Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was February 12th, 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.
Welcome to the 50th document for the podcast.
Wow, they really do just add up, don't they?
I can't believe that this is number 50. If you've
been listening to all of them, wow. Yeah, it's
adding up, and we are not even 25 % done. because
we are going for the long haul of 365 and I have
to admit that I'm not sure if it's actually gonna
materialize the 365 because it does take a lot
of time especially if it's a Latin document for
me to figure out what's going on and to do some
of the work to contextualize what's happening
in a particular document, and it is more than
I thought it would be. I knew that it would be
a lot, but sometimes there can be just a very
long period of investigation to figure out even
just some of the basics. So we'll see what happens.
I'm still really pumped to do a whole year, because
I think we'll get to see things that we otherwise
wouldn't see. So I'm still into it. Let's see
what happens when we get to episode 100. But
yeah, it's a process. But I've been enjoying
it so much, and I hope you are too. And all right,
let's talk about today's document. The document
is from the very earliest folios of a secret
seal register of Joan's. So we are looking at
folio 2V of register 1954. And the wormholes
and bug holes that we see here are very extensive.
It's not actually the worst that I've seen, but
it's pretty bad. I think that these patterns
are beautiful to look at, honestly. I think that
there's kind of a sadness at the destruction
of the historical content and the idea that we're
missing out on the information, so there's a
sense of loss there, but There's also this kind
of commemoration of the passage of time and the
force of the non -human actors on these material
objects. So the patterns that we see are sort
of like a Rorschach kind of experience. where
you can look at them and see destruction, or
you can look at them and see collaboration of
material and living entities over this gigantic
period of time. Although I would like to know
how long it takes for this destruction to to
occur. So once a worm gets in or once the bugs
get in, how many days does it take or years does
it take to generate this? The holes that we see
don't go all the way through. So there's certain
holes that will appear on every single folio
of a register because some kind of worm went
just you know perpendicular to you know the thing
and uh and then other times we see like in this
one this particular register the damage is really
extensive in like the first 10 folios but once
you get deeper in they just didn't go further
and so they stayed sort of along those surface
layers so I'm really curious to know the time
span of this action that we see a remnant of
on the part of the worms and bugs. I'd also really
like to know more specific details about, if
we can, what kinds of worms and bugs did this?
I just am interested in the materiality of this
archive. And remember, over six centuries, paper
has been sitting around with this information,
this ink and paper. It's just sometimes easy
to say 639 years, but just take a moment and
think about how much time that is. Where, for
example, stuff that feels so, so long ago, like
the American Revolution is like only about a
third of the way back to getting to when these
characters were written with ink on this paper.
So I just wanted to riff about the experience of
the archive and indulge in a little romanticization
of this particular archive. And you know, there's
There's a critique of that, that historians can
be too indulgent when it comes to romanticizing
the archive, and so occasionally I do pull back
and... take notice of how the archive is commissioned
with a purpose and that purpose is to bolster
power and to bolster an unequal social hierarchy
that was exploitative for a lot of people. So
it's always good whenever you slip into the romanticizing
of the archive to pull back and notice that this
is an instrument of power and that it was bolstering
and holding up a society that benefited the most
powerful and the most wealthy and harmed those
with little power. Let's talk about the document
itself here. So it's in Latin. The addressee
is very difficult to read because of the worm
damage. at the top, but at the bottom we can
see it very clearly. So the College of Cardinals
is the group that Joan is writing to in this
letter, and it's about the request or intercession
to promote somebody to be a cardinal for the
Avignon Papacy. And that person is someone that
Joan is very well aware of. It's Joan's first
cousin once removed. So I always need a little
bit of an explanation when I get into some of
the cousin descriptors. So... What's going on
in this familial relationship is that Joan's
father Père the Ceremonious, his cousin is the
person who is being discussed here. So the cousin
of Père the Ceremonious is named James and is
a bishop in Valencia. He eventually does get
accepted into the College of Cardinals, so he
becomes the Cardinal of Valencia. He was in Avignon
starting in 1388, so I think it might have taken
a good year or more for his application to be
a cardinal to be processed and accepted. So at
this moment, I think it seems like we're getting
the ball rolling, or we might be continuing on
with a process initiated by Pere the Ceremonious.
So in the interline between line four and five,
we can see that Joan is referencing his own
father. And I think it's really interesting to
notice the word choices that he uses. And I'm
not quite sure of the valence. and resonance
of those word choices right now, but I want to
note them because I still can't get it out of
my head when he wrote to his father -in -law
and called him most dear father. That was a couple
episodes ago. In this letter he refers to pair
his father in the following way. Serenissimi
Domini Regis Petri Genitoris Nostri. Our...genitor.
I don't think the translation works quite at
that level of cognate. Our progenitor. The person
who progenied me. I didn't actually look up this
word in the dictionary, the Latin to English
dictionary. So maybe there's a nice smoother
transition or translation there. But anyway,
I just wanted to point that out. Another Latin
word that's coming up again and again in this
letter is publicaciones. And it's a really interesting
word because I did look that one up and it's
like there's all these different resonances that
can be used for that word. It has something to
do with of the state of the public body, but
I can't quite figure out why it's being used
so much in this context. And why it's being used
in association with. the Bishop of Valencia,
Joan's first cousin once removed, named James.
One other thing that I want to bring in about
James, who is the Bishop of Valencia, soon to
be Cardinal of Valencia, is that he was really
into literature and he commissioned a bunch of
translations of classical literature, one of
which was a text that's already come up in the
podcast, Valerius Maximus. So this was the classical
text that Joan was really anxious about securing
from his father's library and he wrote to his
brother Marti as their father was dying and said
it's just really important for you to get these
items and make sure to hold on to them for me
and one of them was the Valerius Maximus text
and then there was like another there was one
that was like a dog one of the that was had a
name So, anyway, James Bishop of Valencia, he
is someone who has been recorded as commissioning
translations of classical texts, and I found
that reference in a secondary source on the classical
tradition in Catalan culture. I can't remember
the exact title. I will put it, though, in the
web page in the bibliography for today's document.
There's one other thing that I want to point
out about this document, and that is on line
12, there's this interesting cross out. And then
in the interline, we see a word that looks to
me like inquisitura. So maybe this is something
that has to do with an inquisition. But then
we have after that regalis sanguinis. So something
about like the royal blood. So I am I'm curious
about what's going on there and what is the content
of this long letter that Joan is writing in
support of James Bishop of Valencia becoming
a cardinal and how that word Inquisitura might
relate to it and just have to leave that as an
open question for now. and come back to it after
getting a bit more practice with Latin this year.
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, then I have once again For the 50th time,
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.