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:35.240 him, please. So this is just bonkers. Like, I'm 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:40.359 really wondering who this person is and why wouldn't 00:18:40.359 --> 00:18:44.319 Joan put his name in writing? That's an interesting 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:52.019 question to me. So there's just this next -level 00:18:52.019 --> 00:18:56.720 feeling to today's document for so many different 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:01.670 reasons. There's the working in tandem between 00:19:01.670 --> 00:19:05.750 Joan and Violant through this person, Gerau. 00:19:06.490 --> 00:19:11.430 And then there's also just what is the crime 00:19:11.430 --> 00:19:15.630 that was carried out against Joan? Is it the 00:19:15.630 --> 00:19:20.730 sorcery? Or is it something else? Just don't 00:19:20.730 --> 00:19:24.950 know. And I... goodness, I hope I find something 00:19:24.950 --> 00:19:30.029 that reveals this later. Ah! Thanks for listening 00:19:30.029 --> 00:19:33.569 to this episode of the Historian's Notebook Season 00:19:33.569 --> 00:19:37.769 1 Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving with 00:19:37.769 --> 00:19:40.630 more questions than you arrived with, I've done 00:19:40.630 --> 00:19:44.210 my job. I'm leaving with more questions than 00:19:44.210 --> 00:19:50.569 I arrived with, too, by the way. If that's you, 00:19:50.589 --> 00:19:55.789 if we share this, then that's the sign of some 00:19:55.789 --> 00:20:00.339 good history doing. Remember, the motto of the 00:20:00.339 --> 00:20:03.680 Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:07.019 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:20:07.019 --> 00:20:09.980 document and additional show notes, including 00:20:09.980 --> 00:20:14.200 a bibliographical citation for Richard Vernier's 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:16.480 book, Lord of the Pyrenees. It's really good. 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.940 And listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:20:20.940 --> 00:20:24.299 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:28.950 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:30.950 meantime, take care.