WEBVTT

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Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,

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it was March 18th, 1387. My name is Jonathan

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Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the

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University of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's

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Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made.

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Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're

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looking at a document from each day of the first

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year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and

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Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's

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document. If your name was Ferriol Forner and

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you lived in the town of San Marti de Saroca

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in 1387, you were in big trouble. Really big

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trouble. Because the Queen of the Crown of Aragon

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wrote a letter about you to the town's bailiff

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and said that you, Ferriol Forney, were to be

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apprehended and brought to Barcelona. Today's

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document is in the Varia Register for Violant

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and it actually doesn't state a seal level, which

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is weird. There's a couple weird things about

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this document, actually, and it is really one

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that causes a lot of questions to come up about

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how the Chancery operated. First of all, there's

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a name in the scribal notation that I do not

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recognize the first time that I am seeing at

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least well I might have seen it before but forgot

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about it it's the first time I'm seeing Andres

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Granelli or possibly Andres Gravelli and it's

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not one of Violant's usual scribes I was looking

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around at the different folios around this and

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I don't see that name coming up a whole lot don't

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know where Bartolomeo Sirvent is. I don't know

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why we are still entering things into the Varia

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register. Or maybe, you know, this one is just

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like, I don't know where it's supposed to go.

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So they just threw it into the Varia register.

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I mean, there's still a lot more folios left

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in the Varia register. So they keep Varia going

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on, even though it's really clear that stuff

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that went into the Varia register. in the beginning

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of that book those things like secret seal things

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they are now going to be going into register

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2053 that we've been looking at a little bit

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already the one that we kind of started out at

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the very beginning looking at the initial pages

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So they're kind of getting their act together

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in terms of being good about separating things

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out into the different registers and where they're

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supposed to go. But this is the first time I

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think that I've seen a document that does not

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have a seal level in the dating clause. So the

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last sentence is datem in Barchinona a and then

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18th dies de mars del anni de la nativita de

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Nostra Senor and then the year date. So it doesn't

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say what seal level this letter is. The date

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itself is unusual. It's not rare, but it's just

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not how they usually do it. Because often, you'll

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have, I mean, like, I don't know, like in almost

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all the documents we've been looking at, you

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for the, for the number 1000 in the year, they

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just have the letter M. But Andres Gravelli wanted

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to spell out M -I -L for 1000. and then he does

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ccc then he does lxxx and that brings us to 1380

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and then you got to add the seven and what we're

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used to seeing is a letter v and two i's for

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the roman numeral for seven but this scribe instead

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wrote set for the word seven and It just kind

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of goes to show how there were different kinds

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of practices or tics that the different scribes

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had. And some scribes just love to use the word

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for the last number of the year. Some scribes

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like to spell things out in weird places instead

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of using Roman numerals. They clearly know the

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Roman numerals because they mix it up. I have

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seen, I can't remember what it was, but I think

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I have seen at some point in earlier work before

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the podcast, a scribe spelling out everything,

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like just not wanting to use Roman numerals.

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So that does exist. That is, I think, rare. at

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least for the reign of Joan and Violant.

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So, Andres Gravelli is writing the year in his

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own idiosyncratic way, and then we see some different

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Latin words used in the probata, and unfortunately

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damage to the paper has made it more difficult

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to figure out What is being conveyed there? If

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we're looking at the probata Andres Gravelli

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and then Gosh, what is this next thing? It looks

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like NIA Which could be something like Nostra

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Maybe and then it seems that we have De Regina

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so it could be like Our Lady queen. So you'd

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have Domina, Regina, Our Lady, Queen. But Nostra,

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it's not the Latin form there. So it looks like

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N -I -A also. So I'm not quite sure what that's

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saying. And then we've got that abbreviation

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with the F. That is one that I haven't quite

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figured out yet. It could be FUIT. Not sure.

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And then we have add that one is very clear and

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then we've got something that looks like r i

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o but that is not an i in the middle it's something

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else it's something like r t o there's two abbreviations

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on top of it oh no wait the g is got a long kind

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of leftward part to it, so I think it's just

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one abbreviation mark. And I yeah, I'm not quite

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sure what this is, and then we've got another

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array geese. And then we've got treasurer. Treces,

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I don't even know it. Tresesorio or something

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like that. This is, when you see that capital

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T and then you've got like a bunch of abbreviation

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after it, chances are it's treasurer in English.

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So the royal treasurer, you could say. So I'm

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not quite sure who Andres Gravelli is saying

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that he is, but... He's connected to the treasury,

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and yeah, not quite sure. Now, content in this

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letter is also interesting. Oh, we're not quite

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done with the sourcing, though, because the way

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that Andres Gravelli has decided to start the

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letter is quite unusual, because we have Yolant

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at the beginning. That's not unusual. That's

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for Violant. But then we have Per la Gracia

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de Déu, By the Grace of God, Queen of Aragon.

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Again, not too unusual, but what gets really

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unusual is that there's all these names, these

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place names. Queen of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca,

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Cerdanya, Corsica. and the countess of Barcelona

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and Roussillon and Cerdanya, that length of spelling

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all that out is unusual. Usually they're just

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like, we don't need to write all that out, we'll

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just do et cetera. And I'm not quite sure why

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Andres Gravelli felt the need to do that. Maybe

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he was just like excited because he got to write

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in the register and hardly ever gets to do that.

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So he's like, I'm just going to stretch this

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out as much as I can because I love the fact

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that I get to do this. I really like that theory.

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Yeah, Shadow likes that theory, too. I don't

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know if you were able to hear her, but she she

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was voicing support for that idea. The cool thing

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that we get to see here is that after Cerdanya

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we've got a faint little slash and then we have

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a capital A and what I'm really starting to understand

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is that when the A looks like this even if it's

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not like here, it's large size in line two. But

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if you go two lines down and just a little bit

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to the right, you'll see another slash and then

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the A is not written quite as large, but the

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shape of the A is indicating that it is another

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capital letter. It's the beginning of the next

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sentence. And this is something that I had to

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help out. Claude with as Claude was doing the

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reconciliation of its transcription with Gemini's

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transcription. So the AI models are not able

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to make that I know they're not they're not able

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to make that recognition. And so Being aware

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of that is really important. I mean, there are

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other times in this letter where the A is written

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like that and it's in the middle of a word, but

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there is there's just kind of like a largeness

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about it. I think it's something to do with the

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stroke on the right side of the A. It's kind

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of like this thicker stroke than what you see

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in the A's that appear in the middle of words

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and elsewhere in the letter. Okay, so what else

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can we say about the materiality of the document

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itself and its sourcing? I think we've got to

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the point where we can move on from that and

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start to talk about the content. So, well, one

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more thing. The addressee is the bailiff of San

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Marti de Saroca and the AI chatbots Gemini

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and Claude had a lot of trouble with that place

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name because of the damage to the paper that

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obscured De and then makes it look to a machine

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that the word ca, the C with a sedia and then

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an A, is something bigger than what it is. And

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then I think it's also got some trouble reading

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that capital R, and then the O that comes after

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that capital R. That I've really had to get used

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to. But if you look at the second line, like

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it's the third place name for russio and rossello

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that r -o and you compare that to the r -o in

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roca in the beginning of the third line you can

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get this nice confirmation that that's an r -o

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and then a c -h -a so we've got a letter that's

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being addressed to and the bailiff is in charge

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of financial matters for the state in the particular

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town. And so it seems to me quite clear that

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Ferriol Forner, the subject, the person who is

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the subject of this letter, has committed some

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kind of financial crime. But it is super interesting

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to me that the amount of money that is listed

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for the penalty is 500 florins. That is a lot

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of money. So something that Ferriol Forner did.

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was like really bad like serious level of theft

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or embezzlement here i'm not quite sure now yeah

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i know shadow is like oh my gosh this this Ferriol

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Forner goodness it's quite shadow's really

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participating in the i know in the podcast okay

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okay all right so okay you need to quiet it down

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I know. You gonna quiet down? Okay, I think we

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can move on. So let's think about this penalty.

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I first thought that... Would you please? I first

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thought that this penalty was like a threat against

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the bailiff. Like you have to... apprehend this

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person or else you are going to pay 500 florins.

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Then I was like, no, that doesn't really make

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sense. But the phrase that comes before the 500

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florins is a little bit confusing. So we'll start

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from the beginning of the sentence on line four.

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Okay, so what that means is to you we order and

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command expressly and of certain and then we've

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got a word that i used to be able to recognize

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and then i messed it up so gemini had no clue

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what this abbreviation was for a word that starts

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with an s seems to have the letter c And Claude

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also flagged it as, like, I don't know what this

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is. And I said, oh gosh, like, this is really,

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like, racking my brain because I know I used

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to know this. And I thought it was something

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like scrita. And then I put that in as a correction

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for Claude. And then Claude came back to me and

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said, oh, this is actually probably Sciencia,

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wisdom or knowledge. and that's what it is. So

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this is a word that I saw a whole lot when I

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was working on another article conference paper

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that I did, a conference paper on the troubadour

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competition that Joan got started in Barcelona.

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And so wisdom is something that came up a whole

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lot in that context. The knowledge and wisdom

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of the Troubadour composition. So here we've

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got certain knowledge about, about the fine of

00:17:58.029 --> 00:18:03.710
500 florins. So it's not saying that the bailiff

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is going to have to pay the 500 florins. It kind

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of is like, I think, the bounty. So, you know,

00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:16.359
this person Ferriol Forner is is gonna have to

00:18:16.359 --> 00:18:20.859
pay 500 florins and it seems like There's going

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to be a nice percentage of that that will go

00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:28.599
to the bailiff we don't know the bailiff's name

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and There's like a strict time associated with

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this in line 1 2 3 4 5 6 The time period is rapid,

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and here it is. Dins en journe après ce qu 'elle

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a présent. Meaning, in one day after the present

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time that you get this. So, Violant wants this

00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:06.319
to take place the next day. Apprehend this person

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immediately. Don't let them get away. So I really

00:19:13.170 --> 00:19:17.369
would like to know just what this Ferriol Forner

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did in order to merit the Queen going after him

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like this, and with such a high penalty. And

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is it connected to anything else that that we've

00:19:31.589 --> 00:19:35.289
been reading about? Or is this just kind of some

00:19:35.289 --> 00:19:39.500
random new thing that popped up? in Violant's

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portfolio. Thanks for listening to this episode

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of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara

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Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions

00:19:53.660 --> 00:19:58.000
than you arrived with, I've done my job. Remember,

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the motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction

00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:07.099
guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image

00:20:07.099 --> 00:20:10.779
of today's document and additional show notes,

00:20:11.380 --> 00:20:14.259
and listen again tomorrow to hear about the next

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day in the first year of the reign of King Joan

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I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the

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meantime, take care.