Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was February 28, 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. I am really excited to talk about today's
document because this document is one that I
have been working on, not alone, but with a group
of people at the University of New Mexico for
about a month now. So I'm recording this on February
27th, and we first started working on this document
on January 29th. So there is a group of medieval
graduate students who are guided by one of the
professors in the history department at the University
of New Mexico. That professor is Dr. Timothy
Graham, and he runs an informal Latin group where
all the members of the group meet up once a week
on Zoom, and we work on some kind of Latin transcription
and translation. each member of the group has
the chance to choose material that the whole
group works on, and we take turns. So one person
will choose one particular document, we'll work
on transcribing and then translating that document
together with the ample help of Dr. Graham. and
then we'll finish with that one and then the
next person in the group gets to choose a document.
So I have taken advantage of this amazing resource
and it's all because of Dr. Graham being super
generous with his time and his love of helping
students to figure out medieval Latin that I
had the chance to, for my turn, have a document
that would appear in the podcast. So all the
way back in, it must have been November, I identified
a document that I would have felt really would
be helpful for practicing the Latin that appears
in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon from documents
related to Joan and Violant. And the way I
made this choice was that I was working from
an article that was published in 2015 written
by the prolific Maria Teresa Ferrer y Mallol along
with the co -author Carles Vela Aulesa. and this
article focused on one particular person who
had a pretty decisive role in the development
of the reign of Joan and Violant. That person
is an interesting, fascinating figure who goes
by the name of Lucchino Scarampi. you might be
thinking to yourself that sounds like an Italian
name, and it is. Lucchino Scarampi came from
Asti, which is in the north of Italy, and in
his early years he and his brother started a
merchant business in Genoa, but then pretty quickly
he went from Genoa to the crown of Aragon, and
he kind of specialized in, I think, doing deals
that would go across this kind of this tension
between the two realms. So Genoa and the Crown
of Aragon were absolutely competitors in the
Mediterranean trade zone, and oftentimes the
governments of the Crown of Aragon or Genoa would
do things like banning the Other from doing any
kind of business in territory that they controlled.
And so Scarampi and his brother started to specialize
in helping to move products across that boundary.
And at one point, Lucchino Scarampi moves from
being just kind of a merchant and moneymaker
and deal maker to becoming something of a diplomat.
During the last decade of the reign of Pere the
Ceremonious, Joan's father, Lucchino Scarampi
was engaged by King Pere to carry out negotiations
on behalf of the Crown of Aragon for a peace
treaty between the Crown of Aragon and Genoa.
So it's a really interesting role that Lucchino Scarampi
has in that moment because he is from
Genoa in in a way. I mean Asti is pretty close
and so this is like within the region controlled
by Genoa very closely. So he's from Genoa but
there he is representing the crown of Aragon.
So he had been in the crown of Aragon for at
least 15 years at that point and had risen up
up through the ranks, had made contacts, and
become well acquainted with a lot of the leadership
in the Crown of Aragon, and with King Pere himself.
There's documentation that connects Lucchino Scarampi
to obtaining some products for the king and the
queen. And so Lucchino Scarampi was a fixture in the royal
orbit. in the last 10 years of Pere the Ceremonious'
reign. And so he is the leader of this peace
negotiation effort on the part of the Crown of
Aragon in its relations with Genoa. So then,
when Pere the Ceremonious dies, Lucchino Scarampi is
well established as an effective diplomat. and
so Joanne and Violante decide to use him for
quite a different purpose. They send him to Avignon
in order to carry out negotiations for the marriage
of their daughter to, and I think they have the
person in mind at this time that she actually
ended up marrying, which is Louis of Anjou,
who is at this point connected into the royal
family of Naples, although there's a lot of flux
around who rules Naples and who is at this moment
in line to inherit rule of the kingdom of Naples.
So it looks like Louis of Anjou is The front
runner there, gosh, he might have already actually
had it at this time, but in any event, he's the
number one target for the marriage of their daughter,
Joan and Violant's daughter. And just as a
side note, Sibilla had had a daughter with Pere,
and Sibilla had been trying to get her daughter
to marry Louis of Anjou but couldn't get that
settled, couldn't get the deal made before Père
died. And so now we just have like another example
of the transfer of Queen Sibilla's whole kind
of queenship over to Violant because now it's
Violant's daughter who's going to be entering
into that marriage negotiation. So, Lucchino Scarampi,
in these documents that we're looking at today,
is being outfitted with letters that authorize
him to convey information to the Pope. And then,
in the second document on folio 95R, we have
someone else being addressed for receiving Lucchino Scarampi
and then we've got a third letter which
appears third on folio 95 R and continues on
to folio 95 V to yet another addressee who will
be receiving Lucchino Scarampi in this matter
of trying to make a deal for the marriage of
Joan and Violant's oldest daughter to Louis
of Anjou. This, in the end, is successful, but
it's not immediately successful. I'm really starting
to understand these marriage negotiations as
very complex endeavors where it's even more difficult
than a peace treaty because in a peace treaty
you're just trying to say we're going to stop
fighting each other. And yes, you can tack on
a bunch of conditions and it can get into a quagmire
where the peace treaty never happens because
there's all these conditions tacked on. But the
marriage negotiation is, I think, a lot more
flexible in that there's this idea that there's
going to be some kind of transfer of money. property,
authority, lineage. There's all kinds of little
territories that can be added in or subtracted
into who's going to get what at the end of this
marriage. I mean at the end of the marriage negotiation.
I mean also at the end of the marriage itself.
Like they're thinking about what happens if somebody
dies and who's going to inherit. So these are
very intense, intense negotiations because you're
not only talking about two people getting together
and having a deal about getting them together,
but you're also thinking about what could happen
down the line. Because when you've got a marriage
in a royal family, you are in a sense opening
the door to future contestations for the right
to rule. Everybody's very realistic. They know
that disease or accident can lead to the untimely
death of people who are in line for inheriting
the throne and that then you can wind up in a
situation where there's two people who have kind
of an equal claim and they each rally their forces
and it can actually become a pretty terrible
civil war. And this actually does happen in the
15th century. for the Crown of Aragon, and it's
one of the reasons that Castile becomes quite
dominant in the 15th century. All right, wow,
that really spun out, but it's also important
to understand that these are very, very important
and consequential negotiations, and that when
we talk about Lucchino Scarampi being the lead
diplomat for a peace deal between the Crown of
Aragon and Genoa and then and then we talk about
how a couple years later he is in charge of doing
marriage negotiations we really should not be
seeing that as a demotion this is in fact very
likely a promotion that Lucchino Scarampi in
being trusted with leadership in this effort
is being given even more trust and authority
by Joan and Violant. Now I'm not going to
say that I'm going to 100 % with certainty make
that claim, but that's what it starts to look
like to me as I do more reading about medieval
marriages in general, and as I keep in mind what
happens next with Lucchino Scarampi. So let's flash forward
a little bit. Lucchino Scarampi continues to do more and
more deal making and merchant adventuring in
terms of financing different merchant expeditions.
His wealth grows quite a lot and he is plugged
into a pipeline of money from Genoa. So, Lucchino Scarampi
during the reign of Joan and Violant,
finds himself in a position where he is able
to supply Joan and Violant with cash. And in
exchange, Joan and Violant increasingly give
him future rights over taxes and tax collections
for different territories around the realm. So
basically what they say to him is, we're short
on cash. Hey, Scarampi, will you give us a cash
infusion? And in exchange, we're going to grant
you the right to collect the taxes for such and
such territory around the realm. or they might
just flat out take out a loan from Scarampi.
This compounds year after year. I mean there's
also interest on the loans that compounds. And
so by the time we get to the end of Joan's lifetime,
which is then the end of the reign of Joan and
Violant as king and queen of the Crown of Aragon,
Lucchino Scarampi is making a ton of money off
of Joan and Violant. He has lent them an inordinate
sum of money that then raises serious alarm bells
for many people in the realm. In the spring of
1396, Lucchino Scarampi left the crown of Aragon
and journeyed into the Pyrenees region and western
France. During that time, there was a rumor that
Scarampi was working to hire mercenary armies
to invade the crown of Aragon. Why would he do
that? That is a very, very important and mysterious
question. As Scarampi is rumored to have been
doing these things, people in the Crown of Aragon
and the leadership circles are like, it's just
a rumor, it's not true. Don't believe that, Scarampi.
He's like buddy -buddy with Joan and Violant.
He's not gonna like raise a bunch of mercenaries
in order to invade. But then it was found out
that it was not a baseless rumor, that it was
in fact true. And right as that news arrived
to the Crown of Aragon in May of 1396, that is
when Joan dies. And the story that has been generally
accepted is that Joan went out hunting, one
of his favorite pastimes, and he died through
some kind of accident on that hunting trip it's
really not clear exactly what happened it's very
possible that he had some kind of seizure or
like a stroke or something like that and it does
and no one's saying he fell off his horse that's
not the story but there's some kind of condition
some kind of affliction that hits him in May
of 1396 on a hunting trip, and he dies. He dies
without last rites, which immediately sends you
to purgatory. Well, maybe we've referred to that
a little bit in some earlier episodes, and there's
a lot that goes along with that, but we don't
have time to get into that too deeply right now.
We will later in future episodes, the implications
of Joan ending up in purgatory. Now, at that
moment, the next in line to the throne is Joan's
brother Marti, because Joan and Violant at
that time do not have any surviving male children.
Marti is in Sicily, so Maria de Luna, Marti's
wife, she... assumes leadership as Queen in a
move that's eerily parallel to what we've been
looking at with Violant showing up to Barcelona
ahead of Joan. Maria de Luna, in May of 1396,
shows up to Barcelona, takes control extremely
rapidly. Extremely rapidly. Like... Oh gosh,
I don't want to get... Alright, I'm getting conspiratorial.
Like she knew it was coming. And the rapidity,
the fastness with which all of Joan's leadership
figures are rounded up and arrested is quite
impressive. And immediately, like within 10 days
of Joan's death, a criminal proceeding is opened
up by the new queen, Maria de Luna. and an investigation
and interrogation is set down on paper, and we
still have that. It's a Proceso. We still have
that written process. And guess who everybody
points the finger at as the reason for all of
the different financial problems and all of the
misdeeds and all of the scandal? It is Lucchino Scarampi
he comes out as the number one villain,
like it was all his criminal mastermind that
kept sinking the royal family into more and more
debt, and that he was the one to blame for everything
that was going wrong in the realm. So, Lucchino Scarampi
is like criminal number one in that
moment in May of 1396. We don't know what happens
with Lucchino Scarampi in the subsequent 12 months,
but what's quite amazing to see is that by the
time we get to the summer of 1397, just about
a year later, Marti is In Barcelona, Martí has
established his reign. Things are calm and stable.
And Lucchino Scarampi is again the recipient
of tax collection privileges by King Martí. So
Lucchino Scarampi somehow wiggles out of being
criminal mastermind villain number one in May
of 1396 to the point where he's just right back
doing what he's doing, what he's been doing for
the last 25 to 30 years, which is being a wheeler,
a dealer, and a fixer, and a source of cash infusion
for the royal family of the Crown of Aragon.
Lucchino Scarampi is quite fascinating, and here
we've got a snapshot of his connection to Joan
and Violant. I just wish that we had something
really juicy in these letters that the Latin
group helped me to translate, to transcribe and
translate. I can say that they're very formulaic
and they don't really reveal a ton of secrets
at all. but there is something interesting about
the second and third letter in this little series
and I alluded to it before at the beginning when
I was talking about how we got one letter to
the pope authorizing Lucchino Scarampi to inform
the pope about the business of this marriage
negotiation and then I didn't mention any names
for the addressee of the second and third letters,
and that is because there is no specific addressee.
There's a little note at the bottom of the second
letter that reads, and then in the bottom of
the third letter this means it was sent without
a superscription it was it was sent without a
line to indicate an addressee So what's being
done here? My theory is that these are blanket
letters that Lucchino Scarampi is being given
letters that could be presented to several different
people and make it look like they were being
individually addressed. to that person. Who would
be these groups of people? I think that we're
talking about cardinals or other religious leaders,
ecclesiastical officeholders of high office,
and I have that guess because of the way that
these two letters are addressed. addressed towards
somebody who has some kind of ecclesiastical
position. The two letters are slightly different,
number two and number three, and actually Latin
group has been working on this for a month, but
we haven't gotten to the end of our work on these
three letters. And next week is when we're going
to finish our translation of letter number three,
and we're going to discuss then in detail the
subtle differences between letters one, two,
and three in this little series. And at that
point I'm going to come back to the web page
of this document and add in some additional information.
But right now, from my understanding, my understanding
is not good enough to identify why two different
letters were necessary for the generic group
addressees? Like, why would you need to have
one set of, say, their cardinals? Why would you
need to have one set of cardinals get letter
number two and another set of cardinals get letter
number three? Why is that necessary? Then at
the end of letter number three, it seems like
there's mention in another line right below the
Fuit Expedita line that there were additional
letters sent out that were kind of like the same
kind of thing. Well, is it because you're giving
them to different people? Well, why do you have
to have two different versions? These are questions
that Dr. Graham is going to help me understand,
but we didn't quite finish these in time for
today's episode, and that's just how it goes.
So there's going to be another Scarampi set
of letters, or maybe just one letter, later on
in the year. I'm thinking something around August,
so stay tuned for that, but I think we might
see Lucchino Scarampi popping up again even before
that, maybe in a Catalan language letter. We'll
see what happens. So I just want to extend my
heartfelt thanks to everybody at the University
of New Mexico Latin group, and a thank you to
Dr. Graham for all the help that he is currently
providing me with understanding the subtleties
in the Latin in these documents. And I want to
thank you for listening to this kind of extended
episode of The Historian's Notebook, Season One,
Molt Cara Companyona. And if you are leaving with
more questions than you arrived with about medieval
marriages or this Genoese loan shark named Lucchino Scarampi
, well, then I've done my job. to your
curiosity, I hope. Remember, the motto of the
Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed.
Visit the website to see an image of today's
documents 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.