Hello! In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was February 13, 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 1 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 in a register labeled
Varia, and it's one of Violant's registers.
The actual dating and seal line for this letter
says that it's recorded in the secret seal Acostumat.
And I'm trying to figure out what the meaning
of acostumat is in that phrase, but here we've
got a register called varia, and inside it we
have something that's labeled secret seal, so
we're clearly still in some kind of organizational
period for the Chancery staff and I've also seen
other registers where things are kind of mixed
up in terms of dates and so just wanted to point
that out so we can keep track of what is going
into what register and maybe by the end of this
process figure something out about what the organizational
challenges were for the Chancery staff. The sender
of this letter is, of course, Violant. And the
recipient is named Aznardo Pardo. And Aznardo
Pardo is a vice governor for the city of Valencia.
The first line of the letter is about how
Aznardo Pardo has received supplies and orders
and how he should know what he's supposed to
do. And then Violant goes on to say what you're
supposed to do is apprehend a certain person
named Bernger de Vilaragut. and that person apparently
has followers because in the fourth line from
the bottom the line starts and his followers
are adherent so there's something happening in
valencia and it has to do with some person who
needs to be apprehended named Berengar de Vilaragut.
The last name Vilaragut has a lot of cachet in
the Crown of Aragon in the late 14th century.
I was initially thinking that this particular
person might be closely related to somebody who
had been a lady in waiting for Violant. Carroca
de Vilaragut. And Carroca de Vilaragut was at the
center of some kind of controversy and used as
a pawn for Sibilla de Fortia, Violant's stepmother
-in -law, the queen at the time, to try to get
at violante by making accusations against this
lady -in -waiting. I did a little research about
Berenguer de Vilaragut in Valencia, and yes
there is some kind of familial connection there,
but it's sort of distant. So I don't I think
that this is connected to that controversy from
earlier in the 1380s. I think this is something
kind of fresh and on its own. And what I did
find was a really interesting article by a scholar
named Paz Lloret. And in that article, there's
a really good explanation of not only Berenguer
de Vilaragut, but also the Vilaragut family in
Valencia. And it turns out that they were leading
some kind of feudal disagreement. And I really
am using the word feudal in the sense of it's
a feud. There's like two families that are feuding.
so almost like in the Wild West sense of the
term versus the feudalism thing that is talked
about with medieval economics so there's a feud
that is broken out in Valencia and as I was reading
this article about it I was really Happily surprised
to see the name of James the Bishop of Valencia
coming up. It turns out that James the Bishop
of Valencia was a leader in the opposing party
to that of Berenger. the person who Violant is
in this letter saying that the governor should
apprehend and also provide a list of the names
of his followers. So here we've got this really
interesting connection between Joan's document
yesterday and Violant's document today. I think
that Joan's push to get James the Bishop of
Valencia, his first cousin once removed, to become
a cardinal is connected to this feuding conflict
that has broken out in Valencia. I'm not exactly
sure what the connection is, but it seems to
me a pretty good inference to say that if James
the Bishop of Valencia becomes a cardinal and
has that increased stature and probably some
increased resources as a result of that from
the Avignon Papacy, then he's going to have an
advantage. an additional advantage in the struggle
that is taking place in Valencia. I might have
been reading this wrong in the article by Paz
Lloret, but it seems like the original feud broke
out because of disagreements that emerged from
a construction project. there was like road construction
or something and the two families got really
angry like it seems like something really spiraled
out of control there or maybe I'm just misreading
it and my Catalan isn't so good. Oh, except this
is an article in Spanish, so... I don't know.
So anyway, that's what I got for you about the
source of the feud in Valencia. But in any event,
the main point here for my purposes is that here,
I think we've got like Valencia Day happening
in the work agenda of Violent and Joan, because
we've got Joan writing this intercessionary letter
to help James, Bishop of Valencia, become Cardinal.
And then we've got Violant sending a letter
to the governor or vice -governor in Valencia
saying, hey, you were supposed to have apprehended
Berenguer de Vilaragut, an enemy. of James,
Bishop of Valencia. You were supposed to have
apprehended him by now. What's going on? And
then at the end of the letter, Violante adds
a little as if as if it wasn't already obvious.
If you don't do this, then the king and I are
going to be molt desplaer. So I'm going to be
very unhappy. All right. Of course. Of course,
there's questions to ask about this. How is it
that Violant is the one that is in charge of
following up with the governor, vice governor,
of Valencia about the apprehension of Berenguer
de Vilaragut? Why is this in her portfolio?
That is something that I don't at this point
have a good guess about, because it doesn't seem
to me like Violant is in charge of the criminal
justice goings -on in Valencia. Perhaps Joan
is also going to be writing to some government
officials in Valencia in order to further the
struggle against... Berenguer de Vilaragut,
and implicitly, then, to help James Bishop of
Valencia, royal family member. Well, it's just
difficult for me to figure out where Violant's
portfolio relationship is here, because it seems
to me like something Joan could have done too,
and I'm not... noticing at this point why it's
Violant who is the one getting involved. But
that's one of the things I hope to figure out
as we continue on with this project. I also really
want to know more about whether this was a very
threatening situation in Valencia, or if it was
just sort of like run -of -the -mill factional
conflict? Like, was this in danger of really
destabilizing this particular territory within
the Crown of Aragon? And there's also a lot of
questions about the status of Valencia. as a
territory in the Crown of Aragon. And one thing
to keep in mind is that Valencia is still referred
to as the Kingdom of Valencia, even though it
doesn't have a separate king. The king of the
Kingdom of Valencia is, this time, Joan. So
even though it's called like in the second line
of this letter, Regne de Valencia, it's not an
entity, a polity that has a separate king or
queen. The rule, the whatever kind of way you
want to say it, the kingship of Valencia, it
used to be separate. But then it was conquered
by the Crown of Aragon, and it's been kind of
like another crown that the King of the Crown
of Aragon wears. And a pretty important one,
too. All right. Well, I think that there's definitely
more questions to ask about this, like how many
reminders has Aznardo Pardo gotten before this
one? And will there be more in the future? Is
Aznardo Pardo a competent vice governor? Or is
this somebody that cannot really be counted on?
I'm curious about that. I think that does it
for today's episode. Thanks for listening to
this installment 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.