Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was March 22, 1387. My name is Jonathan Seyfried.
I'm a PhD candidate in history at the University
of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's Notebook,
a podcast about how history gets made. Season
1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're looking
at a document from each day of the first year
of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen
Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document.
Oh my goodness, where do I even begin with today's
document? Oh wow. Alright, well, let's start
with just the basics and then we're gonna see
how this document is. Well, it seems completely
innocuous and rather just another document of
pleasantries from one monarch to another. But
because of the work that we've already been doing
this year, it is, in my mind, explosive. But
I don't know, maybe I'm just being dramatic.
Here's the basics. It's from Violant. It is in
the... Secret Seal Register, the new one that's
starting out. This is folio 3V of the Curie
-Sigeli -Secreti Register, and the Addressee is
the King of France. Now you might think at first,
oh well, this is, you know, two powerful people
in correspondence. But actually, at this time,
Charles VI, King of France, has not yet wrested
control, political control, from his uncles.
And so even though he seems like, you know, in
my mind, old enough to really be ruling the kingdom,
because he's 19 at this time, his uncles have
been preventing him from exiting the period of
regency. And so the duke de Berry and the duke
of Burgundy, they are still the ones in charge.
And it's only about a year from this point that
Charles VI figures out how to get out from under
their regency, to take political control, and
to sideline his two uncles. So when Violant
is writing to him, she is, you know, writing
to somebody whose she knows is not yet in charge.
Not sure that that makes any gigantic difference
here. The date is, you know, today's date, March
22nd, and the letter starts out, you know, pleasant,
you know, humdrum pleasantries. Hope you're doing
well. please send us word of your health and
how things are going and then once we get into
the end of line end of line five we get some
interesting stuff so all right the infants okay
nostres infants so The children are in good
health, good disposition of our person. Okay,
persons. Then the next sentence. This is the
equivalent of Molt cara companyona. So, Joan
is always writing about Violant as Molt cara
companyona, and Violant writes about Joan
as Senyor Nostre Molt Car. Well, what's going on
with Senyor Nostre Molt Car? I'm sure that people
who've already listened to a bunch of episodes
have had their ears perk up at certain words,
like malaltia, illness, convalescencia, convalescence.
And then, for those of you who are super sharp,
you might remember that on March 5th, you know,
over, I mean, how many days is that? I mean,
March 5th to March 22nd, 17 days ago, Violant
used pretty much the exact same phrase. She used
that same phrase in a letter to the Duke of Burgundy.
And in that letter on March 5th, that phrase
means in a short time, he's going to be in perfect
health. March 22, que dins breu espera esser
guardit perfectament, that in a short time it
is hoped he will be in perfect health. He's convalescing
from his illness. On March 22, his perfect health
is something that is hoped for in the future.
On March 5th, his perfect health is something
that was hoped for as a future state. Now, do
you remember what we talked about two days ago
on March 20th? Two days ago on March 20th, Joann
was writing to a different monarch, the King
of Navarre. On March 20th, he wrote that he was
that he had been delivered and fully done with
the misfortune that he's essentially it's all
behind him so look at this damage control and
how we're getting these different stories from
the different people at different times, all
in this effort to reassure their audiences that
the health of the king is good and not bad. the
king's two bodies is a phrase that evokes this
state of it's like a metaphorical understanding
of the power of the king and how it connected
to the legitimacy of his rule that if the body
of the king is healthy, then that is a powerful
metaphor for a successful reign. And if the body
of the king is not healthy, then there's a tension
that arises because there's this association
symbolically between the physical body of that
human being, the king, and the body of the country,
the realm. And of course, the person who did
the foundational work on this is Ernst Kantorowicz,
whose book, The King's Two Bodies, is still very,
very foundational and well -cited and has had
some updates to it, but the initial insight is
one that has just been a standard for understanding
the way that medieval political elites saw the
relationship between the human being, the king,
and then the kingdom, the realm. So it's interesting
also to think about in terms of rulership today
because there is absolutely an anxiety on the
part of political leaders to project good health.
I mean we just have had a series of you know
a pair of of presidencies dominated by this issue
where we saw Joe Biden in the United States basically
have these health problems and it led to political
disaster for his party and now we've got a president
who is obviously elderly but acting in a way
that is desperate to show virulence, strength,
and health. So these concepts, these associations
of healthiness and its connection to political
strength, they are deep, deep in and really ingrained
in Western civilization and maybe even beyond
Western civilization. I don't know, but I mean
certainly within the political traditions the
symbolic meanings that are associated with power
political power and and governance So look at
how in this narrative that's emerging about Joan's
body We are just going on this roller coaster
You know what I like to imagine is what was going
through the minds of the scribes as they were
writing these things down because it's like one
day he's totally fine and the next day we're
talking about oh he's still got some more convalescence
and it's gonna be a short time I mean They know,
right? I mean, the people that are surrounding
Joann, they know his health condition in the
present. And so are they just kind of thinking,
all right, well, I'm gonna write this down and
hopefully they believe it. And hopefully they're
not talking to each other. Hopefully we don't
have the King of Navarre in correspondence with...
with the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy
hopefully they're hopefully they're not comparing
notes right i mean you can just imagine the King
of France this 19 year old receiving this letter
and and you know saying hey uncle Duke of Burgundy
looks like Joan, the new king in the crown of
Aragon, is gonna be back in perfect health in
a short time. And then the Duke of Burgundy says,
well, that's kind of funny because 17 days ago
I got a letter that said he was gonna be in perfect
health in just a short time. So, you know, I
guess they are not terribly concerned with how
these recipients of these messages might be comparing
notes. I'm not sure how much we can read into
that maybe they knew that these folks didn't
really talk to each other all that much and they
didn't have to worry about it but it is interesting
and it and when i see stuff like this when i
see this is corroboration okay this is the heart
of what historians do with the historical thinking
skill corroboration the ability to look at these
different documents and to compare them in order
to try to get beyond the face value reading of
each one we're reading these especially today's
against the grain right because at face value
this is just a simple pleasantries exchange that
is just very general and doesn't wouldn't raise
any concerns It minimizes Joann's illness. But
when we corroborate, when we look at the longer
story and look at all these documents in which
Joann's illness has been downplayed or erased,
and then certain moments where it peeks through,
like in some of the letters that Violant sent
to her family members, like her father, Robert
de Bar. And then when we see this inconsistency
between them, like when we're comparing what
Joanne wrote on March 20th to what Violant wrote
on March 22nd, we're seeing that we have access
to a different interpretation than just the face
value of what the documents say. And that ability
to kind of trace through and read against the
grain and to kind of keep it all in your head
over time, that is the mark of someone who is
doing historical thinking. And when you can layer
on top of that something that I don't have, which
is say like 20 years of experience of looking
at these documents and thinking and reading about
the historical context, then you have expertise.
Okay? So part of the mission of this podcast
is to attempt to explain what historical expertise
actually looks like in practice. And what we've
got today is an excellent illustrative example
of how historical expertise will get you something
in terms of understanding what happened with
historical subjects, people of the past, that
you wouldn't get from just a quick glance and
looking at the document and reading it at face
value. So this episode, in my mind, is a super
important one and foundational to the whole idea
of the project, being able to get to this point.
And I feel a little bit lucky that my mind was
able to kind of recall the earlier letters from
uh the one from March 20th was not as hard to
recall but going back to the one from the Duke
of Burgundy you know I did that by searching
through what I had I just put a search in the
program that I'm using to to write up all the
website pages it's called Visual Studio Code
I put the word dins d -i -n -s because I was
like I think I knew that I think that phrase
came up so I did just a keyword search for that
and I was able to see that I had had a little
bit in the close reading section on that webpage
about that and that's the only way that I was
able to get back to March 5th. I could have easily
on the March 5th episode, chosen something else
to focus on for the close reading. I mean, it
does make sense that I would choose that because
I'm trying to track how Joan's illness is being
referred to, but it is almost like a bit of an
instinctual move for me to have done that on
March 5th, and I didn't know that it would benefit
me on March 22nd. So that is a little bit more
of an explicit breakdown of how I was able to
get to this point. And I hope that when we get
to this big letter that Josep Roca is working
from in his analysis, It's a big letter on April
27th that Violant sends to the Pope, in which
she just, like, lets loose. This is the letter
that says that Joan, at some point, was administered
last rites. And Roca thinks that that was in
January. That what Violant is describing is
something that took place in January. And I have
to try to figure out what he's seeing. that leads
him to place the episode that Violant is describing
that far in the past and not later on, like say,
I don't know, like something that happens more
close to when Violant is writing that letter
in April. So that's one of the key things I'm
trying to figure out as I'm looking at the way
that Joan's health is described. And also let's
remember the lens of disability studies in which
we see that any of Joan's incapacitations physically
as a result of this illness are being anxiously
made invisible through the work of all of these
people around him. especially the scribes that
are doing the writing for him and who knows how
often like in that one document from February
20th where he says I wasn't able to sign this
how often is his signature essentially being
I wouldn't I wouldn't go so far as saying forged
because he's authorizing the scribes to sign
it for him but it's being presented as his signature
when really it's not his actual hand that wrote
it. All right, so a seemingly nondescript, non
-controversial letter that actually in comparison
to the other documentation and all of the work
that we've been doing turns out to have this
explosive character to it. So that's one of the
joys of doing this project, is being able to
surface that. Thank you so much for listening
to this episode of the Historian's Notebook,
season one, Molt cara companyona. If you are leaving
with more questions than you arrived with, I've
done my job. Because remember, the motto of the
Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed.
Visit the website to see an image of today's
document and additional show notes, including
links to all of the different episodes that I
have referred to in this one. and listen again
tomorrow to hear about the next day in the first
year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and
Queen Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take
care.