WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.160 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:13.419 it was February 17, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.419 --> 00:00:17.140 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:21.379 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:21.379 --> 00:00:26.100 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:26.510 --> 00:00:31.570 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:34.670 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:34.670 --> 00:00:39.289 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:39.289 --> 00:00:43.329 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's 00:00:43.329 --> 00:01:13.170 document. In 1387, February 17th was a Sunday, 00:01:13.849 --> 00:01:16.310 and I think that that explains why I had a bit 00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:21.650 of a problem locating letters, documents from 00:01:21.650 --> 00:01:24.750 this day. I'm really trying to track whether 00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:28.200 there seemed to be fewer... letters and documents 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:32.599 from the Saturdays and the Sundays. So I went 00:01:32.599 --> 00:01:37.599 to Daniel Girona y Llagostera's itinerary, and 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:43.260 he has listed the documents that we're looking 00:01:43.260 --> 00:01:50.099 at today in his itinerary that tracks a document 00:01:50.099 --> 00:01:57.430 for every day of the reign of Joan, and places 00:01:57.430 --> 00:02:02.629 his location. So Daniel Girona y Llagostera has 00:02:02.629 --> 00:02:06.650 done a really wonderful service to my mission, 00:02:07.049 --> 00:02:11.689 which is to actually have at least one document 00:02:11.689 --> 00:02:16.090 a day for every single day of Joan's reign, 00:02:16.229 --> 00:02:18.870 and even actually he did this for when Joan 00:02:18.870 --> 00:02:23.270 was the Duke of Girona. He did not do it for 00:02:23.270 --> 00:02:27.509 Violant de Bar, so sometimes it's harder to 00:02:27.509 --> 00:02:31.930 find documents for a particular day for Violant. 00:02:33.509 --> 00:02:38.969 Today's document is in the register that's labeled 00:02:38.969 --> 00:02:47.270 Curie, C -U -R -I -E, and in my understanding, 00:02:47.629 --> 00:02:52.419 thus far. That means the court, the king's court. 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:59.039 And so I believe that these documents have more 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:05.099 of a group authorship than what we would see 00:03:05.099 --> 00:03:10.120 in other registers. I'm kind of coming to a better 00:03:10.120 --> 00:03:14.560 understanding of some of the organization of 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:18.180 the archive of the Crown of Aragon. I'm also 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:25.379 on a reinvigorated mission to really untangle 00:03:25.379 --> 00:03:29.500 some of the Latin abbreviations in the probata 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:35.259 section. The signature of whatever chancery scribe 00:03:35.259 --> 00:03:38.639 was copying down the letter. And so we're going 00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:42.840 to look at some of that today. This particular 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:47.310 document is, I think, something that I have a 00:03:47.310 --> 00:03:50.830 good understanding of even though it's in Latin. 00:03:51.449 --> 00:03:54.229 And I feel kind of good about myself because 00:03:54.229 --> 00:03:59.629 I'm trying to have a good growth mindset about 00:03:59.629 --> 00:04:03.409 Latin and how it's very difficult for me. But 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:06.810 if I... think of it as a puzzle, and then I have 00:04:06.810 --> 00:04:11.090 a bit of a helper in terms of the AI chatbot, 00:04:11.449 --> 00:04:15.110 then I can make some progress. And little by 00:04:15.110 --> 00:04:18.129 little, I'm getting a sense that when I encounter 00:04:18.129 --> 00:04:21.129 a Latin document, especially if it's a short 00:04:21.129 --> 00:04:26.740 one like this, then it's within my grasp. So 00:04:26.740 --> 00:04:30.139 I'm happy to say that I'm quite sure about the 00:04:30.139 --> 00:04:34.579 general content of this letter, but we're going 00:04:34.579 --> 00:04:37.160 to get a little bit more into the sourcing of 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:42.139 it first. So again, I think that this is a letter 00:04:42.139 --> 00:04:46.480 from the court that this is something not necessarily 00:04:46.889 --> 00:04:51.689 attributed to Joan as like an individual decision 00:04:51.689 --> 00:04:55.509 on his part, but is more about the business of 00:04:55.509 --> 00:04:59.529 maybe a governing council or a group of people 00:04:59.529 --> 00:05:04.160 that of course Joan has final say over. The 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:10.720 addressee of the letter is the vicario of Roussillon, 00:05:11.019 --> 00:05:15.899 that's the Latin term, and this I'm pretty sure 00:05:15.899 --> 00:05:24.800 is translatable to veger, so in Catalan, V -E 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:32.120 -G -U -E -R. We've encountered veguers in earlier 00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:37.319 documents, and they're basically a chief administrative 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:44.019 authority for the state in a particular region. 00:05:44.819 --> 00:05:49.139 So the overlap between Bailiff and Veguer can 00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:52.240 be a little bit confusing for me, but I think 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:55.939 that the Veguer has more authority. And this 00:05:55.939 --> 00:06:02.939 is not somebody that is an employee or an authority 00:06:02.939 --> 00:06:07.199 under the municipality. This is definitely a 00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:13.899 person who reports back to the overall government 00:06:13.899 --> 00:06:18.579 of the Crown of Aragon, the larger state above 00:06:18.579 --> 00:06:26.100 the municipality. So we have the addressee. We've 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:30.199 got a little bit about possibly the authorship 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:36.019 here as different from, say, a letter that Joan 00:06:36.019 --> 00:06:42.500 himself would have written or dictated. And so 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:46.600 now let's get into the content of the letter. 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:52.199 It appears that there's a fellow named Guillem, 00:06:52.379 --> 00:06:59.720 or Guillermo de Modes, or de Modas. And I'm a 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:03.139 little shaky on that last name because Modas 00:07:03.139 --> 00:07:07.199 is a Latin word, but I'm pretty sure it's the 00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:14.279 surname of Guillermo. This Guillermo is currently, 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:20.689 I think... arrested and imprisoned. He's, I'm 00:07:20.689 --> 00:07:29.050 pretty sure, referred to as a captive, and he 00:07:29.050 --> 00:07:35.810 is in money trouble. There's a word in line five 00:07:35.810 --> 00:07:43.430 of this letter that has survived from its ancient 00:07:43.430 --> 00:07:49.990 Roman usage all the way into English today. And 00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:53.290 that says something once you hear what this word 00:07:53.290 --> 00:08:01.649 is. The word is creditor. So when somebody has 00:08:01.649 --> 00:08:07.069 lent you money and you owe it to them, that is 00:08:07.069 --> 00:08:13.120 that person is your creditor. And goodness, it's 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:17.259 telling that this is one of the Latin words that 00:08:17.259 --> 00:08:22.199 has survived in its spelling and in its meaning 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:27.579 across the ages and across all of the linguistic 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:32.460 development that took place as classical Latin 00:08:32.460 --> 00:08:37.379 got broken into all these regional vernaculars. 00:08:38.009 --> 00:08:42.250 Yes, people have been lending money and have 00:08:42.250 --> 00:08:47.370 been owing money pretty much consistently for 00:08:47.370 --> 00:08:52.090 a very, very long time. So the word creditor 00:08:52.090 --> 00:08:59.250 is very stable over time and place. Here in this 00:08:59.250 --> 00:09:02.990 letter, we've got a Latin ending on the word 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:07.799 creditor. So the word as it reads on line five 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:15.820 is creditoribus. Now the i -b -u -s ending can 00:09:15.820 --> 00:09:21.919 make the word creditor either the dative or the 00:09:21.919 --> 00:09:27.360 ablative. And what that means is that the word 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:31.299 creditor could be functioning in the sentence 00:09:31.789 --> 00:09:37.049 as if it was with the preposition to that would 00:09:37.049 --> 00:09:40.669 be the dative to the creditors and that is plural. 00:09:41.669 --> 00:09:47.610 And then it could also be something like with 00:09:47.610 --> 00:09:53.789 or for or about the creditors. That last scenario 00:09:53.789 --> 00:09:58.519 would be the ablative. And then if we were to 00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:02.480 say to the creditors, that would be the dative. 00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:05.580 So I've given you a little bit of a grammar lesson 00:10:05.580 --> 00:10:10.220 there in terms of Latin grammar, but all of that 00:10:10.220 --> 00:10:12.080 is to illustrate something that I've mentioned 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:14.960 a couple times, but I haven't really taken the 00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:18.820 time to break down with an example, which is 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:24.190 that in Latin, the nouns have endings, and it 00:10:24.190 --> 00:10:29.190 can change the function of that word in the grammatical 00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:35.090 sense of the sentence. So this makes it very 00:10:35.090 --> 00:10:39.950 difficult to unpack when translating, because 00:10:39.950 --> 00:10:44.429 you have to, in a sense, decide, like in this 00:10:44.429 --> 00:10:47.309 case, well, what is the preposition that's being 00:10:47.309 --> 00:10:51.230 used before the word creditors. And if you have 00:10:51.230 --> 00:10:55.710 a lot of these in a sentence, you can get very 00:10:55.710 --> 00:11:00.570 easily tangled up in how the phrases are put 00:11:00.570 --> 00:11:05.490 together. And in fact, one word at the far end 00:11:05.490 --> 00:11:10.370 of a sentence can refer back to a word way earlier, 00:11:10.870 --> 00:11:15.610 and sorting this out can be incredibly time consuming. 00:11:16.330 --> 00:11:19.490 So I just wanted to draw out this one example 00:11:19.490 --> 00:11:24.090 in order to help you understand why it takes 00:11:24.090 --> 00:11:28.750 me sometimes several hours, even after getting 00:11:28.750 --> 00:11:32.769 the help from an AI chatbot to figure out the 00:11:32.769 --> 00:11:38.870 meaning of a Latin document. Now, that's not 00:11:38.870 --> 00:11:42.909 even taking into account the paleographical challenge. 00:11:43.570 --> 00:11:48.870 Line five, the same one that has the word creditoribus, 00:11:49.250 --> 00:11:52.990 also has a really difficult paleographical challenge. 00:11:53.429 --> 00:11:57.649 The first word in that line, the initial letters 00:11:57.649 --> 00:12:03.370 are small and it's like I think the scribe forgot 00:12:03.370 --> 00:12:08.789 the word that He had intended to write and then 00:12:08.789 --> 00:12:14.309 added in a prefix later so he had one word in 00:12:14.309 --> 00:12:18.950 mind as he was copying the letter and then maybe 00:12:18.950 --> 00:12:22.370 looking back at it or Like halfway through the 00:12:22.370 --> 00:12:24.759 line or something he realized. Oh wait that's 00:12:24.759 --> 00:12:28.279 not the right word and so he squeezed something 00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:31.500 in and you can totally tell that he did it because 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:35.200 he's really good otherwise about starting the 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:40.559 lines in a way that they're all lined up they're 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:43.679 they're all you know very well i guess we would 00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:50.080 say justified according to to the margin so it's 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:54.720 clear to me that What happened here is that the 00:12:54.720 --> 00:13:00.820 scribe had intended to write, well, what I figured 00:13:00.820 --> 00:13:07.320 out eventually, nonnullis, and accidentally wrote 00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:10.779 simply nullis, and then later on came back and 00:13:10.779 --> 00:13:15.139 put in an NO with a macron on top in order to 00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:21.850 put in the non for nonnullis. that really changes 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:24.789 the meaning because it's basically putting a 00:13:24.789 --> 00:13:28.029 negation prefix in front of the word and then 00:13:28.029 --> 00:13:32.190 what it turns into when you have non nullis is 00:13:32.190 --> 00:13:35.289 several like it's the equivalent of saying like 00:13:35.289 --> 00:13:40.190 not none but it's not to say that in English 00:13:40.190 --> 00:13:43.029 is not very colloquial, at least these days. 00:13:43.230 --> 00:13:47.190 And so in Latin, it's it's not as weird sounding 00:13:47.190 --> 00:13:50.690 to say no, no less. It just means several. So 00:13:50.690 --> 00:13:55.769 the phrase we have here is to several of his 00:13:55.769 --> 00:14:01.549 creditors. Because the next word is suis, which 00:14:01.549 --> 00:14:09.320 is his possessive. All right, so. I did not immediately 00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:15.980 recognize the little letters that were added 00:14:15.980 --> 00:14:21.340 after the initial writing to the left of nullis 00:14:21.340 --> 00:14:25.860 on line 5. I thought that possibly there was 00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:32.759 a letter M followed by an O because I guess it 00:14:32.759 --> 00:14:36.700 just... to me it it looks like there really could 00:14:36.700 --> 00:14:42.500 be like three minims and and i think the scribe 00:14:42.500 --> 00:14:45.700 intended to write two minims i don't know you 00:14:45.700 --> 00:14:49.820 kind of look at the n in nullis and then compare 00:14:49.820 --> 00:14:53.379 that to what's being squeezed in there to the 00:14:53.379 --> 00:14:57.000 left and you can see that there's maybe an intention 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:00.740 to have the letter N, but at first glance it 00:15:00.740 --> 00:15:04.360 really looks like it could be the letter M, and 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:08.799 so initially when I put in my transcription into 00:15:08.799 --> 00:15:15.340 ChatGPT, ChatGPT returned this idea that it was 00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:20.139 the word monelis, and that this was referring 00:15:20.139 --> 00:15:25.240 to coinage, and it had this very confident statement 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:30.019 that monilis was common in medieval Latin to 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:33.779 refer to coinage, which I had never heard before. 00:15:34.179 --> 00:15:40.860 And so I had some doubts. And in the transcript 00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:44.600 later, after asking it to search for this Guillermo 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:48.259 didn't really find anything. After that, I returned 00:15:48.259 --> 00:15:53.120 to this earlier question. about its interpretation, 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:57.639 Monilus, and it turns out that ChatGPT just 00:15:57.639 --> 00:16:01.480 made that up. And there was just no basis for 00:16:01.480 --> 00:16:07.080 it to say that it was a common word for coinage 00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:11.139 in medieval Latin. So this is a really good lesson 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:19.720 to hit home the fact that as of February 2026, 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:23.600 these large language models, these chatbots, 00:16:24.059 --> 00:16:29.679 they cannot be depended upon 100%. They are tools, 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:33.700 but you've got to treat them as helpers and rough 00:16:33.700 --> 00:16:38.000 guides and not as the final authorities. When 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:42.149 I am using the AI chatbots which I use like all 00:16:42.149 --> 00:16:46.090 the time to help me with translation I always 00:16:46.090 --> 00:16:49.429 take it with a grain of salt and I'm always looking 00:16:49.429 --> 00:16:53.350 to see if there is something I can catch it at 00:16:53.350 --> 00:16:57.830 because I know that situations like this happen 00:16:57.830 --> 00:17:03.190 and I'll bet you that in probably over half of 00:17:03.190 --> 00:17:06.509 what I've done with the AI chatbots I've missed 00:17:06.509 --> 00:17:12.710 something like this so You just cannot use them 00:17:12.710 --> 00:17:16.970 as a solid 100 % foundation. You've got to use 00:17:16.970 --> 00:17:24.309 them as a rough guide, a starting point for future 00:17:24.309 --> 00:17:31.029 work, not as the end of your knowledge building 00:17:31.029 --> 00:17:36.069 process. Great example in this one. All right. 00:17:36.170 --> 00:17:39.950 I mentioned earlier that I'm reinvigorated in 00:17:39.950 --> 00:17:45.109 my search for unpacking the probata information. 00:17:45.630 --> 00:17:50.769 Just look at the probata for this document. It's 00:17:50.769 --> 00:17:55.630 almost like the scribe added extra curves little 00:17:55.630 --> 00:18:00.210 like river pathway curves to the probata symbol 00:18:00.210 --> 00:18:04.430 at the end because he knew that there was a lot 00:18:04.430 --> 00:18:06.910 going on just compare it to the probata that 00:18:06.910 --> 00:18:09.890 appears higher up in the page that's associated 00:18:09.890 --> 00:18:13.430 with the document that ends the first half of 00:18:13.430 --> 00:18:20.069 this folio and so there's a lot of abbreviation 00:18:20.069 --> 00:18:24.990 i definitely can see that In the third -to -last 00:18:24.990 --> 00:18:27.829 and second -to -last words of the first line 00:18:27.829 --> 00:18:33.730 of the probata, we've got X pro, but then that 00:18:33.730 --> 00:18:37.809 word that begins with F, not quite sure what's 00:18:37.809 --> 00:18:43.190 going on there. There's an abbreviation at the 00:18:43.190 --> 00:18:47.230 end that could be a UM, but I'm not sure. And 00:18:47.230 --> 00:18:50.069 then I definitely see second -to -the -last word 00:18:50.069 --> 00:18:54.549 in the last line of the probata. But I don't 00:18:54.549 --> 00:19:00.130 know what's coming after that. So I asked another 00:19:00.130 --> 00:19:04.730 AI helper perplexity to do a search to see if 00:19:04.730 --> 00:19:07.369 there were any articles that really just kind 00:19:07.369 --> 00:19:11.190 of broke down what's in the probata. And it didn't 00:19:11.190 --> 00:19:14.829 really find anything directly, but it did come 00:19:14.829 --> 00:19:20.109 up with an article by Joan Bertrand Todoli. 00:19:20.730 --> 00:19:24.829 about some of the Archive of the Crown of Aragon 00:19:24.829 --> 00:19:29.789 practices. And in that, there was a citation 00:19:29.789 --> 00:19:32.789 from one of our friends of the show. I mean, 00:19:32.809 --> 00:19:36.269 not literally. Don't know him, but he comes up 00:19:36.269 --> 00:19:41.269 all the time. Josep Trenchs i Odena. He co -authored 00:19:41.269 --> 00:19:47.569 a book with Antonio Maria Argo and Rafael Conde 00:19:47.569 --> 00:19:54.380 Delgado de Molina. about the documentary notarial 00:19:54.380 --> 00:19:56.579 practices of the Archive of the Crown of Aragon. 00:19:56.900 --> 00:20:00.039 So I'm ordering that through interlibrary loan 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:04.519 and that might have some information about the 00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:09.380 probata because it was cited as possibly really 00:20:09.380 --> 00:20:11.660 breaking down some of the Chancery practices 00:20:11.660 --> 00:20:16.859 into a longer explanation. It was cited by Beltran 00:20:16.859 --> 00:20:20.289 Todoli. So I'll put both these sources in the 00:20:20.289 --> 00:20:25.529 bibliography and Stay tuned in the coming weeks 00:20:25.529 --> 00:20:31.450 for more. Yeah shadow stay tuned. I know For 00:20:31.450 --> 00:20:34.329 more information about the probata. We are gonna 00:20:34.329 --> 00:20:39.650 crack it. I have a feeling All right, should 00:20:39.650 --> 00:20:43.009 I rerecord that shadow or should we leave your 00:20:43.009 --> 00:20:47.700 little exclamation meows in? I think we'll leave 00:20:47.700 --> 00:20:52.319 you in. I think people like hearing you. At least, 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:56.339 when it's not quite as shrill as it could be. 00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.420 Alright, thanks for listening to this episode 00:20:59.420 --> 00:21:03.180 of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara 00:21:03.180 --> 00:21:07.400 Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions 00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:11.519 than you arrived with, I have done my job. Remember, 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:16.339 the motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction. 00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:20.319 guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image 00:21:20.319 --> 00:21:23.500 of today's document and additional show notes. 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:27.220 And listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:21:27.220 --> 00:21:30.779 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:21:30.779 --> 00:21:35.480 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:21:35.480 --> 00:21:37.279 meantime, take care.