Hello. In The Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was February 16th, 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. Well, today's document has a couple
layers of mystery to it. To be honest, I did
not expect to see something like this. The topic
of today's letter is the same as the one from
February 14th. It's in the Varia register. Just
a couple... actually wait it's in a different
Varia register so it's written a couple days
later but it's put into a different register
and it's from Violant to the Pope and it's about
I think that same topic so it's almost like Violant
is sending a reminder or like a follow -up it
is really something I didn't expect to see because
well she would have to understand that the first
letter couldn't have arrived all that much earlier
than this second one I really don't think that
you could deliver a letter from Barcelona to
Avignon in 24 hours. I am also pretty skeptical
that it could be done in 48 hours, but maybe
not. For some reason, Violant is writing a letter
on the same topic to days later and the language
in this letter is one that has more urgency than
what we saw in the February 14th letter. So once
again we have the name Petra Serva or something
like Peter servant in English or maybe Pere Servent
in Catalan, but I'm not sure. The title associated
with Petrum or Petra serva is Archidiacone or
maybe Archidiaconum and then there's a word following
that which is something like Penitentem. And
so that's what we know about this Petrum Serva.
We know that he's an ecclesiastical official
an Archdeacon. We don't know where he's from,
like what region of the Crown of Aragon. And
in the previous letter, I thought that a reasonable
interpretation, based on the not extensive work
that I did with it, was that he was being supported
for some kind of ecclesiastical office. But this
letter really makes it seem like Violant has
sent him to Avignon. And the reason for that
is the word that comes after his name and title
on the fourth line of this letter, which is Commisimus.
We commission him. And then a little ways down
in the letter, we have a phrase at the end of
it's the fourth line from the bottom it starts
with so there will be an end to some kind of
debt obtained by the same Petrus or Petrum in
doing the work of resolving whatever issue and
so there's these two factors in this letter that
makes it seem that this Petrus Serva is an emissary
which I didn't get from the previous letter but
looking at it again, I see that it's possible.
So I think that Violant has sent this person
to Avignon, but then what's mysterious is that
there's these two letters in such close proximity
to each other so that we have a kind of... I
don't even know what to call it. Is it... is
it like nagging? I mean that's a really kind
of there's a lot of connotations and a lot of
gendered connotations to that so I don't really
want to use that word but I'm trying to think
of what is the purpose of sending a follow -up
letter so soon or maybe this was just how things
worked that you just had to send follow -up letters
and that would just be a signal that the matter
was an important one? There's just so many questions
in my mind seeing this return to the same topic
after such a short span of time from the previous
letter. So I don't know what is the issue that
is trying to be resolved here. I hope to find
out at some point. I did do a little searching
through a good old ChatGPT for somebody named
Pere Servent or Petrus Serva. Nothing really seemed
to come up. So this has opened up quite quite
a mystery for me, and I'm hoping that I will
come across some other additional correspondence
that has to do with this archdeacon, and I'll
get some kind of clue regarding what this is
about. And while we're on the topic of Violant
writing to the Pope, the Avignon Pope, where
This is taking place during the Great Western
Schism, where there's a pope in Rome, Urban VI,
then there's a pope in Avignon, Clement VII.
I just want to draw attention to what I have
seen about the way that Violant considers the
pope within the larger scheme of her projects
and her rulership. The papal court in Avignon
is yes a religious center, but almost more importantly
it's a diplomatic center. So there are so many
instances of conflict resolution or conflict
intensification that take place in the Papal
Court at Avignon. It's also a cultural center
where there's troubadour performances regularly.
There's a lot of manuscripts constantly being
added into the library in the Papal Court of
Avignon. So this is a place where people of high
power send emissaries they themselves might visit.
I'm thinking in particular of an episode with
Joanna of Naples who is in Avignon and in the
midst of tense conflict over her own rulership
of Naples. The papal court in Avignon where big
deals get done and in particular marriage negotiations.
So what's going to be coming up in a few episodes
from now and then in others throughout the year
is that Joan and Violant are working to arrange
a marriage for their oldest child, who historically
is known as Yolande of Aragon. So named after
Violant. Yolande of Aragon eventually does marry
Louis II of Anjou, but that is a long process.
The marriage negotiations, they take at least
a year, and they're carried out in Avignon. And
it's not Petra Serva who comes up in those negotiations.
It's somebody else. A Genoese fellow named Lucchino
Scarampi. There will be a lot more about him
coming up. I think I might have mentioned him
once already. But I wanted to mention that these
marriage negotiations are high level, diplomatic,
encounters and endeavors that the papal court
in Avignon is the venue in which that plays out
and that it is extremely important work. So in
our time we might think, oh why, you know, you
just kind of decide to get married, you figure
it out, you know, you just pair them up. but
actually these are intense negotiations that
have all these additional stipulations and territorial
exchanges and money for dowry and all kinds of
deal making gets packed into this marriage negotiation
the marriage is more of like the title of the
bill and then the bill like in like congress
or something like it's packed with all these
other provisions and these provisions are all
up for negotiation so the marriage negotiation
is a big big deal i don't see anything in here
about Petrus Serva in today's letter being involved
in the marriage negotiation that is about to
be initiated by Joan and Violant in Avignon.
I don't know if he's involved or not. He could
be an emissary for a completely different matter,
but the important thing to keep in mind when
we're seeing Violant writing to the Pope is
that she is writing to a nerve center of international
diplomacy and she is asking for the intercession
or participation of one of the biggest power
players that you could possibly have. in the
constellation of power elites in western Europe
at this time i mean i would put the Duc de Berry
as like in the top five i would put the Avignon
Pope Clement the seventh in the top five i would
probably put Joan and Violant in the top five
actually and so there's this sense that I'm getting
that when we see Violant writing to the Pope
like every day and writing a letter like this,
which is like a very quick follow -up. I mean,
the earlier letter in this one might have been
delivered to the Pope's hands at the same time.
When I see this happening, I'm thinking that
what is being represented here is that Violant,
of course, feels very comfortable writing to
the pope about all kinds of stuff. Yes, the letter
includes the typical language of we, you know,
are requesting your help. We are humbly humiliter.
We are humbly requesting your attention to this,
but those words are completely drowned out by
the volume and then just also this kind of immediate
following up kind of behavior that we're seeing
from Violant. I get the sense that Violant
expects the Pope to be acting in accordance with
the allegiance with the kind of partnership that
the Crown of Aragon has established with the
Avignon Papacy at the time of a very troublesome
schism. The Crown of Aragon has thrown its weight
as as Joan has ascended to the throne. The neutrality
that Père the Ceremonious had has been put into
the past, and now the Crown of Aragon is firmly
behind the Avignon Papacy, and I think Violant
knows that that was a heavy move, and so I get
the sense, and maybe I'm wrong, and I could find
out later things, maybe Violant is intimidated
writing to the Pope, but I kind of get the sense
that Violant is not intimidated at all in writing
to the Pope, and that she has expectations of
partnership and maybe even expectations of compliance
from the Pope. So that might be taking it a little
bit too far, but I just wanted to riff for a
little while on the possible attitude that Violant
displays toward the Avignon Pope because to
me this letter raises some really interesting
possibilities about that and how Violant sees
her own status in relation to one of the most
powerful figures in Western Europe at this time.
We'll keep track of how Violant corresponds
with the Pope because there's no shortage of
letters from Violant to Pope Clement VII. Alright,
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. If you're feeling satisfied completely
by any history that you are reading, you're probably
reading some bad history. Good history, accurate
history, always raises more questions and leaves
you dissatisfied. Visit tomorrow. Oh, visit tomorrow.
Should I delete that? No, I'm just going to keep
it. Visit tomorrow. Let's all visit tomorrow.
I like that. In a show about the past, we'll
visit tomorrow. I think Maybe more reasonably,
you should 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.