WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.099 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.660 --> 00:00:12.740 it was March 21, 1387. My name is Jonathan Seyfried. 00:00:13.179 --> 00:00:16.719 I'm a PhD candidate in history at the University 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:20.679 of New Mexico. And this is The Historian's Notebook, 00:00:21.079 --> 00:00:25.660 a podcast about how history gets made. Season 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:29.839 one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're looking 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:32.799 at a document from each day of the first year 00:00:32.799 --> 00:00:37.759 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:41.619 Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:08.560 Today we've got a document from a type of register 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:12.200 that we don't look at too often. This is the 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:15.879 Gratiarum, and it's one of Joan's registers. 00:01:16.340 --> 00:01:19.620 It's a register that has been described by the 00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:22.400 archivists at the Archive of the Crown of Aragon 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:28.400 as one that is designated for the granting of 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:36.469 royal privileges. So every document in this register 00:01:36.469 --> 00:01:42.549 should be some kind of commission granted or 00:01:42.549 --> 00:01:46.689 whatever else would qualify as a royal privilege 00:01:46.689 --> 00:01:50.390 the documents in this register like this one 00:01:50.390 --> 00:01:56.069 often have a header so it makes it kind of easier 00:01:56.069 --> 00:02:00.849 in a way so on folio5v at the bottom is where 00:02:00.849 --> 00:02:07.019 our document begins and the header is Pro Raymundo 00:02:07.019 --> 00:02:11.580 Diebra. And we've got Shadow howling at the 00:02:11.580 --> 00:02:16.939 moon in the background here. All right, so hopefully 00:02:16.939 --> 00:02:19.560 she will not be doing that too much and I won't 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:25.400 have to re -record all this. We'll see. All right, 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:34.270 so Raymundo Diebra is being granted a uh let's 00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:40.469 see a position as a notary as an official document 00:02:40.469 --> 00:02:46.930 creator for the kingdom of aragon so one of the 00:02:46.930 --> 00:02:50.169 constituent pieces of the crown of aragon for 00:02:50.169 --> 00:02:55.080 which the realm takes its name and so it's a 00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:57.639 it's a big deal and you could kind of see how 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:01.819 in this document there's a lot of authority vested 00:03:01.819 --> 00:03:09.199 in the notary for creating the records of all 00:03:09.199 --> 00:03:13.180 sorts i think a lot of contracts for example, 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:16.819 that will have the full force of law. And so 00:03:16.819 --> 00:03:20.620 if you're authorizing somebody to do that, they 00:03:20.620 --> 00:03:26.120 absolutely need to be of high trust. And that's 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:30.319 how this document begins, saying that Raymundo 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:36.060 Diebra has earned that reputation. There's a 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:39.419 word in line two that is an interesting one, 00:03:39.439 --> 00:03:46.479 I think. It's tabuloniatus and that means legal 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:53.680 clerk so the suffix atus is one that denotes 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:59.479 an official body so if you have done any learning 00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:02.740 about ancient rome there's the office of the 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:08.229 consul right? And then the consulatus is the 00:04:08.229 --> 00:04:10.990 official body. So the person's title is consul, 00:04:10.990 --> 00:04:14.430 but then if you're talking about the institution, 00:04:15.050 --> 00:04:17.709 you would be talking about the consulatus, and 00:04:17.709 --> 00:04:21.529 that is where we get the English word consulate, 00:04:22.170 --> 00:04:26.730 which is no longer the same kind of institution 00:04:26.730 --> 00:04:31.029 as what was going on in ancient Rome, but it's 00:04:30.990 --> 00:04:36.930 the word that's used for an office in the foreign 00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:41.550 service. And so if you're in a country outside 00:04:41.550 --> 00:04:45.009 of the United States and the embassy is not in 00:04:45.009 --> 00:04:48.470 the city that you're in, there might be a consulate. 00:04:49.259 --> 00:04:55.019 So that's a good Latin lesson. Yeah, this document 00:04:55.019 --> 00:04:59.519 is in Latin. And I was pretty happy with how 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:06.000 my AI chatbot routine came up with a transcription 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.420 and translation for this document. I'm going 00:05:10.420 --> 00:05:13.579 to bring you into that process a little bit more. 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:18.810 And the reason that I'm going to go deeper in 00:05:18.810 --> 00:05:22.470 is because I myself had a question about what 00:05:22.470 --> 00:05:28.670 I got at the end of the three stages that Claude 00:05:28.670 --> 00:05:31.970 goes through when producing a transcription and 00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:38.649 translation of the documents in late 14th century 00:05:38.649 --> 00:05:42.459 gothic secretarial hand. So just as a reminder, 00:05:42.699 --> 00:05:45.240 I mentioned it a couple times before on the podcast, 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:48.500 but I'll say it again here. What I do is I start 00:05:48.500 --> 00:05:51.680 with Gemini because it seems to be in many ways 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:56.420 better at analyzing images, but then in the thinking 00:05:56.420 --> 00:05:59.980 process that would come at the next stage, it 00:05:59.980 --> 00:06:01.899 doesn't seem to be as good. And so that's where 00:06:01.899 --> 00:06:05.920 I go to Claude. So I have both Gemini and Claude 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:10.800 come up with a transcription. of the document, 00:06:11.259 --> 00:06:15.699 whether it's in Catalan or Latin. And then I 00:06:15.699 --> 00:06:21.139 take Gemini's transcription and have Claude look 00:06:21.139 --> 00:06:25.439 at it and reconcile it with the transcription 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:30.060 that Claude itself had made. And after that, 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:34.480 I offer some corrections or attempts to figure 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.620 out some of the tricky things. And then I have 00:06:38.620 --> 00:06:43.319 Claude do stage three. So stage two is the reconciliation 00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:48.279 with what Gemini created. Stage three is when 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:53.519 Claude looks at my feedback and then does another 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:58.180 thought process about overall what it has done 00:06:58.180 --> 00:07:02.180 and what it saw from the other output, and then 00:07:02.180 --> 00:07:07.220 it creates a new revised transcription and then 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:11.680 an English translation with footnotes about the 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:17.339 ambiguities and difficulties. I think, is a process 00:07:17.339 --> 00:07:22.100 that helps to avoid some of the pitfalls with 00:07:22.100 --> 00:07:25.060 the AI chatbot use, which is that they often 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:28.000 are producing things that are overconfident. 00:07:28.420 --> 00:07:32.660 And in the process that I've set up, and I've 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:36.519 called it and identified it in Claude's program 00:07:36.519 --> 00:07:39.459 as a project so that it has the same instructions 00:07:39.459 --> 00:07:42.439 each time, and I don't have to keep retyping 00:07:42.439 --> 00:07:46.560 the prompts. So in this Claude project, it has 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:51.839 these instructions to not cover up uncertainties 00:07:51.839 --> 00:07:56.060 or ambiguities, but instead to always surface 00:07:56.060 --> 00:08:00.639 them. And that has been pretty good. All right. 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:03.879 The thing that got me with this document very 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:10.680 curious about what Claude did was this idea that 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:16.100 is covered in Folio 6R, in kind of the middle 00:08:16.100 --> 00:08:21.360 part of it, sort of starting in line six. And 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:25.420 Claude's English translation basically amounts 00:08:25.420 --> 00:08:33.080 to, we authorize you, in this new official position 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:39.200 as a notary for the Crown of Aragon to put your 00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:45.440 signature on the documents as an official attestation 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:50.899 to their authenticity and legal force, and this 00:08:50.899 --> 00:08:56.179 is the part, provided that you are there at the 00:08:56.179 --> 00:09:04.149 time. There's this clause that is revealing about 00:09:04.149 --> 00:09:10.490 what the values were for giving a document legal 00:09:10.490 --> 00:09:12.990 force. So what were some of the processes and 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:15.389 values? That's really important to me because 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:18.629 an ongoing question that I have is about whether 00:09:18.629 --> 00:09:24.750 Joan was present. but really because I'm looking 00:09:24.750 --> 00:09:28.690 at Joan from the lens of disability studies, 00:09:29.230 --> 00:09:33.350 I really want to know whether Joan had to be 00:09:33.350 --> 00:09:38.070 physically present with these documents at what 00:09:38.070 --> 00:09:42.909 stages. So from the initial idea that a document 00:09:42.909 --> 00:09:48.730 needed to be created to the drafting of the actual 00:09:48.730 --> 00:09:54.549 words, maybe in a verbal stage, and then the 00:09:54.549 --> 00:09:58.570 writing down of the document onto the paper, 00:09:59.169 --> 00:10:05.870 and then the signing of the document, and then 00:10:05.870 --> 00:10:10.429 at the end, the copying of the outgoing document 00:10:10.429 --> 00:10:13.929 into the registers that we're looking at now. 00:10:14.110 --> 00:10:16.970 And of course, Joan would not have had to be 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:20.009 present at that last stage. No one would really 00:10:20.009 --> 00:10:23.470 expect that. But what were the requirements of 00:10:23.470 --> 00:10:27.570 his presence in the other stages? That's something 00:10:27.570 --> 00:10:31.730 that I'm really interested in. So when I see 00:10:31.730 --> 00:10:38.389 in this document that a key part of legal enforcement 00:10:38.389 --> 00:10:43.129 and legitimizing the legality of a new document 00:10:43.129 --> 00:10:48.120 is that the notary must be present, when the 00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:52.379 contract is being signed. I mean, well, that's 00:10:52.379 --> 00:10:53.700 kind of obvious. Like, how are you going to sign 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:55.600 something that's not present? But I think there's 00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:58.279 a little bit more going on here, which is that... 00:10:58.190 --> 00:11:02.269 the creation of the legal force requires the 00:11:02.269 --> 00:11:05.190 presence of the notary in more than just kind 00:11:05.190 --> 00:11:07.929 of slapping his name down at the end. I think 00:11:07.929 --> 00:11:11.250 there's something else being expressed here about 00:11:11.250 --> 00:11:13.850 the presence of the notary, so I got really interested 00:11:13.850 --> 00:11:18.029 in the exact word choices and the grammar in 00:11:18.029 --> 00:11:20.970 this particular section of this document, which 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:26.350 is tough because it's in Latin and you have to 00:11:26.350 --> 00:11:28.149 kind of figure out all these different choices 00:11:28.149 --> 00:11:32.909 about the prepositional phrases. So I started 00:11:32.909 --> 00:11:36.350 digging in and I noticed that Claude's transcription 00:11:36.350 --> 00:11:41.929 at the end of stage three had a mistake. So in 00:11:41.929 --> 00:11:46.350 line six, pretty much in the middle, the word 00:11:46.350 --> 00:11:53.730 in the document that appears after signum is 00:11:53.730 --> 00:11:59.330 ap - Pretty clear to me that that's a posueris. 00:12:00.190 --> 00:12:05.629 In the transcription, at the end of Claude's 00:12:05.629 --> 00:12:09.490 process, the word that comes up in the transcription 00:12:09.490 --> 00:12:18.649 is oppositis, and I just cannot see how that 00:12:18.649 --> 00:12:23.669 is correct. I can see how Claude got there because 00:12:23.669 --> 00:12:32.090 the R is looking a lot like a O. Well, is that 00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:35.870 now I'm starting to doubt myself. But OK, either 00:12:35.870 --> 00:12:42.370 either the word ends in. It's not a T, it's an 00:12:42.370 --> 00:12:46.710 E. So OK, so hold on. S, U, here's the second 00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:49.950 half of the word. S, U, E. That is absolutely 00:12:49.950 --> 00:12:54.970 clear. S, U, E. And then we've got two minims, 00:12:55.190 --> 00:12:58.990 which I think is R, I, and then a very clear 00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:04.690 S. So it could also be that those are two I's, 00:13:04.710 --> 00:13:07.789 but I'm pretty sure that this is... it's an R. 00:13:07.789 --> 00:13:11.120 I'm zooming in on it now. So... Okay, I'm right. 00:13:12.179 --> 00:13:17.960 The word is apposueris. So I went to the Latin 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:21.720 dictionary, and guess what? It turns out that 00:13:21.720 --> 00:13:29.399 apposueris and appositis, these two different 00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:32.679 conclusions, mine and Claude's, they actually 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:35.620 don't end up making a gigantic difference in 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:42.250 meaning, because they both have this position 00:13:42.250 --> 00:13:46.110 definition. Now it could, when we get into the 00:13:46.110 --> 00:13:49.529 fine details of who is doing what in this sentence, 00:13:49.610 --> 00:13:54.070 it can make a gigantic difference in terms of 00:13:54.070 --> 00:13:58.429 the details of what's required, the fine details. 00:13:58.649 --> 00:14:02.750 But in terms of the sense of the sentence, it's 00:14:02.750 --> 00:14:04.970 it actually doesn't make a difference and that's 00:14:04.970 --> 00:14:08.429 because at the end of the sentence in line seven 00:14:08.429 --> 00:14:11.889 we have another really important word which is 00:14:11.889 --> 00:14:16.570 the crux of of the meaning here for my the question 00:14:16.570 --> 00:14:20.549 that i have and that word is the fourth word 00:14:20.549 --> 00:14:27.789 in on line seven and here and here we've got 00:14:27.789 --> 00:14:34.340 cats again okay so I've got two cats now in the 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:40.700 workspace. All right, so inter fuisse. That means 00:14:40.700 --> 00:14:46.720 to be present, and then the word after it is 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:52.039 confitiaris. So we had an infinitive with inter 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:56.350 fuisse, to be present, and then we've got a present 00:14:56.350 --> 00:15:01.029 subjunctive for the verb to acknowledge so there's 00:15:01.029 --> 00:15:05.070 this idea i know i know shadow there's this idea 00:15:05.070 --> 00:15:08.210 that you have to have an acknowledgement of being 00:15:08.210 --> 00:15:11.929 present that you and so the exact grammar not 00:15:11.929 --> 00:15:16.450 quite sure about but this is the sense that's 00:15:16.450 --> 00:15:21.250 that's being conveyed here all right that was 00:15:21.250 --> 00:15:24.490 really complicated and i'm not happy that i had 00:15:24.490 --> 00:15:28.509 mewing interrupting cats as I was trying to explain 00:15:28.509 --> 00:15:34.110 that, but you know, that's just life. Okay, so 00:15:34.110 --> 00:15:39.529 what does this all tell me about these questions 00:15:39.529 --> 00:15:42.529 that I'm curious about regarding the establishment 00:15:42.529 --> 00:15:47.889 of legal force and the personal presence of those 00:15:47.889 --> 00:15:51.690 who are trying to establish that legal force? 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:55.320 it tells me that their presence was important. 00:15:55.460 --> 00:16:01.019 It tells me that the body there and functioning 00:16:01.019 --> 00:16:06.720 as as you know testifying to their their bodily 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:11.899 presence is core to establishing legitimacy and 00:16:11.899 --> 00:16:17.519 that you can't just do things through kind of 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:20.980 like auto pen i guess is what is what we might 00:16:20.980 --> 00:16:25.240 think of as sort of the the way that sometimes 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:29.779 there could be a delegation. Now that's at the 00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:34.519 level of this notary for the realm the constituent 00:16:34.519 --> 00:16:40.519 kingdom of Aragon. Is that also true for the 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:45.279 monarch himself or do the chancery staff and 00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:52.340 other officials help out to stand in for the 00:16:52.340 --> 00:16:55.899 king in certain moments? That is still an open 00:16:55.899 --> 00:16:59.279 question. One last thing I want to point out 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:05.019 about this document is that the scribe has decided 00:17:05.019 --> 00:17:09.279 to spell out the name of the day. So in the dating 00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:14.180 clause, we've got vicesima primera die marci, 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:20.880 which is the you know first plus 20 so the 21st 00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:28.460 day of March and then after the year which actually 00:17:28.460 --> 00:17:31.500 it's been spelled out the last number of the 00:17:31.500 --> 00:17:38.140 year Septimo oh my gosh there she goes again 00:17:38.140 --> 00:17:43.740 all right so Septimo has been spelled out and 00:17:44.089 --> 00:17:48.670 After that, we have this really interesting phrase, 00:17:49.430 --> 00:17:55.710 which is something like regne quae nostri primo, 00:17:56.710 --> 00:18:02.910 which I think the AI correctly translated as 00:18:02.910 --> 00:18:06.670 the first year of our reign, although I can't 00:18:06.670 --> 00:18:09.849 quite figure out what the quae is doing there 00:18:09.849 --> 00:18:13.579 in order to create that meaning. Then we've got 00:18:13.579 --> 00:18:18.440 this plus sign, which is like a symbol for a 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:21.980 signature. And then we've got what I think is 00:18:21.980 --> 00:18:25.519 a first name and last name. I think we've got 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:31.559 something like Dominicus and then Mosco. I know 00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:38.480 that the last name Mosco was one that was used 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:42.599 at this time. common last name. And also that 00:18:42.599 --> 00:18:47.420 there was someone named Domenich Masco who was 00:18:47.420 --> 00:18:50.660 prominent in this time. I'm not quite sure if 00:18:50.660 --> 00:18:53.079 this is the same person, but that's my guess. 00:18:53.660 --> 00:18:58.839 And then the probata is a little tough. I am 00:18:58.839 --> 00:19:02.259 not quite sure what is going on. It could be 00:19:02.259 --> 00:19:04.559 Domenicus is the first word. I'm pretty sure 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:08.720 that's right. But then maybe we have like a last 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:10.579 name after that, that begins with the letter 00:19:10.579 --> 00:19:15.480 E, then X, like Eixemenes, or something like that. 00:19:15.579 --> 00:19:20.799 But then we've got the Mondavit, and then we've 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:25.640 got what looks like DO, and then the second line 00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:34.329 we have, well, something like Rex. and then the 00:19:34.329 --> 00:19:38.230 kind of, you know, fuereit or faceit or something, 00:19:38.410 --> 00:19:42.069 pair, and then we have something that I can't 00:19:42.069 --> 00:19:44.250 quite figure out, like vitem or something, and 00:19:44.250 --> 00:19:47.109 then valent - there's something like valencia 00:19:47.109 --> 00:19:51.490 or valentem, maybe not having to do with valencia. 00:19:52.170 --> 00:19:54.509 So there's a lot of stuff that I do not know 00:19:54.509 --> 00:19:56.890 about what's in this probata, but we're going 00:19:56.890 --> 00:19:59.150 to keep our eye on those probatas, try to figure 00:19:59.150 --> 00:20:03.930 them out over the course of this year. Alright, 00:20:04.170 --> 00:20:10.250 thanks for listening to this episode of the Historian's 00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:15.990 Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. And 00:20:15.990 --> 00:20:18.690 thanks for bearing with all of the cat noises. 00:20:19.829 --> 00:20:24.470 It's always unpleasant when you've got a cat 00:20:24.470 --> 00:20:29.390 yowling in the background. But at the same time, 00:20:30.029 --> 00:20:33.579 I don't know, maybe... Does it make the podcast 00:20:33.579 --> 00:20:37.799 more homey? I kind of think it does, so sometimes 00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:39.799 I just decide to leave it in and other times 00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:43.940 I re -record. Well, if that's been very irritating 00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:48.220 to you, thank you for bearing with me. And if 00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:50.359 you are leaving with more questions than you 00:20:50.359 --> 00:20:55.339 arrived with, I have done my job. Remember, the 00:20:55.339 --> 00:20:59.460 motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:20:59.460 --> 00:21:06.099 guaranteed. because good history is the kind 00:21:06.099 --> 00:21:09.460 of history that leaves you with so many more 00:21:09.460 --> 00:21:13.640 questions. You might also have been dissatisfied 00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:15.960 by the fact that there were a lot of cat noises 00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:19.240 in this podcast, so maybe that's another way 00:21:19.240 --> 00:21:22.980 I'm living up to the motto. Visit the website 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:26.769 to see an image of today's document. and additional 00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:30.210 show notes, and listen again tomorrow to hear 00:21:30.210 --> 00:21:33.170 about the next day in the first year of the reign 00:21:33.170 --> 00:21:37.970 of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen Violant de 00:21:37.970 --> 00:21:41.109 Bar. In the meantime, take care.