Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was March 9th, 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.
for today's document we've got a really interesting
situation of interfaith encounter and let's do
the sourcing first of all well the date is the
9th of march although it's pretty interesting
how the date is written the minimum for the i
that comes before the x went horizontal, like
it went sideways. But I think it's really clear
that this is the 9th of March. And Daniel Girona
y Llagostera, who did the itinerary for Joan,
he used this document for the 9th of March. And
so he and I are in agreement that this is not
some weird tail of the X. It is actually an i
that just went sideways. And also, I just want
to mention that although we don't really have
a lot of instances of March being spelled with
the cedilla, we might be able to get that at least
a couple times. So the way that March is spelled
in most of these documents is M -A -R -C -I.
And maybe there's two I's in there, actually.
It kind of looks like there's two I's. So...
Basically, it's in the genitive case mar -ce,
so the day of March. So the genitive case in
Latin is the equivalent of using the preposition
of in English, or possessive. It can be used
for that, too. Alright, so it's the 9th of March.
I guess all the writing to the Pope has settled
down. And now Joan can turn his attention to
some far away towns on the other side of the
Crown of Aragon. And so this particular document
is about two villages called Elx and... The
other one is called Crivillent. Both of these
towns have a significant Muslim population, and
in Latin, the Muslim district, the Aljama, it's
the same word that's used, by the way, for both
Muslims and Jews, Aljama or Aliama. The aljama
is rendered as aliamorem serresenorem, and I'm
seeing that in line four of folio 66 V. This
particular document is about economic activity
and about freedom of movement when transporting
one's goods, and specifically grain, as mentioned
here. The word blada appears two different times
on folio 66V. In folio 67R, we have the mention
of Martí. Martí is returning into the picture.
It seems like Martí might have some jurisdiction
over this particular region. It's in the province
of Alicante. And so Martí appears in the third
line of folio 67R. and he's there as Martinem,
or maybe Martina, fratris nostri carissimi, my
most dear brother. So as far as I can tell, with
the huge assistance of the large language models
continuing on in my process, using Gemini, initial
transcription, then having Claude reconcile that
against its own transcription, and then sticking
with Claude for a final translation. With all
of that help, I've been able to figure out that
it seems as though the governors of this region
have been interfering in some way with the Muslim
economic activity, maybe doing something like
charging tolls as the grain and other products
are being transported. That's something that
I could imagine happening. And it's clear also
that the Muslim Aljama has reached out to Joan
with a supplication, with a request that he intervene
in order to tell the governors to stop, to make
it so that they can proceed along with transporting
their goods without any kinds of interruptions.
And indeed, that's what Joan decides to do. He,
at the end of this document, tells the addressee,
which is the governors of this region, that they
are to no longer disturb the Muslims in their
economic activity. So here we have the king taking
the side of a Muslim community against the economic
interests of the local government. This is a
perfect example. of the concept of the royal
treasure as a way of referring to the Muslim
and Jewish communities throughout the Archive
of the Crown of Aragon. Because of the way that
Christian communities were treated under Muslim
rule as having special designation for their
taxation and regulation, when the rule changes,
when the governing authority changes from Muslim
to Christian rule, there's a lot of traditions
that move forward and are created in the initial
treaties as those transitions of power take place.
And one of the traditions that makes Iberia so
interesting is that the state the Crown of Aragon
is directly in charge of the Muslim and Jewish
communities. The Muslim and Jewish communities
are like states within the state, and they are
not subject, in terms of final authority, to
the municipal or local regional governments,
and this document is a perfect example. It also
helps to explain why resentment grew against
the Muslim and Jewish communities, a perception
on the part of the majority Christian communities
that the Muslims and Jews were getting special
treatment, and indeed they were. And the royal
family profited from this, because instead of
the taxation revenue from the Muslim and Jewish
communities going to the local municipalities
or the regional government, that money went directly
to the royal family. And so you have this situation
that in the earlier centuries might not have
really bothered anybody too much because it was
just taken for granted that, okay, there's these
different faith communities. They're going to
have different rules. That's just the way that
things have always been done. But then over time,
there gets to be a further attitude of othering
that these communities are seen as collections
of enemies within. and there's definitely instances
where all the way up until the 15th century and
way into the 15th century we see amazing cooperation.
between Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities
in different areas within the Crown of Aragon.
And then, of course, even within the same city,
you can have very different attitudes, where
there's documentation of interfaith friendships
and camaraderie, even in the midst of larger
forces that are persecuting the religious minorities
in those same cities. So it really is a patchwork,
and generalizations are impossible when it comes
to describing the interfaith encounter. You have
to really look at specific contexts and also
specific times, because when in one decade there
might have been harmony almost to fulfilling
the convivencia narrative, in another subsequent
decade, there might have been a lot of interfaith
conflict. And so really, the question is, how
are the economic ties transforming over time?
And then also, what kinds of cultural developments
or environmental developments put pressure on
these communities and the individuals in them
to either cooperate or increase distance. And
you can see this moving at different speeds and
different levels all throughout the 12th, 13th,
14th, and 15th centuries. So we have a little
snapshot from a region kind of close to Valencia.
Not quite sure in this particular document. what
Marti's role is in all of this. Maybe somehow
Marti had jurisdiction prior and now Joan has
the jurisdiction. It's also very common for Violant
to have Aljamas or Aljamas in her portfolio.
So how these all are divvied up is a question
that's really difficult to answer. But In this
instance, we clearly have the king siding with
the Muslim community against the interests of
the local authorities. So another really interesting
window into the way that the royal family divvied
up responsibilities, the larger picture of interfaith
encounter, and its connection into the finances
of the royal family of the Crown of Aragon. 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.