WEBVTT 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.099 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:12.439 it was March 22, 1387. My name is Jonathan Seyfried. 00:00:12.859 --> 00:00:16.140 I'm a PhD candidate in history at the University 00:00:16.140 --> 00:00:19.940 of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's Notebook, 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:24.660 a podcast about how history gets made. Season 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:28.859 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're looking 00:00:28.859 --> 00:00:31.620 at a document from each day of the first year 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:35.759 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:39.500 Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:03.149 --> 00:01:07.170 Oh my goodness, where do I even begin with today's 00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:12.090 document? Oh wow. Alright, well, let's start 00:01:12.090 --> 00:01:15.810 with just the basics and then we're gonna see 00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:22.209 how this document is. Well, it seems completely 00:01:22.209 --> 00:01:28.209 innocuous and rather just another document of 00:01:28.209 --> 00:01:32.430 pleasantries from one monarch to another. But 00:01:32.430 --> 00:01:34.650 because of the work that we've already been doing 00:01:34.650 --> 00:01:42.769 this year, it is, in my mind, explosive. But 00:01:42.769 --> 00:01:44.969 I don't know, maybe I'm just being dramatic. 00:01:46.670 --> 00:01:52.430 Here's the basics. It's from Violant. It is in 00:01:52.430 --> 00:01:58.170 the... Secret Seal Register, the new one that's 00:01:58.170 --> 00:02:04.909 starting out. This is folio 3V of the Curie 00:02:04.909 --> 00:02:11.289 -Sigeli -Secreti Register, and the Addressee is 00:02:11.289 --> 00:02:16.069 the King of France. Now you might think at first, 00:02:16.270 --> 00:02:20.870 oh well, this is, you know, two powerful people 00:02:20.870 --> 00:02:26.180 in correspondence. But actually, at this time, 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:29.759 Charles VI, King of France, has not yet wrested 00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:33.360 control, political control, from his uncles. 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:38.340 And so even though he seems like, you know, in 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:43.199 my mind, old enough to really be ruling the kingdom, 00:02:43.300 --> 00:02:48.300 because he's 19 at this time, his uncles have 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:54.120 been preventing him from exiting the period of 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:58.539 regency. And so the duke de Berry and the duke 00:02:58.539 --> 00:03:02.219 of Burgundy, they are still the ones in charge. 00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:07.300 And it's only about a year from this point that 00:03:07.300 --> 00:03:11.520 Charles VI figures out how to get out from under 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:16.180 their regency, to take political control, and 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:20.479 to sideline his two uncles. So when Violant 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:25.580 is writing to him, she is, you know, writing 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:29.319 to somebody whose she knows is not yet in charge. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.400 Not sure that that makes any gigantic difference 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:39.180 here. The date is, you know, today's date, March 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:44.759 22nd, and the letter starts out, you know, pleasant, 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:47.479 you know, humdrum pleasantries. Hope you're doing 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:53.580 well. please send us word of your health and 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:59.639 how things are going and then once we get into 00:03:59.639 --> 00:04:07.180 the end of line end of line five we get some 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:15.699 interesting stuff so all right the infants okay 00:04:15.699 --> 00:04:32.449 nostres infants so The children are in good 00:04:32.449 --> 00:04:38.449 health, good disposition of our person. Okay, 00:04:38.610 --> 00:04:50.389 persons. Then the next sentence. This is the 00:04:50.389 --> 00:04:54.329 equivalent of Molt cara companyona. So, Joan 00:04:54.329 --> 00:04:58.949 is always writing about Violant as Molt cara 00:04:58.949 --> 00:05:02.870 companyona, and Violant writes about Joan 00:05:02.870 --> 00:05:08.569 as Senyor Nostre Molt Car. Well, what's going on 00:05:08.569 --> 00:05:41.209 with Senyor Nostre Molt Car? I'm sure that people 00:05:41.209 --> 00:05:42.870 who've already listened to a bunch of episodes 00:05:42.870 --> 00:05:48.269 have had their ears perk up at certain words, 00:05:48.889 --> 00:05:54.389 like malaltia, illness, convalescencia, convalescence. 00:05:55.529 --> 00:05:59.670 And then, for those of you who are super sharp, 00:06:00.730 --> 00:06:05.550 you might remember that on March 5th, you know, 00:06:05.709 --> 00:06:08.629 over, I mean, how many days is that? I mean, 00:06:08.949 --> 00:06:14.509 March 5th to March 22nd, 17 days ago, Violant 00:06:14.509 --> 00:06:23.629 used pretty much the exact same phrase. She used 00:06:23.629 --> 00:06:28.370 that same phrase in a letter to the Duke of Burgundy. 00:06:29.790 --> 00:06:34.269 And in that letter on March 5th, that phrase 00:06:34.269 --> 00:06:39.310 means in a short time, he's going to be in perfect 00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:49.850 health. March 22, que dins breu espera esser 00:06:49.850 --> 00:06:55.550 guardit perfectament, that in a short time it 00:06:55.550 --> 00:07:02.370 is hoped he will be in perfect health. He's convalescing 00:07:02.370 --> 00:07:09.449 from his illness. On March 22, his perfect health 00:07:09.449 --> 00:07:12.769 is something that is hoped for in the future. 00:07:13.930 --> 00:07:18.050 On March 5th, his perfect health is something 00:07:18.050 --> 00:07:25.769 that was hoped for as a future state. Now, do 00:07:25.769 --> 00:07:28.990 you remember what we talked about two days ago 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:34.250 on March 20th? Two days ago on March 20th, Joann 00:07:34.250 --> 00:07:37.189 was writing to a different monarch, the King 00:07:37.189 --> 00:07:43.740 of Navarre. On March 20th, he wrote that he was 00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:58.600 that he had been delivered and fully done with 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:02.920 the misfortune that he's essentially it's all 00:08:02.920 --> 00:08:11.509 behind him so look at this damage control and 00:08:11.509 --> 00:08:17.050 how we're getting these different stories from 00:08:17.050 --> 00:08:23.310 the different people at different times, all 00:08:23.310 --> 00:08:30.889 in this effort to reassure their audiences that 00:08:30.889 --> 00:08:39.879 the health of the king is good and not bad. the 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:47.879 king's two bodies is a phrase that evokes this 00:08:47.879 --> 00:08:52.340 state of it's like a metaphorical understanding 00:08:52.340 --> 00:08:58.059 of the power of the king and how it connected 00:08:58.059 --> 00:09:07.480 to the legitimacy of his rule that if the body 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:12.259 of the king is healthy, then that is a powerful 00:09:12.259 --> 00:09:17.360 metaphor for a successful reign. And if the body 00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:21.200 of the king is not healthy, then there's a tension 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:26.500 that arises because there's this association 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:31.220 symbolically between the physical body of that 00:09:31.220 --> 00:09:35.539 human being, the king, and the body of the country, 00:09:35.580 --> 00:09:38.659 the realm. And of course, the person who did 00:09:38.659 --> 00:09:43.480 the foundational work on this is Ernst Kantorowicz, 00:09:44.019 --> 00:09:47.440 whose book, The King's Two Bodies, is still very, 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:51.120 very foundational and well -cited and has had 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:53.580 some updates to it, but the initial insight is 00:09:53.580 --> 00:09:57.879 one that has just been a standard for understanding 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:04.940 the way that medieval political elites saw the 00:10:04.940 --> 00:10:08.600 relationship between the human being, the king, 00:10:08.860 --> 00:10:15.940 and then the kingdom, the realm. So it's interesting 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:21.320 also to think about in terms of rulership today 00:10:21.320 --> 00:10:26.419 because there is absolutely an anxiety on the 00:10:26.419 --> 00:10:31.139 part of political leaders to project good health. 00:10:31.379 --> 00:10:35.570 I mean we just have had a series of you know 00:10:35.570 --> 00:10:39.610 a pair of of presidencies dominated by this issue 00:10:39.610 --> 00:10:45.269 where we saw Joe Biden in the United States basically 00:10:45.269 --> 00:10:50.149 have these health problems and it led to political 00:10:50.149 --> 00:10:57.529 disaster for his party and now we've got a president 00:10:57.529 --> 00:11:03.350 who is obviously elderly but acting in a way 00:11:03.500 --> 00:11:08.220 that is desperate to show virulence, strength, 00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:15.120 and health. So these concepts, these associations 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:21.820 of healthiness and its connection to political 00:11:21.820 --> 00:11:29.399 strength, they are deep, deep in and really ingrained 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:34.490 in Western civilization and maybe even beyond 00:11:34.490 --> 00:11:36.570 Western civilization. I don't know, but I mean 00:11:36.570 --> 00:11:40.110 certainly within the political traditions the 00:11:40.110 --> 00:11:43.470 symbolic meanings that are associated with power 00:11:43.470 --> 00:11:50.789 political power and and governance So look at 00:11:50.789 --> 00:11:55.370 how in this narrative that's emerging about Joan's 00:11:55.370 --> 00:12:00.190 body We are just going on this roller coaster 00:12:00.750 --> 00:12:04.889 You know what I like to imagine is what was going 00:12:04.889 --> 00:12:09.129 through the minds of the scribes as they were 00:12:09.129 --> 00:12:14.110 writing these things down because it's like one 00:12:14.110 --> 00:12:18.889 day he's totally fine and the next day we're 00:12:18.889 --> 00:12:23.389 talking about oh he's still got some more convalescence 00:12:23.389 --> 00:12:27.679 and it's gonna be a short time I mean They know, 00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:29.879 right? I mean, the people that are surrounding 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:35.360 Joann, they know his health condition in the 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:40.539 present. And so are they just kind of thinking, 00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:42.960 all right, well, I'm gonna write this down and 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:45.259 hopefully they believe it. And hopefully they're 00:12:45.259 --> 00:12:47.559 not talking to each other. Hopefully we don't 00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:51.120 have the King of Navarre in correspondence with... 00:12:51.049 --> 00:12:54.710 with the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy 00:12:54.710 --> 00:12:57.509 hopefully they're hopefully they're not comparing 00:12:57.509 --> 00:13:03.250 notes right i mean you can just imagine the King 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:06.529 of France this 19 year old receiving this letter 00:13:06.529 --> 00:13:11.009 and and you know saying hey uncle Duke of Burgundy 00:13:11.009 --> 00:13:14.850 looks like Joan, the new king in the crown of 00:13:14.850 --> 00:13:17.809 Aragon, is gonna be back in perfect health in 00:13:17.809 --> 00:13:20.389 a short time. And then the Duke of Burgundy says, 00:13:20.889 --> 00:13:23.429 well, that's kind of funny because 17 days ago 00:13:23.429 --> 00:13:26.009 I got a letter that said he was gonna be in perfect 00:13:26.009 --> 00:13:30.029 health in just a short time. So, you know, I 00:13:30.029 --> 00:13:34.830 guess they are not terribly concerned with how 00:13:34.830 --> 00:13:38.190 these recipients of these messages might be comparing 00:13:38.190 --> 00:13:44.299 notes. I'm not sure how much we can read into 00:13:44.299 --> 00:13:46.460 that maybe they knew that these folks didn't 00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:48.720 really talk to each other all that much and they 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:52.919 didn't have to worry about it but it is interesting 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:56.659 and it and when i see stuff like this when i 00:13:56.659 --> 00:14:00.820 see this is corroboration okay this is the heart 00:14:00.820 --> 00:14:05.700 of what historians do with the historical thinking 00:14:05.700 --> 00:14:09.769 skill corroboration the ability to look at these 00:14:09.769 --> 00:14:13.149 different documents and to compare them in order 00:14:13.149 --> 00:14:17.009 to try to get beyond the face value reading of 00:14:17.009 --> 00:14:20.309 each one we're reading these especially today's 00:14:20.309 --> 00:14:24.250 against the grain right because at face value 00:14:24.250 --> 00:14:29.929 this is just a simple pleasantries exchange that 00:14:29.929 --> 00:14:34.409 is just very general and doesn't wouldn't raise 00:14:34.409 --> 00:14:41.659 any concerns It minimizes Joann's illness. But 00:14:41.659 --> 00:14:45.960 when we corroborate, when we look at the longer 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:49.039 story and look at all these documents in which 00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:53.399 Joann's illness has been downplayed or erased, 00:14:53.820 --> 00:14:56.460 and then certain moments where it peeks through, 00:14:57.129 --> 00:15:02.830 like in some of the letters that Violant sent 00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.730 to her family members, like her father, Robert 00:15:05.730 --> 00:15:10.230 de Bar. And then when we see this inconsistency 00:15:10.230 --> 00:15:13.370 between them, like when we're comparing what 00:15:13.370 --> 00:15:16.470 Joanne wrote on March 20th to what Violant wrote 00:15:16.470 --> 00:15:21.149 on March 22nd, we're seeing that we have access 00:15:21.149 --> 00:15:28.100 to a different interpretation than just the face 00:15:28.100 --> 00:15:32.539 value of what the documents say. And that ability 00:15:32.539 --> 00:15:39.080 to kind of trace through and read against the 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:42.960 grain and to kind of keep it all in your head 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:51.259 over time, that is the mark of someone who is 00:15:51.259 --> 00:15:56.139 doing historical thinking. And when you can layer 00:15:56.139 --> 00:16:01.039 on top of that something that I don't have, which 00:16:01.039 --> 00:16:03.899 is say like 20 years of experience of looking 00:16:03.899 --> 00:16:06.759 at these documents and thinking and reading about 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:12.940 the historical context, then you have expertise. 00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:18.740 Okay? So part of the mission of this podcast 00:16:18.740 --> 00:16:26.070 is to attempt to explain what historical expertise 00:16:26.070 --> 00:16:30.830 actually looks like in practice. And what we've 00:16:30.830 --> 00:16:36.450 got today is an excellent illustrative example 00:16:36.450 --> 00:16:40.570 of how historical expertise will get you something 00:16:40.570 --> 00:16:44.669 in terms of understanding what happened with 00:16:44.669 --> 00:16:47.470 historical subjects, people of the past, that 00:16:47.470 --> 00:16:54.480 you wouldn't get from just a quick glance and 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:56.879 looking at the document and reading it at face 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:02.019 value. So this episode, in my mind, is a super 00:17:02.019 --> 00:17:05.980 important one and foundational to the whole idea 00:17:05.980 --> 00:17:08.940 of the project, being able to get to this point. 00:17:08.940 --> 00:17:13.660 And I feel a little bit lucky that my mind was 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:19.339 able to kind of recall the earlier letters from 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:23.700 uh the one from March 20th was not as hard to 00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:27.700 recall but going back to the one from the Duke 00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:32.220 of Burgundy you know I did that by searching 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:37.779 through what I had I just put a search in the 00:17:37.779 --> 00:17:40.900 program that I'm using to to write up all the 00:17:40.900 --> 00:17:44.619 website pages it's called Visual Studio Code 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.200 I put the word dins d -i -n -s because I was 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:50.299 like I think I knew that I think that phrase 00:17:50.299 --> 00:17:53.940 came up so I did just a keyword search for that 00:17:53.940 --> 00:18:00.299 and I was able to see that I had had a little 00:18:00.299 --> 00:18:02.960 bit in the close reading section on that webpage 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:06.599 about that and that's the only way that I was 00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:11.140 able to get back to March 5th. I could have easily 00:18:11.450 --> 00:18:13.970 on the March 5th episode, chosen something else 00:18:13.970 --> 00:18:17.029 to focus on for the close reading. I mean, it 00:18:17.029 --> 00:18:18.829 does make sense that I would choose that because 00:18:18.829 --> 00:18:23.109 I'm trying to track how Joan's illness is being 00:18:23.109 --> 00:18:28.630 referred to, but it is almost like a bit of an 00:18:28.630 --> 00:18:31.430 instinctual move for me to have done that on 00:18:31.430 --> 00:18:37.130 March 5th, and I didn't know that it would benefit 00:18:37.130 --> 00:18:44.500 me on March 22nd. So that is a little bit more 00:18:44.500 --> 00:18:49.440 of an explicit breakdown of how I was able to 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:53.200 get to this point. And I hope that when we get 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:58.099 to this big letter that Josep Roca is working 00:18:58.099 --> 00:19:02.019 from in his analysis, It's a big letter on April 00:19:02.019 --> 00:19:05.680 27th that Violant sends to the Pope, in which 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.440 she just, like, lets loose. This is the letter 00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:13.539 that says that Joan, at some point, was administered 00:19:13.539 --> 00:19:20.299 last rites. And Roca thinks that that was in 00:19:20.299 --> 00:19:23.720 January. That what Violant is describing is 00:19:23.720 --> 00:19:26.539 something that took place in January. And I have 00:19:26.539 --> 00:19:30.450 to try to figure out what he's seeing. that leads 00:19:30.450 --> 00:19:36.750 him to place the episode that Violant is describing 00:19:36.750 --> 00:19:41.549 that far in the past and not later on, like say, 00:19:41.589 --> 00:19:45.450 I don't know, like something that happens more 00:19:45.450 --> 00:19:47.630 close to when Violant is writing that letter 00:19:47.630 --> 00:19:52.849 in April. So that's one of the key things I'm 00:19:52.849 --> 00:19:55.750 trying to figure out as I'm looking at the way 00:19:55.750 --> 00:20:02.200 that Joan's health is described. And also let's 00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:06.519 remember the lens of disability studies in which 00:20:06.519 --> 00:20:14.980 we see that any of Joan's incapacitations physically 00:20:14.980 --> 00:20:19.279 as a result of this illness are being anxiously 00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:25.059 made invisible through the work of all of these 00:20:25.059 --> 00:20:29.359 people around him. especially the scribes that 00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:33.920 are doing the writing for him and who knows how 00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:37.220 often like in that one document from February 00:20:37.220 --> 00:20:39.819 20th where he says I wasn't able to sign this 00:20:39.819 --> 00:20:44.980 how often is his signature essentially being 00:20:44.980 --> 00:20:47.759 I wouldn't I wouldn't go so far as saying forged 00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:50.140 because he's authorizing the scribes to sign 00:20:50.140 --> 00:20:55.089 it for him but it's being presented as his signature 00:20:55.089 --> 00:20:58.470 when really it's not his actual hand that wrote 00:20:58.470 --> 00:21:06.269 it. All right, so a seemingly nondescript, non 00:21:06.269 --> 00:21:12.950 -controversial letter that actually in comparison 00:21:12.950 --> 00:21:16.670 to the other documentation and all of the work 00:21:16.670 --> 00:21:19.890 that we've been doing turns out to have this 00:21:19.890 --> 00:21:24.569 explosive character to it. So that's one of the 00:21:24.569 --> 00:21:27.589 joys of doing this project, is being able to 00:21:27.589 --> 00:21:31.210 surface that. Thank you so much for listening 00:21:31.210 --> 00:21:34.950 to this episode of the Historian's Notebook, 00:21:35.210 --> 00:21:39.609 season one, Molt cara companyona. If you are leaving 00:21:39.609 --> 00:21:41.950 with more questions than you arrived with, I've 00:21:41.950 --> 00:21:46.349 done my job. Because remember, the motto of the 00:21:46.349 --> 00:21:50.289 Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. 00:21:51.250 --> 00:21:53.650 Visit the website to see an image of today's 00:21:53.650 --> 00:21:57.509 document and additional show notes, including 00:21:57.509 --> 00:22:01.970 links to all of the different episodes that I 00:22:01.970 --> 00:22:06.380 have referred to in this one. and listen again 00:22:06.380 --> 00:22:09.799 tomorrow to hear about the next day in the first 00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:14.279 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:22:14.279 --> 00:22:18.140 Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take 00:22:18.140 --> 00:22:18.519 care.