WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.480 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:13.939 it was March 17th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.939 --> 00:00:17.899 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:17.899 --> 00:00:21.940 University of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:26.140 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:26.510 --> 00:00:31.570 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:34.630 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:34.630 --> 00:00:39.469 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:39.469 --> 00:00:43.810 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:10.599 All right, so today I have to fudge the rules 00:01:10.599 --> 00:01:15.299 a little bit because Yes, there is a document 00:01:15.299 --> 00:01:19.560 that is very clearly March 17th at the bottom 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:28.959 of folio 26 V of register 1751 which is one of 00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:35.819 Joan's registers the register of the a sigelli, 00:01:35.819 --> 00:01:42.180 the secret seal, and oh gosh there's a letter 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:46.439 in the middle that now that I'm looking at it 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:51.739 it's just clearly the 16th and that's yesterday 00:01:51.739 --> 00:01:54.519 so I'm going to talk about both because the middle 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:57.980 one is just so much more interesting ah yeah 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:02.670 so we're going to really focus on the middle 00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:07.409 document today but I will just point out some 00:02:07.409 --> 00:02:12.330 things about the one from actually the 17th. 00:02:12.389 --> 00:02:15.610 So actually let's let's do that first and something 00:02:15.610 --> 00:02:19.810 that I like about this particular folio is that 00:02:19.810 --> 00:02:23.990 they ran out of room at the bottom for the probata 00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:29.169 and so they took a little scrap of paper and 00:02:29.169 --> 00:02:33.969 pasted it onto the page so if you are able to 00:02:33.969 --> 00:02:39.469 look at the digitized image of this page in register 00:02:39.469 --> 00:02:43.229 1751 what you'll see is that at the bottom right 00:02:43.229 --> 00:02:50.289 corner you can clearly see the line of the scrap 00:02:50.289 --> 00:02:56.759 of paper that they pasted in and then and on 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.719 the left side the right side it's a little bit 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:02.199 more difficult to see but on the left side of 00:03:02.199 --> 00:03:05.659 that scrap of paper for the probata where they 00:03:05.659 --> 00:03:09.659 pasted it in you can see that line and then the 00:03:09.659 --> 00:03:16.879 probata extends further down below the edge of 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:22.259 the folio itself now what's additionally interesting 00:03:22.259 --> 00:03:26.900 from a material standpoint here is that you can 00:03:26.900 --> 00:03:32.139 easily see that they pasted the paper, the little 00:03:32.139 --> 00:03:37.740 additional scrap of paper, before finishing the 00:03:37.740 --> 00:03:43.840 letter. The date, the year, the Roman numerals 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:49.520 for the year 1387, the way that the scribes almost 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:56.030 always wrote the last I in Roman numerals, had 00:03:56.030 --> 00:04:00.530 a long descender below the line. And you can 00:04:00.530 --> 00:04:05.849 see how that was clearly written after the scrap 00:04:05.849 --> 00:04:08.669 of paper had been pasted onto the page. It's 00:04:08.669 --> 00:04:13.909 like a really smooth line there. And you can 00:04:13.909 --> 00:04:18.029 also see a faint, if you zoom in, you can see 00:04:18.029 --> 00:04:25.269 a faint gap where the ink has Not gone onto the 00:04:25.269 --> 00:04:30.050 very edge of that scrap of paper So there's like 00:04:30.050 --> 00:04:34.129 a faint line that you can then trace over to 00:04:34.129 --> 00:04:39.589 the bottom of the P that had the descender of 00:04:39.589 --> 00:04:46.209 the P and then also the part of the S in Secretarius 00:04:46.209 --> 00:04:52.250 that that descends far below the line so it's 00:04:52.250 --> 00:04:57.449 really cool to see how the chancery handled the 00:04:57.449 --> 00:05:01.170 situation when they realized oh boy we're not 00:05:01.170 --> 00:05:04.410 going to have enough room and they almost had 00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:07.470 enough room because if you look at the bottom 00:05:07.470 --> 00:05:11.269 of the pasted piece of paper you can see that 00:05:11.269 --> 00:05:14.889 the only part that like really ran off the length 00:05:14.889 --> 00:05:20.189 of the page was the fancy probata symbol at the 00:05:20.189 --> 00:05:28.310 very bottom But the last line reads mihi Pere 00:05:28.310 --> 00:05:33.689 de Beniures, the name of the scribe. And the 00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:36.790 descender of the P just goes a little bit beyond 00:05:36.790 --> 00:05:40.009 what would have been the edge of the page. And 00:05:40.009 --> 00:05:42.569 then pretty much everything else could have fit 00:05:42.569 --> 00:05:47.430 except that probata symbol. But you can't really 00:05:47.430 --> 00:05:52.079 have the official authorization of the document 00:05:52.079 --> 00:05:57.420 without that probata symbol. Now, an additional 00:05:57.420 --> 00:06:02.620 interesting thing is that the very bottom of 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:08.279 the probata is absent. And in this case, it looks 00:06:08.279 --> 00:06:13.699 to me like somehow it got cut off. Like there 00:06:13.699 --> 00:06:17.439 was more to this scrap of paper that had been 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:22.370 pasted in. and at some point it got ripped off 00:06:22.370 --> 00:06:27.290 or cut off with a scissors because there's no 00:06:27.290 --> 00:06:33.370 reason why the probata symbol would have been 00:06:33.370 --> 00:06:37.350 drawn in this way originally it's just clearly 00:06:37.350 --> 00:06:40.110 there was more to it if you're if you're looking 00:06:40.110 --> 00:06:43.329 at it there's no way to justify the idea that 00:06:43.329 --> 00:06:45.790 this is all they put, and that's all they had 00:06:45.790 --> 00:06:48.430 at the bottom. I really don't think so. I think 00:06:48.430 --> 00:06:51.810 there was more, and that somehow it got cut off. 00:06:52.990 --> 00:06:57.970 But maybe you could make an argument now. It's 00:06:57.970 --> 00:07:01.110 a little bit too much of a minutiae to get into 00:07:01.110 --> 00:07:05.110 more detail about there. I did want to say, though, 00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:07.870 that something is a little strange when we compare 00:07:08.279 --> 00:07:12.680 that probata at the bottom to the probata symbol 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:19.899 that appears underneath the second document on 00:07:19.899 --> 00:07:23.139 this page the one in the middle because there's 00:07:23.139 --> 00:07:27.899 a p but there's no like swirly through the p 00:07:27.899 --> 00:07:32.160 and that's very unusual so i'm not quite sure 00:07:32.379 --> 00:07:37.040 why they left it off in this situation. The person 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:41.199 who was the scribe for the middle document on 00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:45.220 this folio is the scribe that we've been seeing 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:50.639 a lot of for Joan, Pére de Beniure. And so I'm 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.399 not quite sure if there was some additional meaning 00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:56.379 attached to the fact that we have the letter 00:07:56.379 --> 00:08:02.709 P, but no typical swirl because We have at the 00:08:02.709 --> 00:08:09.949 top the very flourishing Probata P for the end 00:08:09.949 --> 00:08:16.990 of that document, which by the way is the document 00:08:16.990 --> 00:08:23.269 that I think Joan and Violant worked on together 00:08:23.269 --> 00:08:29.389 because we have the Violant scribe Bartolomeo 00:08:29.389 --> 00:08:33.549 Sirvent. as the one at the bottom of that probata. 00:08:33.809 --> 00:08:38.710 And then we have the, let's see, what can we 00:08:38.710 --> 00:08:43.769 see in there? I don't think we have anything 00:08:43.769 --> 00:08:48.610 to indicate. Well, we've got the plural, dominus. 00:08:49.870 --> 00:08:52.669 Is it, I think it, I think that's saying that 00:08:52.669 --> 00:08:55.419 both the king and the queen together. have written 00:08:55.419 --> 00:08:57.799 that document so i might need to go back and 00:08:57.799 --> 00:09:02.519 look at that one more closely in the future so 00:09:02.519 --> 00:09:05.019 yeah we're talking about three different documents 00:09:05.019 --> 00:09:08.700 today and by the way that one's from march 14th 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:12.039 the the one that ends at the top of folio 26 00:09:12.039 --> 00:09:17.080 v all right so let's talk about the sourcing 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:22.460 information for the document from March 17th, 00:09:22.460 --> 00:09:26.379 which is at the bottom of Folio 26V. It's the 00:09:26.379 --> 00:09:29.159 one that had the scrap of paper added to it. 00:09:29.379 --> 00:09:35.000 So this document is addressed to Don Pedro Bohil. 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:41.019 And at the bottom of the letter, we've got the 00:09:41.019 --> 00:09:47.450 addressee line, Pedro bohil mayordomo domini 00:09:47.450 --> 00:09:53.850 regis the the mayordomo major domo is a high 00:09:53.850 --> 00:09:58.330 up official and i'm not all that clear on what 00:09:58.330 --> 00:10:01.269 makes the mayordomo i mean it's basically like 00:10:01.269 --> 00:10:04.789 the head of the house is what it equates to in 00:10:04.789 --> 00:10:09.309 its literal translation but the actual duties 00:10:09.309 --> 00:10:12.429 of the mayordomo and the actual status in relation 00:10:12.429 --> 00:10:16.509 to other things like the chancellor or not quite 00:10:16.509 --> 00:10:21.210 sure about the dividing lines but it seems like 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:27.009 Petro Bohil is Joan's representative to the 00:10:27.009 --> 00:10:32.029 king of Castile because the letter itself is 00:10:32.029 --> 00:10:36.019 about saying thanks for the information that 00:10:36.019 --> 00:10:39.100 you've sent to me about affairs, the business 00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:44.179 of things in the foreign lands, and say hi to 00:10:44.179 --> 00:10:51.879 me for to my Molt car Frere Lo Rey, and also the 00:10:51.879 --> 00:11:00.009 prince is his nephew's. So I think this is Well, 00:11:00.009 --> 00:11:02.710 it could be in Navarre, actually, because Joan 00:11:02.710 --> 00:11:08.570 also refers to the king of Navarre as Molt car frere 00:11:08.570 --> 00:11:12.549 Lo rey. So maybe this is actually going to Navarre, 00:11:12.629 --> 00:11:18.450 which might make more sense, because he calls 00:11:18.450 --> 00:11:23.570 the children his nephews and the nebots, but 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:28.620 actually in Castile it was his sister. Who was 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:33.679 the queen? So actually, no, I think this is Castile. 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:40.100 I wish they would just say it. But okay, so then 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:43.940 everything else is just kind of general. Things 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:47.940 are going well. Pleasantries. So there's not 00:11:47.940 --> 00:11:52.340 much to this letter, and that's why I wanted 00:11:52.340 --> 00:11:55.740 to spend time fudging the rules of the podcast 00:11:55.740 --> 00:12:00.759 and and talking about the middle document on 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:04.980 folio 26v because i think that one is super interesting 00:12:04.980 --> 00:12:08.240 because we've got a specific place name and a 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:11.399 specific person who we've talked about before 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:19.320 so way back on let's see the date February 23rd 00:12:19.320 --> 00:12:23.259 on February 23rd on the podcast we talked about 00:12:24.009 --> 00:12:29.350 Isabella de Mallorca and Joan wrote a safe 00:12:29.350 --> 00:12:33.429 passage letter for her so that she could travel 00:12:33.429 --> 00:12:38.070 through the Crown of Aragon and not have to pay 00:12:38.070 --> 00:12:42.429 up to all her creditors because she had a ton 00:12:42.429 --> 00:12:46.009 of debt at this time and she wanted to come hang 00:12:46.009 --> 00:12:48.889 out in the Crown of Aragon for don't know why 00:12:48.889 --> 00:12:53.090 and she didn't want to have to you know pay her 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:56.250 creditors who were coming after her to pay up 00:12:56.250 --> 00:12:59.429 on the debts that she owed and so Joan wrote 00:12:59.429 --> 00:13:03.789 her a letter that she could present at all of 00:13:03.789 --> 00:13:07.909 the different border crossings saying that it 00:13:07.909 --> 00:13:12.990 would not be allowed for anybody who claimed 00:13:12.990 --> 00:13:17.210 to be a creditor of hers to take any of her things 00:13:17.210 --> 00:13:21.690 and then on that February 23rd document there 00:13:21.690 --> 00:13:25.490 was a little notation that extended the time 00:13:25.490 --> 00:13:29.669 period of her protection from the duration of 00:13:29.669 --> 00:13:35.149 the month of March and into the month of April. 00:13:35.590 --> 00:13:37.669 So originally the document protected her for 00:13:37.669 --> 00:13:39.750 March and then there was that notation that said 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:44.070 we're going to extend this into April and and 00:13:44.070 --> 00:13:47.649 maybe May. Oh gosh, I'm kind of starting to doubt 00:13:47.649 --> 00:13:51.509 my memory about that exactly how long the extension 00:13:51.509 --> 00:13:59.330 was for. So Isabella de Mallorca was going to 00:13:59.330 --> 00:14:04.210 arrive at the border between France and the crown 00:14:04.210 --> 00:14:08.230 of Aragon pretty soon. And we know this because 00:14:08.230 --> 00:14:13.129 this letter that Joan wrote on, it looks like 00:14:13.129 --> 00:14:18.169 the 16th of March, is addressed to the governor 00:14:18.169 --> 00:14:26.230 of Roussillon, and it says, hey, when the princess 00:14:26.230 --> 00:14:29.370 of Mallorca, Infanta de Mallorca is in the first 00:14:29.370 --> 00:14:34.629 line, when Isabella de Mallorca arrives to the 00:14:34.629 --> 00:14:38.990 border crossing at Salces, there's a fort there, 00:14:40.090 --> 00:14:45.870 write to me, let me know, and I will then be 00:14:45.870 --> 00:14:51.289 able to get affairs in order to receive her in 00:14:51.289 --> 00:14:55.549 Barcelona. And I think this is super interesting 00:14:55.549 --> 00:15:00.730 for several reasons. First of all, the fort at 00:15:00.730 --> 00:15:04.919 Salses is still standing. Now, the Wikipedia 00:15:04.919 --> 00:15:08.200 page says that it was constructed in the 15th 00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:12.000 century, so I think that the actual structure 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:19.379 that's there today was not the exact same structure 00:15:19.379 --> 00:15:24.139 that was there in the time that Isabella de Mallorca 00:15:24.139 --> 00:15:28.519 arrived in 1387. But, you know, it's Wikipedia, 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:31.480 so the exact dating might be a little bit off. 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:34.360 or it could just be that there was a significant 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:38.220 expansion of the fort in the 15th century and 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:41.220 if you go there today maybe you'll be able to 00:15:41.220 --> 00:15:46.379 see where the earlier 14th century structure 00:15:46.379 --> 00:15:50.970 was or maybe just the center part of it is from 00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:54.190 the 14th century, and then the larger surrounding 00:15:54.190 --> 00:15:56.769 additional parts of it are from the 15th century. 00:15:56.809 --> 00:15:59.629 That's pretty common. By the way, it reminds 00:15:59.629 --> 00:16:02.490 me of something, which is that if you go to the 00:16:02.490 --> 00:16:06.610 Louvre, there in the basement of the Louvre, 00:16:06.850 --> 00:16:14.129 you can see the castle that was there in the 00:16:14.129 --> 00:16:19.070 14th century. The castle where Violant definitely 00:16:19.070 --> 00:16:27.169 spent time as the resident of the royal court 00:16:27.169 --> 00:16:34.350 of Charles V. So Violant was there in that castle, 00:16:34.450 --> 00:16:37.950 and there's parts of the castle walls that still 00:16:37.950 --> 00:16:44.909 exist underneath the building that is the later, 00:16:44.909 --> 00:16:49.769 you know, 18th century, I think, structure that 00:16:49.769 --> 00:16:54.750 was built for the Louvre Palace. So that is really 00:16:54.750 --> 00:16:59.110 super interesting. So I say that in order to 00:16:59.110 --> 00:17:03.330 emphasize that for a lot of these locations in 00:17:03.330 --> 00:17:06.250 Spain and France that we're talking about, you 00:17:06.250 --> 00:17:10.130 can see pieces of what was there in the 14th 00:17:10.130 --> 00:17:13.509 century, and then later structures were built 00:17:13.509 --> 00:17:17.940 up around it. and sometimes incorporated it in 00:17:17.940 --> 00:17:21.519 later centuries so there's all over the place 00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:27.980 in these areas that were valuable as capitals 00:17:27.980 --> 00:17:32.599 or regional centers they basically built up around 00:17:32.599 --> 00:17:35.519 older structures a lot of the time and we've 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:39.279 talked about that with like mills like old mills 00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:42.579 that date from the 15th century but probably 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:46.569 have one wall remaining in the structure from 00:17:46.569 --> 00:17:48.990 the 14th century, something like that, or even 00:17:48.990 --> 00:17:54.349 earlier. Okay, so I will put a link to the Wikipedia 00:17:54.349 --> 00:17:59.869 page for the Salses Fort. It's located just a 00:17:59.869 --> 00:18:04.309 little bit north of Perpignan, and so this was 00:18:04.309 --> 00:18:07.569 like the border checkpoint between France and 00:18:07.569 --> 00:18:10.559 the Crown of Aragon at this time. And so this 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:14.339 document reveals a whole lot about travel practices 00:18:14.339 --> 00:18:18.559 for the elite. So Isabella de Mallorca would 00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:26.359 have been met by representatives from the state 00:18:26.359 --> 00:18:29.220 officials of the Crown of Aragon and might have 00:18:29.220 --> 00:18:36.039 been escorted to Barcelona. I would be overjoyed 00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:43.049 if later on in say March or April, I was able 00:18:43.049 --> 00:18:46.869 to see some other document that helps us to track 00:18:46.869 --> 00:18:51.789 the movement of Isabella de Mallorca. I also 00:18:51.789 --> 00:18:53.609 wonder if this says something about the level 00:18:53.609 --> 00:18:58.250 of trust that Joan had of Isabella de Mallorca? 00:18:58.549 --> 00:19:02.160 Like, is this person potentially a source of 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:05.099 trouble for him, and just he wants to be informed 00:19:05.099 --> 00:19:08.880 of her movement. And that's why this letter exists, 00:19:08.980 --> 00:19:12.460 and the instruction is being sent out to the 00:19:12.460 --> 00:19:17.000 governor, whose name I'm pretty sure is Pedro 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:22.619 ca Garriga. So these are just some of the questions 00:19:22.619 --> 00:19:28.799 that come up. as we are looking at this particular 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:34.180 snapshot of the relationship between Joan and 00:19:34.180 --> 00:19:37.000 Isabella de Mallorca, which has a complicated 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:41.230 history because... His father, Joan's father, 00:19:41.730 --> 00:19:46.309 would never do something this kind, I think, 00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:51.029 for Isabella de Mallorca because of the past 00:19:51.029 --> 00:19:54.710 conflict between her brother and the Crown of 00:19:54.710 --> 00:19:58.569 Aragon, which I went into detail about in the 00:19:58.569 --> 00:20:01.509 February 23rd episode. So if you're curious about 00:20:01.509 --> 00:20:06.000 that, go back and listen to that one. And thanks 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.019 for listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:20:09.019 --> 00:20:13.720 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:15.980 are leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:20:15.980 --> 00:20:20.839 with, I have done my job. Because remember, the 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:25.759 motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:30.059 guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image 00:20:30.059 --> 00:20:33.619 of today's document and additional show notes. 00:20:34.089 --> 00:20:39.650 maybe even a picture of the Salses Fort. And 00:20:39.650 --> 00:20:42.309 listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:20:42.309 --> 00:20:45.990 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:20:45.990 --> 00:20:51.269 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:20:51.269 --> 00:20:53.029 meantime, take care.