Hello. In The Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was February 7th, 1387. My name is Jonathan
Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the
University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's
Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made.
Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're
looking at a document from each day of the first
year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and
Queen Violant de Bar. Before we get started
on today's document, I'd like you to just take
a moment to ponder this question. If you were
to become a medieval king, how many sapphires
would you go out and purchase? Do you have a
number of sapphires in mind? Alright. Let's see
if you are up to the challenge of being a medieval
king with a shopping list. Let's begin today's
document. If you guessed five, you were right
on the money. Joan, in today's document, acknowledges
receipt of five sapphires in different arrangements
in terms of how they're constructed as pieces
of jewelry. If you put a gem on a scepter, is
that a piece of jewelry? I think it is. All right,
but that's not all. There's a lot of stuff in
today's document. On February 7th, Joan wrote
a receipt acknowledgement for a rather long list
of items, and it seems to me like he's feeling
better. The person who wrote this document, I
think, had a vigorous constitution. because there's
a lot of extra in this document. A lot of like
extra description of a lot of the products. And
I think that this is not something the scribe
would have just kind of provided for Joan.
I think that Joan is really happy to have received
nice care package from Mallorca that has all
these luxury items and He's into it. I think
he's into it. It's not some Chancery scribe who's
like Luxuriating in the descriptions of all these
different items in this shipment. I think this
is Joan Okay, let's take a step back for a
moment and describe a little bit about the sourcing
information for this document. It starts out
in kind of a typical way, where Joan is at
the top of the letter, en Joan per la gracia
de Deo Rey Dargo. All right, so he then, in the
second line, identifies Berenguer Lobet as one
of his Procurators. Berenguer -Lobet sticks around.
Benjamin Gampel, in his book on the anti -Jewish
riots of 1391, has a couple instances where he's
identified Berenguer -Lobet shelling out some
money for different things. And so this particular
person is somebody who is handing over the payment
in order to obtain the products that then belong
to Joan. And in this situation, Berenguer -Lobet
is identified as the Procurator de las Nostras
rendes y Drets del Regne de Mallorque. So...
He's the procurator of our rents and rights of
the kingdom of Mallorca. So that leads me to
infer that the package, its contents are about
to be described, originated from Mallorca. That
the center of Mediterranean trade that is Mallorca
is a place where you can gather a bunch of very
valuable items, put them together in a shipment,
and send them off to a brand new king who is
not afraid to spend money. It's one of the things
I like about Joan. He is not afraid to spend
money. And I'm about to go into a whole big list
of things that Joan spent his money on in these
first couple weeks of being king. But I just
want you to keep in mind that this is not all
that extraordinary. I mean, I think Joan does
take it to another level in a lot of ways, but
spending money on luxuries? That's just part
of what you do. It's part of the identity of
being a monarch. It's just another way of legitimizing
your political authority. And if you're like
a miser and as king you don't want to spend money
on luxuries, people might start talking. They
might start saying, hmm, this person doesn't
really seem to believe that they're a legitimate
king because they're not, you know, spending
like one. And then, of course, you can go in
the opposite direction and spend way too much,
which a lot of people accuse Joan of doing,
both in his time and later historians. So I just
want to say that Pere the Ceremonious, he was
a big spender, too. In a document that I became
aware of, because of the work of the historian
German Navarro Espinach, Pere the Ceremonious
bought some gold pillowcases for his bed. Five
gold pillowcases. I mean, they're like gold thread.
Thread woven in with gold so it's not like solid
gold pillows But anyway, I just mentioned that
just to kind of say that as I'm going through
this it's gonna sound kind of funny and a little
bit over -the -top but just remember that that's
what kings are supposed to do and what I love
about show on is that This part of being a king
He's totally cool with all the political stuff,
he's like, no. But when it comes to spending
money, yeah, he's in his comfort zone. So this
document, it's about 35 lines, and it's just
a big list of all the luxuries that were in this
shipment from Mallorca. I'm pretty sure it's
from Mallorca. It doesn't say that directly,
but that's what it seems. Now the part that's
on the bottom of Folio 15V, that's all cloth.
Textiles were a really big deal. I mean, they
are today. People like to engage in fashion,
and people are always on the market for new textiles.
These are textiles not just for clothing, but
also, I think, for home decor purposes. So it's
a little bit difficult for me to parse out what
the different pieces of cloth are used for in
this list. But the list is quite extensive, and
it's clear that there's some silk going on here.
So there's units also that are hard for me to
understand. Like, for example, on line 11, there's
So I think there's some kind of division of units
in here that I'm not quite understanding, but
lean, prime, I think that's like prime, the prime
linen. Yes. Then after he's done talking about
a bunch of different units of expensive cloth,
prime comes up quite a lot. There's this item
at the end of this folio I'm pretty sure I understand
it But it's quite funny There's some fans made
of peacock feathers Yeah, I mean, you know Peacock
feathers, they're big. They're good to put on
a fan. I'll keep you cool so He's got a bunch
of different linens, some silk. I think there's
some brocaded silk in there. And then, you know,
some peacock feather fans. And by the way, Joan
was a firm believer in the power of the peacock.
He regularly ate peacock. Yeah, like cooked it
up and ate it. Peacocks were associated with
divinity, and there's a lot of peacock iconography
that goes way back into early Christianity. And
the peacock's association with the divine is
something that actually occurs quite a lot throughout
the Middle Ages in all kinds of different contexts.
And in the Crown of Aragon at this time, there
was a real belief that if you ate Peacock flesh,
it would help extend your longevity. So it was
one of Joan's favorite things to eat. And then
we turn the page and the list continues. We,
I think, are finished with the cloth. The first
line of Folio 16R has something about Obra Morisca.
So Joan... is excited to receive work, craftsmanship,
artisanal work that is associated with Muslim
artisans. I can't quite figure out exactly what
this is. I don't know that it's a piece of cloth.
It might be something else. But it does say Obra
Morisca. And then as we get further down, we
get to our first sapphire. at the end of line
three. And basically lines three through seven
I think are all sapphires. So all the there's
five different sapphires. They're all described
individually. And he also talks about how they're
mounted on scepters. It seems the word is scepter.
got into a little dicey, spicy situation here
with this word. So if you go to the Dictionario
Catala Valencia Balear, then you'll see that if
you type in the word verga, the first definition
is like a bar. The second definition is a scepter.
Like, one of the sources in the diccionario is
from Pere's ordinances. Again, he has a rule
for what's supposed to be on the scepter, how
you're supposed to hold your scepter. My gosh,
that guy. And then, the next definition... Well,
this is a podcast that is not really... rated
with a mature -only rating, and so let's just
say you can use your imagination. And the source
for that is a 1375 source for that definition
of the word verga. Joan repeats that word so
many times in this section. I have a feeling
he might have been giggling while doing this.
because it's just a little much. This whole thing
is just a little much. But anyway, he goes on
about the sapphires and how they're decorated
differently. And then, after that, he lists some
carpets. And there's different carpets of different
colors. One of them is identified as an Obra
de Barbaria. and that is five lines from the
bottom. So some kind of pagan design? This, I'm
not quite sure how to interpret Obra de Barbaria,
other than to say that Joan would not have associated
it with something Muslim. It could still have
been something from the Islamic world, and Joan
just didn't. know that, but it to his eyes looks
like it is a design that has come from a pagan
source. So we've got a couple more words about
the different carpets in here. I think there's
maybe like five carpets. And the last one is
described as having works of diverses colors.
So easy to translate that. A carpet of many colors.
So he's gone on and on. This is a long document
with a lot of unnecessary detail. Like at one
point he's talking about how one of the sapphires
is on a scepter that has I think a rose design
like rose designs on it and then there's like
a turquoise that's encased in some kind of other
gold I mean it's just all very drawn out oh I
there's emeralds in there too he's got two emeralds
so it's just this long list of luxury items that
he has received. And I feel like on February
7th, Joan really started to embrace that whole
being a king thing. The other aspect to this
is that if there's any of these items that are
not for him, like if there's any of these items
Whether it's the textiles or the jewels. It's
not clear at all that they're intended for him
to give to anybody else. It looks like this is
just like a big bonanza for Joan himself. Although,
I don't know. There's not exactly evidence to
suggest that he wasn't gonna be sharing any of
this, or maybe giving one of these precious jewels
to Violant, or maybe Violant got her own shipment
from Mallorca. I don't know. But anyway, this
has just been one of those moments where we see
the luxury, the luxury. The Crown of Aragon,
remember, it's at its apex as a Mediterranean
power and its shipping is just its merchants
are everywhere in the Mediterranean. And here
we see a very material culture set of items.
Material culture set of items. An example of
the material culture that comes from that that
Mediterranean wide luxury. That's what I'm trying
to say. So The category of this letter, this
document, is Robes i Joies. The clothes and the
jewels. And that is identified at the very beginning
of it, line three. And yeah, this one was really
fun. This is a really fun one to talk about.
And I am hoping to get into more detail about
what kinds of clothing Joan and Violant were
wearing. I think that the fashion history of
this time is super interesting. There's one moment
in this document when one of the textiles is
referred to as French, and I do have a theory
that a lot of the ways that Violant and Joan
dressed were recognizably French style. I still
have to confirm that through more research, but
that's one of my side projects for the year.
Alright, well I hope you've enjoyed this taste
of luxury from a medieval king. Thanks for listening
to this episode of the Historian's Notebook,
Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving
with more questions than you arrived with...
I have done my job, because remember, the motto
of the Historian's Notebook is, dissatisfaction
guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image
of today's document and additional show notes,
and listen again tomorrow to hear about the next
day in the first year of the reign of King Joan
I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the
meantime, take care.