Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was March 5th, 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.
Today's document takes us back to the mystery
of Joan's health. It's not a document by Joan.
It's a document, a letter written by Violant.
So the recipient of this letter is addressed
in the first line as Molt Car Oncle. Violante's
uncles are powerful people because, well, one
of her uncles was King of France, Charles V.
Charles V, he is no longer alive. It's currently
Charles VI that is the, well, the King in name,
but Charles VI was very young when his father
died, and so two of Violant's uncles have been
ruling France as regents. One is the duke de
Berry, and then another is the addressee of this
letter, the duke of Burgundy, also known as Philip
the Bold. So these two uncles of Violant's are
in many ways co -ruling France at this time,
and really they've got about one more year of
doing this, and then Charles VI becomes old enough
to actually wrest control from his uncles. It
was not a smooth handover of power as Charles
VI became old enough to assert his own authority.
But that's in the future, that's in 1388, and
right now we're still very firmly in a state
of affairs where the duke de Berri and the duke
of Burgundy are really the rulers of France.
And that's who Violant is writing to in this
letter. There's a lot of very nice just sort
of courtesies in this letter saying oh I'm asking
you about your health and hope everything is
going great with you but then we get into some
interesting territory and remember the date of
this letter is March 5th all right so when we
get into let's see line five we have this line
about and it reads and then we've got some damage
to the document something like hold on wait That's
what it's supposed to be And then we've got some
interesting abbreviations I think So what this
is saying is that is convalescing, and he's almost
done with it. He's almost done with convalescing
from his illness, de sa malaltia. And then there's
the hope, espera, se espera, that in a short
time, I think that might... Gosh, that word is
a very tricky one. It looks like it's something
like C -E -R with a macron above it for abbreviation.
But maybe it's actually something more like tempore.
I'm not sure. But in a short something, he's
expected to be perfect. All right. What illness
is this referring to? Is it the illness that
struck Joan in January? Because, I mean, now
we're, like, over a month after that initial
onset, and is he still convalescing? That seems
odd, but maybe illnesses just lingered longer?
during this time, and we do have that document
from the middle of February, in which Joan is
not able to sign his own name. So maybe this
is a very long recovery. But then we had another
another letter from Violant saying that Joan
is no longer in peril. And that was on February
18th, which is Yeah, still a ways away from this
still convalescing message. So it is just so
interesting to see when mention of Joan's illness
happens and how it's phrased and how it's always
this like positive spin, like, oh, he's out of
peril. Oh, he's convalescing. He's going to be
perfect really soon. What is the actual state
of affairs for Joan's health? It is like just
a constant effort, I think, that Violant is
making to maintain a view of Joan's body as
strong, right? And I'm alluding to, of course,
that King's, that idea of King's two bodies that
was so powerful in the Middle Ages, and has been
explained by that foundational work by Ernst
Kantorowicz, which I'll again refer to in the
bibliography on this episode's webpage. But yeah,
so I mean, it's really hard to figure out whether
there's new illnesses or whether this is just
one long, lingering troublesome illness where
Violant is just trying to put a positive spin
on it and of course it's not just like the desire
to maintain power but it's also I think legitimately
her hope that okay this week is the week that
Joan is going to no longer have that lingering
illness that it really is going to look better
after after this week so Yeah, it's definitely
a both -and situation. I think it's clear from
this letter that word has spread far and wide
that Joan has some kind of sickliness about
him. And so we also see in this letter, I think,
a level of damage control. But then we're starting
to approach April where we have that real bold
letter that Josep Roca has identified initially
and other historians have gravitated toward that
admits that Joan was given last rites, that talks
about how there's a suspicion that someone used
sorcery in order to strike him with this grave
illness. That is all outlined in a letter in
April, and so what we're really looking out for
is some indication of whether this is just one
long convalescence, and we're just seeing another
mention of it here, or whether there's been some
real ups and downs, like whether we can say that
Joanne fully bounced back at the end of January,
and then got hit again with some other illness,
maybe around this time in March, or maybe later
on in April, that's what we're really looking
for here. But what we can also see is Violant
maintaining the front of strength and talking
about her seynor nostre molt car, your most dear
lord, and referring to Joan with tenderness
for sure. But is it more than just the expected
formula of tenderness. We're looking out for
that, too. One other mystery in this letter,
and it really is unfortunate that the worms had
their way with this page, because there's a word
that's been blocked out by some of the damage,
and it's in line seven. Right in the middle,
there's a signora. mentioned. Signora Nostra
and then this is where the damage is. It looks
like the letter M and then the damage and then
RA. Signora Nostra blank mult reverent. So someone
else is making their appearance in this letter,
and it's someone who is definitely worthy of
a high level of honor, and it's a woman, a signora.
So it's, you know, not too frequently that we
see women mentioned in these letters, and so
I am super curious to know who is being referred
to here. The chatbots are leaning towards this
being a reference to Violant's own mother, and
I'm not quite sure because of the reverent. I
would expect it to be Violant's mother if it
was Molt Cara, right? Signora Nostra something
Molt Cara. So I'm not quite sure who is being
referred to here. I'll just keep mulling. on
that, and hopefully be able to figure that out
at some future point. All right, let's see. What
else can we say about about this? I think what
we've got is just a lot of pleasantries, the
usual pleasantries. There's just a lot of general
statements of I hope you're doing very well,
and may, you know, the Lord keep you strong,
blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I'm trying to think if
there's anything I can pull out of here that
is beyond just a whole lot of well wishes, general
well wishes, but I think that's that's pretty
much what we have. And all of the matters that
that might have inspired Violante the day before
and on the folio prior to this one to call Ramon
de Perellos's back from Avignon. We're not quite
seeing any mention of this. This letter written
to the Duke de Burgundy on the next day seems
like just a kind of run -of -the -mill check
-in. Oh, I did want to mention what appears below.
This is an interesting moment. Maybe it's an
indication that the Chancery scribes are still
getting used to the new routines in this new
reign, because what we see below this letter
is a new letter addressed to Rey muy caro e muy
amado hermano. that's usually how Violant addresses
the king of Castile. And then we have Nos la
reyna d'aragon, and then sending, you know,
wishes for much health. And then in the middle
of the second line, it just kind of drops off.
And the little note on the left is indicating
that this letter actually in another register
and so the scribe started to write down the next
letter and then realize oops wait this goes someplace
else and exactly where it goes that is really
hard to read because it looks like we've got
scrito in the second line of that little note
on the left and it and and then what has been
written about the letter's destination has been
marred by the damage from the worms or the insects.
So it's hard to figure out exactly where this
letter was actually written, but it is funny
to note that they just kind of left it there.
They didn't really bother to like do any strike
throughs. They're just like, oopsie, and just
kind of moved on to the next thing. 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've done my job. 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.