Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was February 11, 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 episode is another development
in a case that we've been tracing since day one
of this podcast So this episode is about the
sexual assault that took place in Montpellier
and I decided to keep the usual jaunty opening
music today because i'm not going into details
about the case itself what we're looking at here
is the effort to have the perpetrators the rapists
get away with it and so i was kind of on the
fence i was like oh whenever i am talking about
this i just don't like the jaunty upbeat opening
music that is the music for this season, but
in this case, because we're not going to be going
into detail about the crime itself, I felt like
it's appropriate still to have the usual opening
music. But it's something that I think about
and there's going to be other instances where
a document is going to be discussing some cruelty,
some really awful things that have happened to
people, and I will make that judgment call about,
ooh, I don't think that upbeat, happy music is
the right tone to set for the topic. Today's
document is a continuation of the effort on the
part of the powerful allies of the rapists to
get them released from jail in Montpellier. And
I just want to note here that it's been 48 days
since the letter from Violante on December 25th,
New Year's Day. ordering the officials in Montpellier
to release these students. I've learned a little
bit about the case since then, so there's a lot
to say in today's episode. And then also there's
a very detailed examination of a phrase in Latin
that I'm going to want to share with you. and
it'll help you understand why Latin can be so
difficult. First of all, I want to situate the
document itself. And actually, today we're talking
about three documents. On February 11th, Violant
wrote three letters. The first one is in Catalan.
It's addressed to the officials of Montpellier.
The second one is addressed to the Bishop of
Maguelone, which I think is the ecclesiastical
authority for the region around Montpellier.
And then the third is addressed to a set of officials
that are somehow part of the administration,
the ecclesiastical administration of the Bishopric
of Maguelone. So it's a little bit difficult to
figure out why two Latin letters are necessary
here, but, and they're sort of similar, and then
there's some interesting slight differences between
the two Latin letters. One going to the bishop
himself, it seems, and then the other going to
the set of administrators that might be involved
in ecclesiastical justice in that institution
of the Cathedral of Maguelone. All right, these
are in the secret seal register, and there's
some interesting differences at the end of each
letter in the way that the type of seal is described.
And in the Catalan letter, it's listed as Sigell
Secret Acostument. In the first Latin letter,
to the bishop himself, in Latin, Sigillo Secreto
Assueto. And then in the second Latin letter,
siguelo solito secreto. I don't exactly know
the differences between these and what might...
maybe the first and second one are the same.
But I'm still trying to figure that out. But
I did want to note that the that we've got slightly
different descriptions of the seal level. And
now we can move on to the content of the letters.
And remember, the accused rapists have been in
the criminal justice system of Montpellier for
48 days and I think they've been in jail for
48 days because the first letter that we have
in this set of three, the one in Catalan, Violant
is asking them for asking the officials of Montpellier
to release them. And it sounds like release them
from imprisonment. So what I really like about
this is that Violant is not successful. that
Joan was not successful, and that maybe the
Duc de Berry, who's effectively the ruler of
France right now, looked at this situation and
said, maybe not. Maybe I'm not gonna lift a finger
to help these accused rapists. Maybe he did,
but it's really difficult for me to... figure
out how you've got these extremely politically
powerful figures who are using their influence
to get these accused rapists released from jail,
and they have not been successful. It's kind
of a point in favor, a major point in favor of
these officials of Montpellier. I mean, I don't
know what kind of level of pressure they feel
when they're getting instructions from the king
and queen of the Crown of Aragon and the Duc
de Berry, the most powerful person in France,
to release these accused rapists and then they're
like, no, we're not doing it. And it's almost
50 days that they're defying these pressure campaigns.
So it's really a very interesting development
to see that almost 50 days later, the officials
of Montpellier are insisting on a criminal justice
process for these students. I also have in the
meantime found out that Ramon de Soler is a very
high up person in the treasury for Joan and Violant.
I think that when Violant was the Duchess of
Girona, Ramon de Soler was her treasurer her
top treasurer not super sure about that one but
he is high up in the financial administration
of the government of the Crown of Aragon. We
see the name Ramon de Soler in these letters
because I'm pretty sure that we're talking about
the son of that treasury figure. So it's like
Ramon de Soler Jr. is a law student in Montpellier
and it's him, and it seems like a singular friend,
so it seems like there's two people, which is
a new detail. It was vague in the letters from
a month -ish ago, and so now we've got specifically
in the third line of Violant's Catalan letter
to Montpellier officials in the third line, it
very clearly says one of his companions. So we
don't have the name of this friend of Ramon de
Soler Jr., but it seems like we're talking about
two students who were the rapists in this situation.
So as I'm looking at these letters, there were
a couple difficult terms that I had to engage
with. One of them was in the Catalan letter.
I'm just going to, if you're interested in the
details of that one, I'm going to point you to
the transcript that I'm going to put onto the
webpage for this document because the beginning
of my work with ChatGPT was working on that one
Catalan term. figured out it's a descriptor for
Ramon de Soler Jr. and his studies that it just
kind of confirms that he's a student at the law
school in Montpellier. If you're interested in
the details on that, you can look at the transcript
of my conversation with the chat GPT. I wanted
to focus on a Latin phrase. And In this Latin
phrase, which is on the fourth line of the second
Latin letter, so it's on folio F82V, the students
are being described and the situation is being
introduced. Well, I'll just read out the whole
sentence in Latin. It actually begins at the
very end of the second line. And then I've got
a word that I don't quite know how to expand.
Montem Pesulare. That's Montpelier. Vecapridiae
contra eos occonem nonllorem delictore. And a
couple... some of that is wrong because I don't
I think it's occasionally I'm pretty sure that
the last and it's the last three words that are
really sticking with me so we have contra eos
before the last three words of the sentence so
against them so there's been a prosecution against
them. That's, I think, what's being described
that the consuls, the people in charge of Montpellier
have been carrying out some kind of criminal
justice against them. And the three words that
follow, I think I spent like an hour and a half
on those three words. because i just wasn't sure
about the first of the three which reads o c
c o n e with a macron i'm pretty sure now that
that's occasion occasion is the english cognate
and then the middle word i was thinking possibly
it started with n -o -u but eventually i got
to being pretty sure that it starts with n -o
-n and that it stands for non lorem and the third
word is pretty clear but there was that long
trail off of the e at the end which made me think
maybe there's an m being added there but then
what i came to after a while was that since there's
what looks like a period underneath the long
upward trail of the end of the e that it's actually
the sort of slash like the punctuation that's
sort of like a comma and indicating the end of
a phrase and before the word that i think is
ocassione there's a sort of curved slash So I
think the scribe is indicating that these three
words, they've got like a comma before them.
So they're describing the eos, or maybe they're
describing the feta. I think it's feta. And so
the process, I'm not quite sure, but I got stuck
on a very tricky vocabulary piece for Latin,
which is that if you have the word delictore
with an I after the L, it is talking about a
crime. If you actually have an E, And all the
other letters can be pretty much the same. If
you have Dilectus, for example, you're talking
about someone who is well -esteemed or even beloved.
So we've seen actually at the beginning of some
of the Latin letters, Dilectum or something like
that, saying, you know, you're a well -esteemed
person. So I mistranscribed that at one point
in my chat with, chat GPT, and that led into
this whole just, you know, wild goose chase on
thinking that maybe this was not about a crime,
this phrase, but was instead about someone who's
well esteemed. And it just it ballooned the amount
of time that I was working on this. So this word
is undoubtedly about some kind of crime. and
I think that the meaning of it is the phrase
overall that on the occasion of some certain
crime and the word nonllorem means a certain
or a few but then delictore is not plural so
the whole phrase is just so troublesome because
occasionem can mean by reason of like on occasion
of or it can mean like a pretext so depending
how you read this phrase Violant could be asserting
that she thinks it's a pretext or she could be
saying Just in vague terms, there was just some
crime committed. I am leaning towards the second.
I don't believe that Violant would go so far
as to say that the officials have come up with
some pretext to imprison these students. I think
that at this point, Violante knows full well
that if her will and Joan's will has been
ignored for 50 days that the officials of Montpellier
are not doing that just out of some kind of falsified
charge. I think she's well aware of what she's
doing here when she's asking for the extrication
of these rapists from the justice system in Montpellier.
And it really is icky, right? A reminder that
when we're focusing on particular historical
subjects that are really interesting, it doesn't
mean that we are rooting for them all the time
or that they're heroes. It just means that we
are focusing on them and a lot of what they do
is something that we can praise or accord with
some kind of positive value according to our
own modern standards and then other things they
do according to our modern standards we would
find morally reprehensible. So one last thing
to talk about with the snapshot that we're getting
about this Montpellier sexual assault case, it
seems as though there's action taking place about
jurisdiction that possibly the ecclesiastical
authorities are starting to get involved more.
And that's why we've got two Latin letters to
the bishop of, what was it, Maguelon. And so
maybe Violant is hoping now that the ecclesiastical
authorities are getting more involved, that she
can maybe have the ecclesiastical authorities
use their position to take over the case. Like
maybe there's this possibility that if we just
switch jurisdictions, if we switch court systems
and move from whatever is in Montpellier into
the regional ecclesiastical system, then maybe
my influence will work and this son of my high
-up official will get released. I don't know.
That's just my guess of what's going on. I'm
not sure if the officials of Montpellier have
agreed to hand over the accused rapists to the
authorities of the bishop of Maguelon or whether
the officials of Montpellier are resisting that
and saying they're just gonna stay in our jail
and I don't know the typical timeline of how
long it takes to have a case like this adjudicated.
It's been about 50 days, and so possibly this
is typical, and possibly they're dragging their
feet and they're just keeping them in jail and
trying to figure out how they're going to get
through this. And certainly if they proceed into
some kind of trial, then it's going to escalate
the situation. So it's possible that they've
stayed in jail because the officials of Montpellier
don't want to risk some kind of further escalation.
So they're just keeping them in jail and not
moving forward with things. But I think the really
interesting takeaway here for me is that we have
this pushback. from the officials of Montpellier,
and that if you are a high up person and you
perpetrate a sexual assault, that in this particular
time and place, you are not going to be immediately
successful when you activate your influence network.
and you're not going to have an immediate get
out of jail free card. Who knows what happens
further down the road, but to me it's a pretty
encouraging thing thinking about the justice
system in medieval Montpellier in late 14th century
to see that there's been resistance to the powers
that are pressuring those officials to just let
them go. 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. 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 a long transcript of my chat GPT conversation,
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.