Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was February 8, 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. Let's begin today's document.
Today's document is one authored by Joan. It's
in the commune category of register, which could
be pronounced commune. I'm not sure. But this
particular register is one where it's supposed
to include rulings on cases, petitions maybe.
where there's somebody, some kind of aggrieved
party that has appealed to the king. So that's
what all of the documents in this register are
supposed to be. But then I think there's another
category. It's actually phrased by the archivists
at Pares as rulings on documents or topics that
are on the behalf of interested parties. So it's
not necessarily that there's some kind of civil
lawsuit happening. For example, a couple episodes
down the road, we're going to look at a document
that Trenchs Odena and Baijes y Jardí had transcribed
about a minstrel, and basically it's in the same
register as this, and the document is just providing
safe passage for this minstrel as he travels
from Barcelona to France. So that's not a civil
lawsuit at all. So basically when I'm looking
at this document today, I don't have any framework
to apply to it. Like, it's not like I can depend
on trying to find two sides to an argument that
then Joan is ruling in favor of one of the
sides. It's not like I can count on that. So
I will tell you that this particular document
was just extremely challenging for me. This scribe
has basically a way more difficult tendency to
switch up the way that he writes the letter C
and T and then I think the R's in this one sometimes
look like a C or a T, and then occasionally the
E's don't look like the other E's. And then there's
some abbreviations that I think are abbreviations,
but I have not really encountered them in my
recent memory, and I'm thinking in particular
in line five after the word AGEBAT. So AGEBAT
is three words into line five, and then the word
following that, I have just struggled with that
word for Many, many minutes. And overall, I've
spent a lot of time with this document. I have
done it justice in terms of putting in the time
to try to make progress on it. And my only hope
is that I can come back after a few more months
and it will be a bit more accessible to me. I'm
going to share with you what I do know about
this document. This document is addressed to
the curiae et vicarii of Lerder. So that is Lerida.
The town in medieval Catalan is Lerida. And in
today's designation, of modern Catalan, it's
Lleida. So this town is a really interesting place.
It's the location of the oldest university in
the Crown of Aragon. The University of Lerida,
or the University of LIeida, was founded in 1300
and Alas, it didn't have continuous operation
all the way until this day. I think in the 18th
century it discontinued operation after a decline
of some decades, but it has been revived and
there is currently today a University of LIeida.
In the Middle Ages, in the 14th century, this
was a very prestigious university for the study
of law and medicine. And so we're here in this
university town, and the person who is the first
subject mentioned in this letter is named Raymundo.
And then there's a last name that's something
like Spolico, or there might be an R at the end.
It's really hard to make out the end of Raimondo's
surname. And then we have a title, Baccalaureo
in Decretum. And then we have what I think is
Habitore. So that is a phrase that indicates
he's a current resident of the city of Lerida.
He's got a law degree. And I really struggled
with the paleography for Habitore because I didn't
want to believe that the scribe was omitting
the letter B. and that the Macron stood for a
B. I think that's where I've landed now, but
I just am so uncomfortable with that because
it, in my mind, while it's not, like, super unheard
of, I have encountered the Macron being used
for a B and other... documents it's it's just
not common and there's a lot of written out B's
in other instances in this same document so yeah
it could just be because saying that someone's
residing in a city is a very common thing to
note in the Chancery documents and so abbreviation
is more likely for the more common phrases But,
goodness gracious, I went back and forth with
ChatGPT on this to quite an extent. This is one
of my longest ChatGPT chats, because I was just
throwing everything at the wall when it came
to some of the Latin words in this document and
the paleography, trying to explore, well, could
it be this word? Could it be that word? And I'm
still not at the point after several hours working
with this one. I'm still not at the point where
I can tell you what the problem was. I've got
the place, I've got a few names, and that's that's
kind of it. So I would sink more time into this
if the paleography wasn't so difficult. If I
could be sure of the letter forms, then I would
have way more easy of a time trying to figure
out the meaning, but there's so many words that
I can't pin down. And when we're talking about
Latin, one thing you have to keep in mind is
that the ending of the word or some kind of form
of the word that could be off by just one letter
can dramatically alter the meaning of the entire
phrase. So that's why I'm just gonna pause on
my understanding of this letter and or this document.
It's probably more of a ruling than a letter.
Let me tell you more about what I do know. There
are three people mentioned in this letter. Raymundo,
who I had mentioned earlier. Then further down
on folio 27R is someone whose name includes Arnoldi.
And then at the beginning line of folio 27V is
someone named Bernardo. So that's what I got.
But what I can do is zoom out a bit and learn
more about the addressee of this letter. Curie
et Vicario of Lérida. So the curie was the small
court is a phrase that's used by a scholar that
I've been reading about some of the structures
here. Deborah Boucoyannis has written a really
interesting book called Kings as Judges, looking
in more detail at how in various places in the
Middle Ages, the king's justice was enacted or
resisted. And chapter eight is all about Catalonia.
Most of the content of that chapter is about
the political structures in the earlier part
of the Crown of Aragon, so 13th century and early
14th century, but there's a lot that's still
applied. I consulted Thomas Bisson's book about
the history of the Crown of Aragon, and Bisson
mentions how a lot of these institutions were
very long -lasting. So the curiae and then the
vicario here is actually referred to by other
scholars as the veguer. So the veguer was a representative
of the nobility, although I'm seeing some moments
where the king could override or the appointment
of a particular vaguer. So it's not clear to
me that it's like an entity the person in that
office could go against the king necessarily
or be somebody that the regional noble would
prefer over who the king prefers. So we have
some kind of court of justice. The Vicario or
Veguer is the authority figure. And I think that
what's going on in this letter is that someone
has appealed to the king. Or maybe it's a situation
where the topic at hand requires the king's authority
over that of the more local authorities. But
either way, Joan has entered into whatever dispute
or situation this was. So that's, I think, all
I got. I'm going to put onto the webpage for
this document a few quotes from different sources
that I've consulted for my understanding of some
of the judicial structures for the towns within
the Crown of Aragon. Oh, one more thing I wanted
to mention here, actually, as I'm looking through
my notes. Marie Kelleher's book, The Hungry City,
was very helpful in explaining another type of
official who we see coming up in a lot of the
documents, the bailiff. So the bailiff was directly
appointed by the king and had primary responsibilities
over the financial aspects of governance, so
taxes and any kind of financial dealings that
involved. bringing in the authority of the king,
that would be handled by the bailiff. And then
the veguer was in charge of the court system
in that locality and ensuring justice, so police
kinds of responsibilities, and then also the
military muster. So that's... a distinction between
bailiff and veguer that I think is a good one
to keep in mind. And remember, there's no bailiffs
mentioned in this document here. Pretty sure.
All right. Well, gosh. Thanks for listening to
this episode of the Historian's Notebook, season
one, Molt Cara Companyona. Yeah. If you are leaving
with more questions than you arrived with, like,
what the heck is this document even about? Well,
I guess I've done my job. Low bar, low bar. Remember,
the motto of the historian's notebook is dissatisfaction
guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image
of today's document. and if you want to knock
your head against the wall of some difficult
paleography, this is one for you. 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.