WEBVTT 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.000 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:12.220 it was March 23rd, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.220 --> 00:00:15.640 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:19.539 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.539 --> 00:00:23.699 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:28.100 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:31.280 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:35.859 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:35.859 --> 00:00:40.100 Queen Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:03.950 --> 00:01:07.390 Well, yesterday I was so excited about what I 00:01:07.390 --> 00:01:12.769 was able to figure out in the archive and I felt 00:01:12.769 --> 00:01:17.120 very masterful. in my ability to understand the 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:21.900 paleography and the catalan and to put it all 00:01:21.900 --> 00:01:26.099 together. And now today I am humbled because 00:01:26.099 --> 00:01:30.659 I'm working with a Latin document and it has 00:01:30.659 --> 00:01:34.319 just been really rough going. Oh my goodness. 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:41.680 So this document is in the Commune et Curiae 00:01:41.689 --> 00:01:46.650 folder for Violant folder register and that 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:52.530 register is for the more businessy things that 00:01:52.530 --> 00:01:56.510 are done and less about the personal updates 00:01:56.510 --> 00:02:00.250 like the kind of stuff we see in the secret seal 00:02:00.250 --> 00:02:06.689 so today's document is one that concerns a number 00:02:06.689 --> 00:02:09.710 of people. There's so many people named at the 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:12.569 beginning of this, but then as we get further 00:02:12.569 --> 00:02:16.889 into it, we see that the focus is about the person 00:02:16.889 --> 00:02:19.569 whose name starts off the whole thing, a certain 00:02:19.569 --> 00:02:26.289 Tome, a certain Thomas. And this document has 00:02:26.289 --> 00:02:31.610 some damage to it from some wormholes, but it's 00:02:31.610 --> 00:02:37.020 not really blocking a lot of the text. The holes 00:02:37.020 --> 00:02:41.400 are occurring, for the most part, outside of 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:44.419 the written letters. And I think I made a mistake 00:02:44.419 --> 00:02:47.659 with the AI chatbots this go around. I had an 00:02:47.659 --> 00:02:53.120 idea that if I forewarned them about the damage 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:55.699 to the paper that it would help them, but I think 00:02:55.699 --> 00:02:59.560 actually it caused a problem. So Gemini just 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.439 kind of like gave up on whole lines thinking 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:06.740 that there was damage blocking letters when really 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:11.099 there wasn't and then Claude did the same thing. 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:15.159 So I think in the future if there's damage to 00:03:15.159 --> 00:03:20.599 the paper like what I'm seeing here I might I 00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:24.360 might just you know not provide that information 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:31.240 to the large language model chatbots and that's 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:33.620 so weird because you would think the more information 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:37.219 the better but it's all about how you describe 00:03:37.219 --> 00:03:41.080 it when you're trying to give instructions to 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:44.719 the chatbots and they might have taken my little 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:48.139 cautionary note and really overextended it in 00:03:48.139 --> 00:03:50.360 its interpretation thinking that there's damage 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:53.099 all over the place so I tried to correct for 00:03:53.099 --> 00:03:57.719 that but I still feel like it just kind of Degraded 00:03:57.719 --> 00:04:01.060 the whole process and then that's on top of the 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:03.639 fact that it is Latin and there are a lot of 00:04:03.639 --> 00:04:07.759 abbreviations there are a lot of names and This 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.819 particular document it's not multiple pages. 00:04:10.819 --> 00:04:14.439 It all fits on one folio, but it still just has 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:18.360 a lot of References in it. So there's I think 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:22.040 two earlier documents that are referenced inside 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:27.259 this one So there's just a lot going on and someone 00:04:27.259 --> 00:04:31.800 who has really been primarily working with legal 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:36.180 documents or financial documents, documents about, 00:04:36.279 --> 00:04:39.079 I think this is about a pension of some kind, 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:43.600 well, they would be able to identify the subtleties 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.420 here. But I am going to be the first to admit 00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:49.920 that for this particular document, the subtleties 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:53.660 are completely out of reach for me. So I'm going 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:57.939 to tell you what I do know about this. I know 00:04:57.939 --> 00:05:02.959 that there's some kind of problem with somebody 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:07.899 named Thomas. I think the other people in the 00:05:07.899 --> 00:05:13.240 document are going to have to do something to 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:18.439 deal with this Thomas problem. I think that they 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:22.220 might need to be giving restitution to Thomas, 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:27.220 but I do not know that for sure. And the clues 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:31.500 that I have about that are at the end of this 00:05:31.500 --> 00:05:36.019 document. So on line 15, we have the penalty 00:05:36.019 --> 00:05:40.819 mentioned. We've got the phrase sub pena centem 00:05:40.819 --> 00:05:47.160 florin auri. So a hundred gold florins is the 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:52.199 penalty if the directive from Violant is not 00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:56.120 followed. And then further towards the end we've 00:05:56.120 --> 00:06:16.149 got on line 21 So but then on the line before 00:06:16.149 --> 00:06:23.470 we've got pre -mesis so pre -mesis and then a 00:06:23.470 --> 00:06:25.569 word that I don't know what it's really hard 00:06:25.569 --> 00:06:29.370 the paleography but then on the next line we 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:35.209 have dicto tome so the said thomas is promised 00:06:35.209 --> 00:06:39.540 or I'm going to be given something I think And 00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:43.000 he's not the one being fined, I'm pretty sure, 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:45.939 but I'm not even entirely sure about that. And 00:06:45.939 --> 00:06:48.680 this issue has been dealt with previously because 00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:53.120 in the document, there are two earlier documents 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:56.939 referred to. So in line eight, there's mention 00:06:56.939 --> 00:07:01.920 of a document from February of 1386. And then 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:05.439 line nine makes it clear that that document was 00:07:05.439 --> 00:07:09.639 actually written by Pere the Ceremonious, Joan's 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:15.639 father, we have at the end of line 9, Regis Petri. 00:07:16.779 --> 00:07:20.459 And then line 10 mentions yet another document 00:07:20.459 --> 00:07:26.660 from the 30th of March of, it looks like, the 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:35.120 same year 1386. It says, Anno Proximo Primo, 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:41.629 maybe? Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot being 00:07:41.629 --> 00:07:44.610 referred to here. And I think one important thing 00:07:44.610 --> 00:07:48.329 we can take away from this is that for all of 00:07:48.329 --> 00:07:53.490 the seemingly difficult organizational choices 00:07:53.490 --> 00:07:56.769 that are made about what is going into what register, 00:07:57.629 --> 00:08:03.290 when we have some kind of problem in March of 00:08:03.290 --> 00:08:09.990 1387, in the reign of a new queen, the chancery 00:08:09.990 --> 00:08:16.310 staff is able to either locate or refer back 00:08:16.310 --> 00:08:20.930 to earlier documents. Now, it is possible that 00:08:20.930 --> 00:08:26.810 when this Thomas made his supplication, his complaint 00:08:26.810 --> 00:08:30.209 to Violante, he mentioned these documents and 00:08:30.209 --> 00:08:33.470 everyone's just taking his word for it. That 00:08:33.470 --> 00:08:36.549 would kind of surprise me. I would guess that 00:08:36.549 --> 00:08:43.750 before the officials here are going to be issuing 00:08:43.750 --> 00:08:47.370 some kind of subsequent ruling or additional 00:08:47.370 --> 00:08:50.809 enforcement of an earlier ruling, they're gonna 00:08:50.809 --> 00:08:54.580 actually check. So I think that they were able 00:08:54.580 --> 00:08:58.159 to go back into the records and verify these 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:01.519 things But I'm not sure they might have maybe 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:03.759 the original letter was somehow included But 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:05.419 that's not the kind of thing you'd want to really 00:09:05.419 --> 00:09:07.980 get rid of You wouldn't want it to leave your 00:09:07.980 --> 00:09:10.159 hand if you were this Thomas You wouldn't want 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:14.360 to send in the original letter with your current 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:16.879 Supplication because then you don't have that 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:19.980 original letter anymore Maybe there was maybe 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:24.139 Thomas could have made a copy I'm not sure. My 00:09:24.139 --> 00:09:26.799 guess though is that at some level the chancery 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:30.700 staff do verify these things, and that's really 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:34.379 the only big takeaway I have from this. I, of 00:09:34.379 --> 00:09:38.659 course, will be looking out as I'm proceeding 00:09:38.659 --> 00:09:42.559 along and just trying to look out for another 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:45.220 Thomas. I don't even know where this Thomas is 00:09:45.220 --> 00:09:49.259 located. I couldn't find a location in the opening 00:09:49.259 --> 00:09:53.919 lines, so maybe It's Barcelona? Maybe all these 00:09:53.919 --> 00:09:57.620 people are in Barcelona? I just... yeah, this 00:09:57.620 --> 00:10:00.440 was a really really tough one. The paleography 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:05.120 was tough, the abbreviations were tough, the 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:12.019 AI chatbots seemed to also struggle, and I couldn't 00:10:12.019 --> 00:10:15.860 pull out anything here that seems like it's related 00:10:15.860 --> 00:10:20.090 to... the big research questions that I have. 00:10:20.610 --> 00:10:23.490 And so in that kind of situation, I just make 00:10:23.490 --> 00:10:28.590 some notes about what this document is about, 00:10:29.070 --> 00:10:32.350 some brief notes, and then just kind of put a 00:10:32.350 --> 00:10:36.330 pin in it. And if something comes up later that 00:10:36.330 --> 00:10:40.090 links back to it, then we'll come back and look 00:10:40.090 --> 00:10:44.590 through it again in more detail. But yeah, we're 00:10:44.590 --> 00:10:48.960 really living up to the motto of the podcast 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:55.000 today. Thanks for listening to this episode of 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:58.600 the Historian's Notebook, season one, Molt Cara 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:02.019 Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions 00:11:02.019 --> 00:11:05.620 than you arrived with, yeah, who are all these 00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:08.940 people in this document? Well, then I've done 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:12.620 my job. Remember, the motto of the Historian's 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:17.029 Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. visit 00:11:17.029 --> 00:11:19.850 the website to see an image of today's document 00:11:19.850 --> 00:11:23.590 and additional show notes, and listen again tomorrow 00:11:23.590 --> 00:11:26.789 to hear about the next day in the first year 00:11:26.789 --> 00:11:31.169 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:11:31.169 --> 00:11:35.049 Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take care.