WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.940 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:13.740 it was March 20th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:17.679 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:21.899 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:21.899 --> 00:00:26.539 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:31.800 Season 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:35.060 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:39.439 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:43.600 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:07.230 --> 00:01:10.969 Today's document comes from the secret seal register 00:01:10.969 --> 00:01:16.469 of Joan and again, just want to repeat because 00:01:16.469 --> 00:01:18.709 I haven't said it for a little while when we 00:01:18.709 --> 00:01:22.200 use the word secret. We're really talking about 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:25.159 something that would today in English be designated 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:29.560 as private. It's not like the top secret designation 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:33.099 of classified documents. It's more about how 00:01:33.099 --> 00:01:38.859 these are the letters that have a level of privacy, 00:01:38.859 --> 00:01:42.200 but it's not like they're revealing anything 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:46.459 dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands. 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.340 And this letter is a really good example of that 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:54.739 because it is a whole bunch of pleasantries and 00:01:54.739 --> 00:01:58.840 vague positive updates. There's a few things 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:02.879 in it that are definitely worth noting, and we'll 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:08.460 get to that. The sender is of course Joan. The 00:02:08.460 --> 00:02:14.740 recipient is the King of Navarre. the letter 00:02:14.740 --> 00:02:19.740 begins muy caro hermano, and you might notice 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:22.620 that that sounds a little bit different than 00:02:22.620 --> 00:02:26.819 the Catalan words that we're used to, and that's 00:02:26.819 --> 00:02:30.319 because this letter is not in a kind of pure 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:36.199 Catalan. This letter is really a Castilian and 00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:40.759 Argonese and maybe a little bit of Catalan thrown 00:02:40.759 --> 00:02:43.889 in there here and there, but it's demonstrating 00:02:43.889 --> 00:02:47.889 an effort to write in the language that's more 00:02:47.889 --> 00:02:52.789 comfortable for the recipient. So it's not a 00:02:52.789 --> 00:02:59.849 Catalan letter, and also hermano has an H, which 00:02:59.849 --> 00:03:04.849 is something that anyone who speaks Castilian 00:03:04.849 --> 00:03:07.990 today would immediately recognize when often 00:03:07.990 --> 00:03:13.900 in the Catalan you'll see hermano with a G at 00:03:13.900 --> 00:03:19.800 the beginning. Also, muyto in Catalan versus 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:25.879 muy in Spanish. And then caro with an aro with 00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:28.879 an aro with an o at the end. All right, so I 00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:30.599 went out of order there with those three words, 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:34.460 but you know, you get the idea, right? This is 00:03:34.460 --> 00:03:39.360 not the kind of Catalan that is typical. And 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:43.439 that's just a reflection of how either Joan himself 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:46.659 or the Chancery scribes are making adjustments 00:03:46.659 --> 00:03:52.159 in order to come across as more inviting and 00:03:52.159 --> 00:03:56.080 pleasant and considerate and courteous to the 00:03:56.080 --> 00:04:00.599 recipient, the King of Navarre. Something else 00:04:00.599 --> 00:04:04.379 about the Addressee line. So the first line in 00:04:04.379 --> 00:04:10.379 Latin, Fuit missa regi navarre. or Navar -i? 00:04:10.419 --> 00:04:14.919 Navar -em? Oh gosh. Once again, this would, I 00:04:14.919 --> 00:04:21.720 think, be the genitive of Navarre. Ah, okay. Just 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:25.639 gonna let that go. That line is very clear. All 00:04:25.639 --> 00:04:27.959 right, this was sent to the king of Navarre. The 00:04:27.959 --> 00:04:32.319 second line, similis fuet, and then we've got 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:40.759 something like another word with an F, so I think 00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:45.160 that is amounting to a similar one was also sent, 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:51.620 and then we've got regina for queen, and the 00:04:51.620 --> 00:04:58.500 next word was one that really stumped me, and 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:02.279 initially it also stumped Gemini and Claude, 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:05.839 and I like to think that if I just really worked 00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:08.660 at this for another 10 minutes or like taking 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.259 a break and come back to it, I could have figured 00:05:11.259 --> 00:05:15.540 it out on my own because once Claude came up 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:19.120 with the answer based on my just telling Claude 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:23.459 what I could see, Claude was able to figure it 00:05:23.459 --> 00:05:29.480 out quite quickly. So the letters that I see 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:34.689 are a capital U or a V. They were very interchangeable 00:05:34.689 --> 00:05:39.810 at this time, U and V. Then the letter X, and 00:05:39.810 --> 00:05:44.810 then there's a space, and then an S -U -E. And 00:05:44.810 --> 00:05:53.269 I was not remembering one of the most early words 00:05:53.269 --> 00:05:56.910 that you learn as you're learning Latin, which 00:05:56.910 --> 00:06:04.139 is uxore. It means wife. And so once I put in 00:06:04.139 --> 00:06:08.860 UX into the conversation that I was having with 00:06:08.860 --> 00:06:13.399 Claude, Claude was like, ah, of course, this 00:06:13.399 --> 00:06:19.199 is Uxore Sue, his wife, the queen, his wife. 00:06:20.060 --> 00:06:25.759 So once again, we have an episode in which the 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:29.740 chat bot is able to help me make the breakthrough. 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:34.759 In this situation, it saved me some time. I am 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:37.279 quite sure that I would have gotten that eventually. 00:06:37.399 --> 00:06:41.819 I like to think so. Is it diminishing my abilities 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:46.379 by using it as a crutch like that? Yeah, but 00:06:46.379 --> 00:06:51.259 again, bigger picture. My destiny is not to be 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:55.480 a long -term practicing medievalist, and so for 00:06:55.480 --> 00:07:00.959 my purposes, this is an okay thing. If you are 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:05.459 listening to this, and you plan to do about 20 00:07:05.459 --> 00:07:09.660 or 30 years of work in medieval studies, please 00:07:09.660 --> 00:07:13.620 don't do what I do. Please take that time to 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:17.199 really learn Latin, because it will pay off for 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:19.300 you in all kinds of ways. And then later on, 00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:22.019 I'm sure AI will have developed where you can 00:07:22.019 --> 00:07:25.379 do some supervision of it. And that's great. 00:07:26.220 --> 00:07:29.730 But um yeah Shadow is echoing my sentiment there 00:07:29.730 --> 00:07:31.949 if you're really going to go into medieval studies 00:07:31.949 --> 00:07:37.529 then learn that latin because it will open up 00:07:37.529 --> 00:07:42.290 meanings and understandings for you and is an 00:07:42.290 --> 00:07:45.850 investment that will pay off if you're in this 00:07:45.850 --> 00:07:50.970 for that long haul let's talk about the content 00:07:50.970 --> 00:07:55.790 of this letter It is, like I said before, just 00:07:55.790 --> 00:07:59.589 a series of general pleasantries. Hi, I hope 00:07:59.589 --> 00:08:02.029 you're doing all right, I think of you affectionately, 00:08:02.189 --> 00:08:05.449 blah blah blah, give me good news, I have good 00:08:05.449 --> 00:08:09.490 news, da da da. There's a couple things though 00:08:09.490 --> 00:08:13.629 that have additional resonance when we have in 00:08:13.629 --> 00:08:18.029 mind what we've already learned about Joan and 00:08:18.029 --> 00:08:40.700 Violant. First, in the fifth... So he is saying 00:08:40.700 --> 00:08:46.009 he has been delivered and he has been freed well 00:08:46.009 --> 00:08:52.330 from the accident misfortune that he had had 00:08:52.330 --> 00:08:56.289 in his body. So he's talking about the illness 00:08:56.289 --> 00:09:01.090 that they're trying to make everybody forget 00:09:01.090 --> 00:09:05.750 about. So there's this major damage control that 00:09:05.750 --> 00:09:09.830 we've seen happening from Violant as she's writing 00:09:09.830 --> 00:09:12.970 to her family and others in France. Don't believe 00:09:12.970 --> 00:09:20.600 the rumors! And Joan here is saying to the King 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:22.639 of Navarre, you might have heard that I was kind 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:25.220 of sick, but you know what? It is done. I am 00:09:25.220 --> 00:09:28.039 totally fine. Everything's fine. Nothing to worry 00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:33.340 about. It's all great. And then he goes on after 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:39.220 that to talk about how the Queen and the Prince 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:41.860 Jaume, who's referred to here as the Dauphin, 00:09:42.299 --> 00:09:46.799 they are also doing great and his daughters the 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:49.019 infantas they're doing great too everybody's 00:09:49.019 --> 00:09:53.740 so great thanks to god and i did want to point 00:09:53.740 --> 00:09:58.639 out that in line six we've got Violant referred 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:06.919 to as I'm not sure why he doesn't go for the 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:10.700 full -on Molt Cara Companyona, like the title of 00:10:10.700 --> 00:10:15.519 the podcast, but he I think is really, you know, 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:20.659 indicating still that by using this word he's 00:10:20.659 --> 00:10:24.539 saying, you know, this is the person that is 00:10:24.539 --> 00:10:28.860 my companion in this whole journey here of co 00:10:28.860 --> 00:10:34.950 -rule life, so on and so forth. So... Nostra 00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:41.570 cara companyana. Our dear companion. And then 00:10:41.570 --> 00:10:44.590 all of the rest of the letter is, hey, you know, 00:10:44.590 --> 00:10:47.330 there's all these things that, you know, I know 00:10:47.330 --> 00:10:50.049 would be great if you just told me your news, 00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:53.970 all your happy tidings, blah, blah, blah. It's 00:10:53.970 --> 00:10:58.850 all just very boilerplate. In some earlier episodes 00:10:58.850 --> 00:11:03.110 where we had Violant writing to Charles III, 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:09.120 there was a lot more personal touch and not so 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:14.120 much the boilerplate. And I think that's definitely 00:11:14.120 --> 00:11:18.620 reflective of how Violant might have had some 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:22.519 longer -term history with Charles III of Navarre. 00:11:22.539 --> 00:11:25.799 I have a theory that they knew each other in 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:35.419 Paris way back when Violant was in the court 00:11:35.419 --> 00:11:39.639 of Charles V of France just because she was part 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:42.659 of the royal family Charles V was her uncle and 00:11:42.659 --> 00:11:49.100 then the future Charles III of Navarre had been 00:11:49.100 --> 00:11:55.360 sort of like taken prisoner in Paris around the 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:59.539 time, like the late 1370s, so he was sort of 00:11:59.539 --> 00:12:01.779 like a hostage. They didn't really call him a 00:12:01.779 --> 00:12:04.919 hostage. I like to use the phrase quasi -hostage, 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:08.759 but anyway Charles III of Navarre was in Paris 00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:15.059 and not able to leave while his father was working 00:12:15.059 --> 00:12:19.129 out some issues. with whether he was going to 00:12:19.129 --> 00:12:23.690 continue being oppositional to French interests. 00:12:25.049 --> 00:12:29.950 So that's the past, about more than 10 years 00:12:29.950 --> 00:12:34.549 in the past, and in the current moment, in 1387, 00:12:35.950 --> 00:12:38.970 Charles has ascended, Charles III has ascended 00:12:38.970 --> 00:12:42.769 to be the king of Navarre, and he's kind of of 00:12:42.769 --> 00:12:46.919 the same generation. as Joan and Violant. 00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:52.820 So Violant, when writing to Charles III of Navarre, 00:12:53.299 --> 00:12:55.440 you can really tell that there's some more personal 00:12:55.440 --> 00:12:58.519 touches in there, but it seems that Joan just 00:12:58.519 --> 00:13:01.740 doesn't have that level of closeness. And I say 00:13:01.740 --> 00:13:05.100 that because it's really hard to pick out any 00:13:05.100 --> 00:13:07.899 personal touches in this letter, like this could 00:13:07.899 --> 00:13:11.259 have been written by anybody. you know, who just 00:13:11.259 --> 00:13:13.279 said it could have been written by a chatbot. 00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:16.919 I mean, it's like, it's like the scribes were 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:20.500 like the AI chatbots of the time, where Joan 00:13:20.500 --> 00:13:23.539 basically just put in a prompt saying, I just 00:13:23.539 --> 00:13:25.940 need to let the King of Navarre know that I'm 00:13:25.940 --> 00:13:28.559 very healthy. Fill this thing with pleasantries, 00:13:28.679 --> 00:13:31.340 make it nice. And that's what the scribes then 00:13:31.340 --> 00:13:34.840 provided. And not only that, but he just does 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:40.149 like a copy paste for the Queen. by not writing 00:13:40.149 --> 00:13:45.570 anything separate, just trusting it to the scribes 00:13:45.570 --> 00:13:49.990 that they've made another copy and changed the 00:13:49.990 --> 00:13:55.929 gendered endings to the nouns, like from hermano 00:13:55.929 --> 00:14:00.090 to hermana. And he's just like, yeah, copy paste 00:14:00.090 --> 00:14:07.269 that. So that's my interpretation of the surface 00:14:07.269 --> 00:14:12.350 level kind of boilerplate feeling of this letter 00:14:12.350 --> 00:14:17.950 that Violante has some additional history or 00:14:17.950 --> 00:14:22.309 rapport with Charles III of Navarre, and Joan 00:14:22.309 --> 00:14:26.049 just doesn't have that. There is definitely a 00:14:26.049 --> 00:14:30.509 need to make other people, other powerful people 00:14:30.509 --> 00:14:35.230 believe that he's perfectly healthy. And in my 00:14:35.230 --> 00:14:38.450 mind, if you send a boilerplate letter, that, 00:14:38.570 --> 00:14:41.330 you know, doesn't have any kind of personal touch 00:14:41.330 --> 00:14:45.110 to it all that much. You're not really being 00:14:45.110 --> 00:14:48.210 all that convincing, but I don't know. Maybe 00:14:48.210 --> 00:14:52.929 it's like if you get a direct letter from one 00:14:52.929 --> 00:14:57.350 king to another, it's got, you know, some additional 00:14:57.350 --> 00:15:01.889 umph in terms of its believability. And so I 00:15:01.889 --> 00:15:05.250 don't know. I mean, I just don't quite see how 00:15:05.250 --> 00:15:09.429 this is better than just the rumor mill. Like, 00:15:09.490 --> 00:15:11.990 just, you know, let the King of Navarre know 00:15:11.990 --> 00:15:15.870 that I'm healthy now. And maybe it's because 00:15:15.870 --> 00:15:18.830 Showan is not all that healthy. So maybe this 00:15:18.830 --> 00:15:24.210 is not a purely honest letter. And they're still 00:15:24.210 --> 00:15:28.149 in damage control mode because maybe the truth 00:15:28.149 --> 00:15:34.210 of the matter is that Joan has not really been 00:15:34.210 --> 00:15:40.789 bien quitio of his accident. Maybe there are 00:15:40.789 --> 00:15:44.309 some lingering effects. Well, there's no way 00:15:44.309 --> 00:15:48.009 to know. Maybe we can treat this as its surface 00:15:48.009 --> 00:15:51.210 -level meaning and say, ah yeah, he would only 00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:53.409 write this to a fellow king if he really was 00:15:53.409 --> 00:15:59.690 100 % recovered. Or we can doubt it. and we'll 00:15:59.690 --> 00:16:03.370 see what else we can find as we continue on in 00:16:03.370 --> 00:16:07.809 our journey through the documents. Thanks for 00:16:07.809 --> 00:16:10.690 listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:16:10.690 --> 00:16:15.049 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you 00:16:15.049 --> 00:16:17.309 are leaving with more questions than you arrived 00:16:17.309 --> 00:16:21.669 with, I've done my job. Because, remember, the 00:16:21.669 --> 00:16:26.210 motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:16:26.210 --> 00:16:29.830 guaranteed. Visit the website to see an image 00:16:29.830 --> 00:16:32.570 of today's document and additional show notes, 00:16:33.110 --> 00:16:36.129 which will include links back to those earlier 00:16:36.129 --> 00:16:39.830 episodes that involved Charles III of Navarre, 00:16:40.230 --> 00:16:43.389 and listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:16:43.389 --> 00:16:47.330 day in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:16:47.330 --> 00:16:52.250 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:53.970 meantime, take care.