WEBVTT 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.400 Hello. In The Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:11.960 it was March 15th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:15.580 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:19.460 University of New Mexico. And this is The Historian's 00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:24.039 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:28.780 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:28.780 --> 00:00:31.660 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:31.660 --> 00:00:36.079 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:36.079 --> 00:00:39.799 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's 00:00:39.799 --> 00:01:07.629 document. Today's document, well, it's actually 00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:14.430 a pair of letters that Joan has composed in order 00:01:14.430 --> 00:01:20.769 to do some law enforcement in Valencia. So the 00:01:20.769 --> 00:01:26.290 people who are mentioned in this letter, both 00:01:26.290 --> 00:01:28.329 these letters on the first line of each letter, 00:01:29.010 --> 00:01:35.640 are the Portantveus de Governador. of the Kingdom 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:42.260 of Valencia. The role of a portantveus de governador 00:01:42.260 --> 00:01:47.920 is not clear to me, but it's some kind of official 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:52.840 that is connected to the office of the governor, 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:57.900 some kind of law enforcement person, I guess, 00:01:58.219 --> 00:02:01.579 because what's described in both of these letters 00:02:01.579 --> 00:02:10.569 is pursuit of criminals. So in the second line 00:02:10.569 --> 00:02:16.229 of the first letter, at the very end, it says 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:26.319 Then also in the second line of the second letter 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:31.520 we have at the end Dei diverses e enormes crims. 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:37.479 So this is basically saying there's a lot of 00:02:37.479 --> 00:02:43.159 crimes Like very diverse and enormous and it's 00:02:43.159 --> 00:02:47.659 pretty clear to me after tangling with this for 00:02:47.659 --> 00:02:51.879 a while that these are financial crimes And the 00:02:51.879 --> 00:02:55.080 reason, I have two reasons for that. First of 00:02:55.080 --> 00:03:00.280 all, in the second letter, we have a name in 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:03.620 the, what is it, one, two, three, four, fifth 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:11.229 line, Julia Garrius, or Julia Garius. Julia Garius 00:03:11.229 --> 00:03:14.750 is somebody that is with Joan for his entire 00:03:14.750 --> 00:03:17.409 reign, might have actually been working for him 00:03:17.409 --> 00:03:20.849 before. I'm not sure where he was before the 00:03:20.849 --> 00:03:23.949 start of the reign of Joan and Violant, but 00:03:23.949 --> 00:03:26.569 he is with them the whole time in the treasury. 00:03:27.069 --> 00:03:33.830 And he is actually named as one of the principal... 00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:41.969 Oh gosh. malfeasance in the aftermath of Joan's 00:03:41.969 --> 00:03:47.210 death in 1396 when Maria de Luna opens up a criminal 00:03:47.210 --> 00:03:51.849 investigation into Joan's advisors. And I mean, 00:03:52.009 --> 00:03:54.909 in fact, you know, it's, it's also Violant's 00:03:54.909 --> 00:03:57.949 advisors too. So one of the people that we've 00:03:57.949 --> 00:04:02.020 seen a lot of in the documents in the podcast 00:04:02.020 --> 00:04:04.960 for Violant is Bartolomeo Sirvent. And I was 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:07.879 just looking at something the other day. And 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:11.300 the criminal investigation against Joan's 00:04:11.300 --> 00:04:14.819 advisors after his death in 1396 came up and 00:04:14.819 --> 00:04:16.699 I was looking at that and I was like, oh my gosh, 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:20.639 Bartolomeo Sirvent is in there. And so a lot 00:04:20.639 --> 00:04:26.009 of the people who were in this role as scribes 00:04:26.009 --> 00:04:30.490 were also, I think, seen as having some power 00:04:30.490 --> 00:04:35.569 and being influential enough so that when, after 00:04:35.569 --> 00:04:39.689 the death of Joan, people are looking for 00:04:39.689 --> 00:04:45.529 someone to punish for financial misdeeds or bad 00:04:45.529 --> 00:04:50.529 policy, they include people like Bartolomeo Sirvent. 00:04:51.689 --> 00:04:54.949 They also include the people who were in charge 00:04:54.949 --> 00:04:59.949 of the finances, and in 1396 that is identified 00:04:59.949 --> 00:05:05.069 as Julia Garrius. So there are, oh and Esperandeu 00:05:05.069 --> 00:05:09.870 Cardona is another one of them, but Julia Garrius 00:05:09.870 --> 00:05:14.870 is one that gets a lot of blame for financial 00:05:14.870 --> 00:05:19.790 misdeeds having to do with how he managed the 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:23.860 treasury. in especially the last couple years 00:05:23.860 --> 00:05:27.259 of Joan's reign. But here we are at the very 00:05:27.259 --> 00:05:34.079 beginning of Joan's reign, and now Julia Garrius 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:41.100 is part of trying to apprehend the criminals 00:05:41.100 --> 00:05:48.000 who have done some kind of financial crime. And 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:52.779 the way that this is phrased in the letters here, 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:58.060 these two letters, is that they have done something 00:05:58.060 --> 00:06:04.420 to Nostra Fisc. And when I say that in, you know, 00:06:04.779 --> 00:06:09.360 aloud, you're probably thinking, oh, F -I -S 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:13.720 -C, as in fiscal, and that then connects to financial 00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:18.470 things. But guess what? In these documents, the 00:06:18.470 --> 00:06:22.250 scribe, Père de Basant, has decided to spell 00:06:22.250 --> 00:06:29.370 it P -H -I -S -C -H. So that I initially thought 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:32.689 we were talking about something physical. Like, 00:06:33.149 --> 00:06:35.769 when I saw the phrase, you know, that it was 00:06:35.769 --> 00:06:41.050 something that had been against De Nostre Fisc, 00:06:41.149 --> 00:06:45.149 I thought it was more like Physique. And so I 00:06:45.149 --> 00:06:46.810 went down this whole thing of like, oh my gosh, 00:06:46.910 --> 00:06:50.370 it's like Joan pursuing somebody who injured 00:06:50.370 --> 00:06:54.949 him bodily. But nope. No, no, no. It is fiscal. 00:06:55.189 --> 00:06:59.149 And so the reason that I'm feeling pretty sure 00:06:59.149 --> 00:07:04.470 about that is because the P-H was interchangeable 00:07:04.470 --> 00:07:11.970 with the F in a lot of the scribal record. And 00:07:11.970 --> 00:07:16.889 then also Julia Garrius is well known as someone 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:20.829 who was involved in the management of finances 00:07:20.829 --> 00:07:25.730 for the royal family during the reign of Joan 00:07:25.730 --> 00:07:30.889 and Violant. So why are there two letters? Yeah, 00:07:31.170 --> 00:07:35.230 that's a toughie, actually, because, you know, 00:07:36.069 --> 00:07:42.370 if you're looking at the way that these are starting 00:07:42.370 --> 00:07:47.649 out... They're really similar. So one of them 00:07:47.649 --> 00:08:05.069 starts out The other one starts out So basically, 00:08:05.889 --> 00:08:09.730 there's some kind of plural you being addressed 00:08:09.730 --> 00:08:13.569 here, like maybe a group of officials, but I 00:08:13.569 --> 00:08:17.649 looked around on the folio and I couldn't exactly 00:08:17.649 --> 00:08:21.529 find out from the what's up later on the folio 00:08:21.529 --> 00:08:24.709 and then also what came before on the previous 00:08:24.709 --> 00:08:29.250 folio a determination about exactly who this 00:08:29.250 --> 00:08:32.970 is being sent to. I think we can pretty much 00:08:32.970 --> 00:08:38.779 infer that officials in Valencia are going to 00:08:38.779 --> 00:08:42.399 be the ones that are receiving this. All of this 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:46.379 pretty much boils down to, hey, you've got some 00:08:46.379 --> 00:08:50.340 financial criminals running around there in Valencia, 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:58.700 and you should apprehend them and also get them 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:04.620 to explain what they have done. So it seems to 00:09:04.620 --> 00:09:09.279 me like the key phrases well the key verb is 00:09:09.279 --> 00:09:14.980 anotar so anotar shows up in the first letter 00:09:14.980 --> 00:09:21.039 in line one two three four five and actually 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.759 when i'm giving these line numbers i'm not counting 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:27.519 lo rex at the beginning so sorry about that 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:30.480 if that's caused confusion but yeah usually i 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:34.620 i start the line numbering When I'm just talking 00:09:34.620 --> 00:09:38.200 about it like this from the first like full line 00:09:38.200 --> 00:09:40.779 Although technically I should not be doing that. 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:47.320 So maybe I'll stop Oh gosh Anyway, so we've got 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:52.779 in line five This phrase before that it comes 00:09:52.779 --> 00:09:59.600 before the fisc right and it says que en anotar 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:02.879 lo and then a word that is really hard to figure 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:07.679 out because it's abbreviated and also this particular 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:13.860 scribe is not conventional when he's using the 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:16.919 abbreviations for the with the letter p like 00:10:16.919 --> 00:10:23.059 sometimes his abbreviation for per is something 00:10:23.059 --> 00:10:26.799 that would look from other scribes like a pro 00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:31.669 but i'm pretty sure this is a pro abbreviation 00:10:31.669 --> 00:10:35.570 pro and then it looks like we've got something 00:10:35.570 --> 00:10:42.529 like a ci and then an n and then the abbreviation 00:10:42.529 --> 00:10:46.230 mark above which could be any number of letters 00:10:46.230 --> 00:10:49.450 so gosh probably figure this out later and like 00:10:49.450 --> 00:10:53.009 kick myself and resist the temptation to come 00:10:53.009 --> 00:10:56.470 back into the recording and, like, insert into 00:10:56.470 --> 00:10:58.950 the audio recording what this word actually is. 00:10:59.210 --> 00:11:01.649 But it's something. I mean, it's something like 00:11:01.649 --> 00:11:09.909 to annotate, to list, to expose the particulars 00:11:09.909 --> 00:11:16.230 of what happened to the fisc, to the finances, 00:11:16.909 --> 00:11:23.580 and That's the nature of the diverse and enormous 00:11:23.580 --> 00:11:30.159 crimes. So it seems to me that Joan is telling 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:35.019 the officials to do what they probably are already 00:11:35.019 --> 00:11:41.059 incentivized to do, which is to apprehend these 00:11:41.059 --> 00:11:45.659 financial criminals. But I think this anotar 00:11:45.980 --> 00:11:50.960 which is also in the fourth line of the second 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:54.519 document. I think that that is important here. 00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:59.519 I think Joan is looking for some kind of itemization 00:11:59.519 --> 00:12:05.159 of what the crimes were. It's perhaps an effort 00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:11.919 to understand something financial, which is something 00:12:11.919 --> 00:12:14.799 I'd be interested to know if Joan had that. 00:12:14.940 --> 00:12:19.899 desire to understand financial records. I have 00:12:19.899 --> 00:12:24.340 seen nothing to suggest that he had any interest 00:12:24.340 --> 00:12:27.639 in that at all. And in fact, I've seen a lot 00:12:27.639 --> 00:12:31.220 to suggest that he was quite indifferent to the 00:12:31.220 --> 00:12:35.600 details of financial management. But if we're 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:40.059 seeing a break in that pattern with this particular 00:12:40.059 --> 00:12:42.379 set of documents, that would be interesting. 00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:46.720 All right still trying to hone in on the question 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:52.279 of why there are two Why there are two documents 00:12:52.279 --> 00:12:57.100 and Well, one of them includes the name of Julia 00:12:57.100 --> 00:13:00.259 Garrius the second one and the first one does 00:13:00.259 --> 00:13:07.539 not so one recipient one set of recipients is 00:13:08.299 --> 00:13:11.700 Meeting up, connecting to Julia Garrius, and 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:14.779 then the other set of recipients is maybe outside 00:13:14.779 --> 00:13:20.179 of that loop. And they're maybe, I don't know, 00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:24.299 more like on the ground. And then they're going 00:13:24.299 --> 00:13:27.980 to turn over the criminals once they find them 00:13:27.980 --> 00:13:32.519 to the higher -ups that are the recipients of 00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:35.059 the second document. I don't know. That just 00:13:35.059 --> 00:13:38.090 seems so... out on a limb, as I'm saying that, 00:13:38.649 --> 00:13:43.149 and something that has to do with the way that 00:13:43.149 --> 00:13:47.090 these letters start, where one of them is sapiats quel 00:13:47.090 --> 00:13:55.389 and the other starts with ja sabets. You know with. 00:13:56.429 --> 00:14:03.980 Gosh. So I am doing a intensive seminar in medieval 00:14:03.980 --> 00:14:08.620 Catalan in August and this is exactly the kind 00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:12.700 of thing that I am gonna ask like what is happening 00:14:12.700 --> 00:14:17.500 with these phrases how is their meaning different 00:14:17.500 --> 00:14:22.259 because to me they sort of amount to the same 00:14:22.259 --> 00:14:27.440 thing it's basically just communicating you know 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:37.009 that the Portantveus de Governador is carrying 00:14:37.009 --> 00:14:44.590 out this investigation. So I will have to put 00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:49.129 a pin in this until I guess August, but I feel 00:14:49.129 --> 00:14:53.070 like something about the Catalan grammar might 00:14:53.070 --> 00:14:57.700 be a clue to who the different intended recipients 00:14:57.700 --> 00:15:03.379 are for these two letters, and why one of them 00:15:03.379 --> 00:15:08.100 includes Julia Garrius in its content, and then 00:15:08.100 --> 00:15:13.940 the other one does not. And otherwise they are 00:15:13.940 --> 00:15:20.610 just pretty similar letters. Okay, so... Thank 00:15:20.610 --> 00:15:25.590 you for listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:30.090 Notebook, Season 1, Mult Cara Companyona. If 00:15:30.090 --> 00:15:32.470 you are leaving with more questions than you 00:15:32.470 --> 00:15:36.309 arrived with, and you're just really burning 00:15:36.309 --> 00:15:40.149 to know about that answer about medieval Catalan 00:15:40.149 --> 00:15:46.190 and Sapiats versus Sabets, well, I have done 00:15:46.190 --> 00:15:50.470 my job. Because remember, the motto of the historian's 00:15:50.470 --> 00:15:54.409 notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. But who 00:15:54.409 --> 00:15:57.110 knows, if you check back and look at the webpage 00:15:57.110 --> 00:16:01.909 for this particular document in August, maybe 00:16:01.909 --> 00:16:05.690 I will have updated it with some additional knowledge, 00:16:05.769 --> 00:16:09.149 and you'll at least have some satisfaction about 00:16:09.149 --> 00:16:14.370 that question on Medieval Catalan. So visit the 00:16:14.370 --> 00:16:17.019 website. to see an image of today's document 00:16:17.019 --> 00:16:21.440 and additional show notes. And listen again tomorrow 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:24.419 to hear about the next day in the first year 00:16:24.419 --> 00:16:29.100 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:16:29.100 --> 00:16:32.960 Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take care.