Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago,
it was March 16th, 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 we have a rather short document from Violant
and it's a document that carries out sort of
an administrative task which is to authorize
two people in the financial part of the royal
administration to be able to carry out their
duties. And there's really nothing specific offered
here in this letter, but I think it's more of
a general authorization of these two officials,
Jacme Estiua and Antony Rosar. The letter that
we're looking at today is in the secret seal
register and it's a little surprising to see
it placed in there because it is not exactly
looking like something all that private at all
it looks like something that really would belong
in the commune register or the curia register
it just doesn't seem to be like you know for
any reason requiring the secret seal other than
maybe giving these officials a little bit more
of a serious official level to their commission
here the letter basically says we've got these
two officials that have to do with the financial
administration of the kingdom. And if you are
reading this letter, it means you need to give
them all of the credential, all of the credence
that is accorded to somebody who has been authorized
to speak on the Queen's behalf. So it's pretty
straightforward. And I think this is also an
opportunity to do an interesting comparison to
when Violant had given the credentials for Luchino
Scarampi to go to Avignon to negotiate the marriage
of her daughter, Yolande of Aragon, because this
also has a note on the bottom left that indicates
the letters had no addressee so here again we
see the phrase sine supra scriptionibus without
any subscription without any writing on the front
of the letter So remember that the outgoing letter,
and this is the copy of it that we have here
in the Chancery register, the actual outgoing
letter would be folded and then on the blank
side that would be visible after the folding,
that's where the addressees name would be written.
Now here the phrase at the bottom that ends with
sine superscriptionibus it begins with eciam alie
and then the Roman numeral three and then a word
that is a little perplexing because it looks
almost exactly like the abbreviation for letra
L -R -E with a swirly line of a macron. That's
what you usually see when you see the abbreviation
for letra or litere. But then prior to that word,
we've got what looks like an S. And I wonder
if this is a way of actually creating the plural,
but it is so weird to try to figure out what
is happening with this word maybe it's a different
word than just letter literas for the plural
of letters but i mean the next word is fuerunt
which is the plural for uh were were sent out
so were so fuerunt is uh the the past tense for
uh S. Oh my gosh, it's so bad. I'm forgetting
the infinitive Latin for the verb to be. Oh,
am I just embarrassing myself with all of this
Latin? Oh my gosh. Well, we're just about giving
it our best try here on the Historian's Notebook.
All right, so what we have in the letter itself
that is basically being sent out just for anybody
to look at. Why do you need four of them? Why
do you need four? Or, I'm sorry, why you need
three? Why, when there's two people mentioned?
That's an interesting question. I don't quite
understand why, with only two people referred
to in the letter itself, why you would need to
have three copies. in case they lose one? I don't
know. But that is a question that just popped
into my head as I was recording right now. So
the people are given titles in this letter. our
procurator, our general procurator in this realm.
So that pretty clearly references Aragon. So
the procurator general for Aragon. And then Anthony
Rosar is Nostra Tresoreria, our treasurer. So
These are pretty high up officials, and interestingly
it seems like there might be more than one treasurer,
because I think I've seen someone else's name
listed as treasurer, but maybe they were just
changing their... their... roles around in the
early days of the realm, but I'm pretty sure
you only really get to have one treasurer. Otherwise
you might get your books confused. And then in
the third, well let's start from the end of the
second line, but really in the third line we
have the kinds of of business that they're going
to be involved in. So the end of starting from
the end of the second line, sobre co emolument
is actually a cognate so it's any of the financial
revenues and there's in a little bit of US history,
there's this emoluments clause in the Constitution
about the restriction on members of the executive
branch seeking out emoluments. That's kind of
like a big word for the late 18th century political
theorists who came up with the constitution and
the federalist papers really just fearing that
the the the politicians not just the executive
branch ones but the politicians would be motivated
by emoluments which is basically like a word
for bribes so here we're not talking about bribes
in this letter from Violant it's just the revenue
you can see you could i think really dependably
Think of this word as meaning the revenues the
financial streams of our chamber Cumbra now this
category is one that I'm really hazy on and I
would need to look more at the work of LIedo Ruiz
Domingo about this one because she's done an
excellent job of explaining the economics of
royal families, and I think in her book, the
Tresor de la Reina, I think she would be able
to lay out the difference between the different
categories within the budget of the royal family.
And my guess is that this is When we say Nostra
Cambra, we're talking about funds that are going
to be going more directly to Violant for her
own spending. Our chamber. That's kind of what
it makes me think of. You can also kind of associate
this with maybe the governmental role of a chamberlain
or something like that. So that's the best I
got for a cambra right now. If I find out a little
bit more I'll add it into the web page for today's
episode. Then I want to take an opportunity to
alert everybody to a stock phrase that appears
in a lot of letters from royalty or political
elites in the Middle Ages which comes at the
end of line three and then goes a little bit
into line four and that is manam. So these three
words are really used a whole lot and often they're
separated out. Like there might be a whole clause
of pregam and then such and such and then volem
with a few words and then manam. They might be
in separate sentences. They might be spread out
throughout a letter, but here they're nicely
in their group of three, and this is a set of
words that is conventional for when the monarch
or other elite person who has the power to command
is saying that their their authority is expected
to be acknowledged and their will is expected
to be done. So And it's a blanket group of three
verbs that covers all of the varying levels of
customary address. So if somebody is a little
bit, you know... feeling like they don't want
to be just simply commanded that they deserve
because of their status to have it requested,
then they get to focus on the pregam, we request.
If somebody is really wanting to make sure that
the monarchs are very intentional about what
they're are wanting the recipient to do then
they're going to focus on volem, we will this
thing to happen and then if there's any question
about whether you get to choose to follow what's
in the letter then you have manam and that is
we command. So we request, we will, we command.
These are the three verbs that are often put
together in a lot of the different vernaculars
in the Middle Ages and because Latin was connecting
all of these different realms and then influencing
the vernaculars, we have consistency. these three
words over a very wide geographical area with
vernaculars that can be very difficult to kind
of trans... oh gosh, what am I trying to say?
The vernaculars can be very different from each
other, but these three words you will see them
all over the place. I'm also getting better at
the understanding I'm building about some of
the apparatus around the letter that we see all
the time so after the year 1387 in roman numerals
at the very end of the letter we've got a capital
v and then we've got some kind of abbreviation
mark above it kind of off to the right a little
bit and then we have de ponte that oh gosh is
it a b it could actually at the beginning it
might be the letter b it could be something like
but or not de ponte if it's a v it could be vidit
which is often how the scholars who've done some
transcriptions of these will expand that first
and if it's a v they'll expand it vidit so saying
something like it was seen by and then the person
and then de ponte is a name so there's somebody
else that's involved and i'm trying to figure
out what their role is and how they relate to
the scribe who is taking credit in the probata
in this case shadow okay in this case we have
bartolomeo servant which and that is violon's
primary scribe Bartodomeo Sirvent, and his
name is the first thing that appears in the probata.
So who is de Ponte? Sometimes in this space,
right after the year, we actually have la reina,
or for Joan we have Rex Iohannes. We also have
people that have been identified as like the
vice chancellor. and so we've got names there,
and sometimes there's nothing. So what is that
function? And I do have a guess. I have a guess
like when it's when it's Rex Iohannes or La Reyna,
then it might indicate that they personally signed
that letter, although What they signed and how
they signed it is a question that I am very alert
to because of that one letter From a while ago
when Joan says he was not able to write his
signature So I'm still trying to figure out exactly
what that indicates when we have a name following
the year in the very last part of the letter
itself and then In the probata we've got something
very long and it's a little bit difficult to
figure out all the abbreviations. There is some
recognizable stuff to me. And so we start out
with Bartolomeo Sirvent, then we have the abbreviation
for Mandavit, commanded by, and then we have
Domina Regina. And it's interesting because it
doesn't seem to have the A that's usually after
Regina. That's the first line. That is all readable
to me. The second line, I don't know what's being
abbreviated there. I know, Shadow, it's frustrating.
We don't know what it is. But it could be some
sort of like fuerunt. Looks like an F. And then
we have Per. And then we have regentis, I think,
or regentere. And then the abbreviation that
comes next with that capital T is for treasurer.
Now I can't quite figure out exactly what form
of the word treasurer is being used here. Treserorem,
I don't know. It looks like there's the abbreviation
for the S -E -R. r for sure might be a v in there
the last word is definitely a used them and then
the third line begins with something that i really
don't know an abbreviation there maybe something
like esser est and then we have a foo it and
then we've got a ta or a ca and then we've got
in and then hawk and then we've got something
that begins with F maybe Fuerent again so all
of that put together something that has to do
with well maybe this was also in the treasury
records is what this might be saying but that's
the best I got for right now. Thank you for listening
to this episode of the Historian's Notebook season
one Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving
with more questions than you arrived with, I
have done my job because the motto of the Historian's
Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. You'll
definitely feel that if you are looking for good
information about Latin. Maybe less dissatisfaction
as the year goes on? Hopefully. 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.