Hello. In The Crown of Aragon 639 years ago,
it was March 24th, 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. Today's document provides a really
fascinating window into some of the money stress
that faced Joan and Violant pretty much right
away and continued to plague their reign. So
this particular document is from Joan and it
is about Sardinia, the island of Sardinia. It's
in the secret seal register, and it's being addressed
to, interestingly, the Archbishop of Zaragoza.
Well, I guess that makes sense, actually, now
that I think about it. And then a couple other
individuals who have some kind of official role
in, I think, raising the money. So this is about
raising money. And the reason... that, and I
initially forgot this, that it's addressed to
the Archbishop of Zaragoza is that the money
is going to be coming from some kind of ecclesiastical
process. So there's some kind of tithe that can
be imposed that is authorized by the pope and
will be administered by the ecclesiastical officials
in Zaragoza. And that money, you know, there's
really no religious justification for it at all.
It's going to be used in order to send soldiers
to the island of Sardinia. And so the whole purpose
of this document is to inform the ecclesiastical
officials in Zaragoza that they need to... Collect
this money and that it's really urgent that they
do so because those soldiers they need to get
paid All right. Well that explains the addressee
and the content of the letter requires quite
a lot of historical context to understand but
before we get into the history of Sardinia and
the larger Mediterranean picture for the Crown
of Aragon in the 14th century. I just want to
make a little paleographical note. The beginning
of this document is at the very bottom of folio
29r, and there's just two lines there. The second
line has Illa de Cardenya. and sometimes illa
means island and other times it doesn't. Like
there's the word illa to me is still a little
bit confusing and I'm definitely going to ask
about this in the seminar on medieval Catalan
that I'm taking over the summer. Well, illa can
also mean like region, I think, or it can be
like a metaphorical in its like island Meaning?
Yeah, I'm just not sure. So when I saw the capital
C, and it's clearly a capital C in Cerdanya,
I immediately thought that this was about a region
called Cerdanya, which is near the Pyrenees.
I was very reluctant to see this as about the
island of Sardinia. The initial transcription
result that I got from Gemini was a really strong
correction on me, saying that there's no way
that this is Cerdanya, this is definitely Sardinia.
And I was reluctant to go along with that, because
that is a capital C, and I just... I'm like,
no, it would be an S if it was... if it was sardinia
so i actually went to chat gpt and asked it hey
can you look through and see if sardinia is ever
spelled this way and it came back saying no this
is definitely Cerdanya but notice how i've been
pronouncing these words i've been trying to really
hit that a in Cerdanya really hard because that
turns out to be the key here After a bit more
reading of this document and also looking at
Claude's initial transcription, I am 100 % sure
that this is a document about Sardinia. It's
because there's some city names in folio 29v
that correspond to cities in Sardinia, and then
also the name of the person mentioned in the
fourth line, Mossen Eixemenes Perez de Aranjos,
governador. He was the governor, the crown of
Aragon's governor of Sardinia at this time. So
this is absolutely a letter about Sardinia. And
it looks like the spelling of sardinia could
be c -e -r -d -e -n -y -a as it appears at the
bottom of folio 29r and the real key to understanding
whether you're reading something about sardinia
or serdanya is what comes after the d in the
middle If you're seeing an A, then it's probably
the region near the Pyrenees called Cerdanya.
And if you're seeing the letter E, as is very
clear here, you're probably reading about the
island of Sardinia. So there you have it. It's
a difference that, to my eye, It was not one
that I could recognize initially, but now we'll
see what comes up later. Now Sardinia, let's
talk about the history of this island. Sardinia
was incorporated into the Crown of Aragon as
it made, as the Crown of Aragon made this amazing
Mediterranean expansion in the course of the
14th century. And a lot of that expansion happened
under the reign of Joan's father Pere the Ceremonious.
But I'm pretty sure that the Catalan presence
in Sardinia actually predates the reign of Pere
the Ceremonious. It might even go back to the
13th century. I'm a little hazy on when it all
starts. But the important thing to realize is
that In the 14th century overall, the wealth
generated from Catalan merchant activity allowed
Barcelona to become a competitor to some of the
Italian city -states, especially Genoa. So Genoa
and the Crown of Aragon become major rivals in
the Mediterranean. and they are at war for a
lot of a lot of the years throughout the 14th
century and Genoa had a hold on the island of
Sardinia and the Catalan merchants and adventurers
took it took it from Genoa and then there's just
a lot of kind of back -and -forth. It's basically
that the Sardinians are trying to not be ruled
by the Crown of Aragon, and the Crown of Aragon
is very intent on keeping the island of Sardinia.
Thomas Bisson, in his book A Short History of
the Crown of Aragon, he observes that Sardinia
was a major farming and basically a breadbasket
source for the Crown of Aragon. He kind of goes
so far as to say that the farms on the island
of Sardinia were basically feeding the people
of Barcelona and Mallorca. So This island is
incredibly valuable to the Crown of Aragon, but
it seems like the people of Sardinia themselves,
they're really more connected to Genoa. One of
the leaders in Sardinia is Eleanor d 'Arboria,
and she actually has a lot of financial ties
to to Genoa and also has some lineage in her
ancestry from Genoa. But she herself was born
actually on land in Aragon. And so she's a really
interesting person. She's actually one of the
women of the middle ages in Sardinia that is
most commemorated. in Sardinia today as one of
the powerful women rulers in Sardinia's history
and also one of the greatest rulers in general
for the island of Sardinia. So there's like a
big statue of her in Sardinia and also I I think
what else can I say oh yeah her title so she
wasn't a queen she's It's really interesting.
I'm not quite sure about the translation of this
title, but she's known as a judge or like, if
you're gendering it, a judge -ess. So the titles
of the leaders of the various realms of Sardinia,
there were like four different realms and Arborea
was one of them. Their titles are a little bit
unusual and can't quite exactly figure out what
her title was. All right. So Eleanor d 'Arboria
is one of the main political leaders that organizes
against the Crown of Aragon, and it seems to
me that in 1386 there were no real rebellions
against Catalan rule in Sardinia, but with the
transition of power from Pere the Ceremonious
to this new king, Joan, I think that the Sardinians
see an opportunity to rise up and try to kick
out the Catalan officials from Sardinia. And
so that's what this letter is all about, that
there's increasing resistance to the officials
of the Crown of Aragon in Sardinia, and there
is a need to raise up some soldiers. And the
money is going to come from tithing, apparently,
the people of Zaragoza and maybe Aragon in general.
and that's why this letter is being addressed
to the Archbishop of Zaragoza in addition to
two other officials who I'm not quite sure who
they are. So we can see the need for money in
the fifth line of folio 29 v where we see the
phrase Who will then go there? So the soldats,
the soldiers, right? And the paga, the payment
of the companies of the soldiers. So that's what
the money is required for. And what's really,
I think, a great thing to note is how Joan phrases
the need to raise money and That is two lines
down. So I think now we're at line Oh, I just
lost it. Oh goodness line seven in which he says
it's the third word in man levar diverses quantitats
de moneda And so he wants to have diverse quantities
of money. He wants to raise, manlevar. He wants
to raise diverse quantities of money. I love
that phrase. Like, what is going on there? I
mean, he doesn't just say large, maybe? Maybe
instead of saying like gigantic quantities of
money, if he uses the word diverse, it doesn't
sound as like shocking. So I mean, I would think
of the word diverse as sources like from diverse
sources of money, but he's got it right there
with quantity. So I just think that's really
interesting. And he does acknowledge on the next
line that there is a real need for this because
without it, he won't be able to avoid damage,
dampnatges, that would be... happening that
would the damages that would cause a loss and
then the next line after that perdia a la nostra
corona a loss to the crown from the crown of
this island so basically he's saying look if
I don't get this money then we're going to have
damage to Nostra Corona our crown our realm i
think corona is being used here to mean the realm
and i'm pretty sure it is actually so there's
just a lot of language in here about how there's
an urgent need how we don't want to have damage
to the crown how it's going to be required to
pay a bunch of soldiers and then at the end it
gets super urgent Because he says, in the last
line before the dating clause, that he needs
this money now. So... Meaning that if it's...
I think... Well, we have to add in some of the
stuff earlier in the sentence, but what that
last phrase is saying is that if we don't...
get this money in in a few days then there will
be seria there will be irreparable damage so
this is what it sounds like when the king is
trying to express urgency i mean other other
places in this letter we we have gran necessitat
we have all kinds of phrases throughout this
letter that are conveying the great urgency.
So does this mean that Joan got word that there's
actually a very big effort being mustered by
the opponents of the Crown of Aragon in Sardinia,
and that really Sardinia could be lost by you
know the the next couple days if they don't send
soldiers in right away that is kind of how the
tone is for this letter all right it's all very
urgent indeed and I think that this letter, while
it doesn't say anything about Joan and Violant
and their cooperation or anything really explicitly
about gender or such, it's still got this language
about finances that is super interesting to anybody
who is wanting to study the reign of Joan and
Violant because the major criticism of them
from their opponents has to do with how they
allegedly mismanaged money. And so we can see
like right at the very beginning like just you
know in the third month of their reign there's
already trouble you can't send soldiers to Sardinia
to quell resistance there unless you somehow
activate some weird funding source that originates
from a ruling about religious tithing. So it's
just very odd that there isn't money already
for something like this. It tells you a lot about
the situation that Joan and Violant found
themselves in in terms of finances right at the
outset of their rule. So I don't know if I can
go so far as to say that they should be absolved
of accusations of financial mismanagement because
they really did take out a whole lot of loans
and all kinds of weird financial dealings with
people like Luchino Scarampi, but I think it's
just an important piece of the picture. that
we can glimpse here in this particular letter.
One last thing I guess I should have talked about
this when I was talking about the paleography
earlier because this is another paleographical
note and one that also relates to use of AI.
Notice how at the very end of the document after
the year which once again the scribe has decided
to spell out the number set right after that
we have sub signata so signata starts sub signata
one word starts uh on the second to last line
and then it's like there'd be a a hyphen and
then nada in the signata is on the very last
little line there Sub signata abnostra petit
anell. For me, looking at it with my current abilities
to read the paleography here, this is totally
clear that what's being expressed is that Joan
has used his small ring anell, petit anell. The
paleography is not messy. It's super clear. The
presence of sub signata indicates that it's not
a name of somebody, but both Gemini and Claude
screwed this up. All right, so they got me on
the fact that this was Sardinia and not Cerdanya,
but Here, I have mastery where they do not. And
they're doing something so weird, where it's
like they're really insistent. Like, I told Claude,
I corrected what I had gotten from Gemini, and
I told Claude, this says, sub signata ab nostra
petit anell, but I pretended it was the Gemini
output. I didn't say that it was my reading.
But Claude would not go for it, and insisted,
that this was a person's name. That what we sometimes
see after the year is a person's name in some
of these documents, but this is just... it's
so weird that Claude is able to read a lot of
the paleography in places in the document that
are way more difficult to suss out the letters,
but here it's just not. doing it. It's not sticking
to the letters as they are on the page. It's
overriding what it's seeing with the pattern
of the earlier letters where there are someone's
name at the end after the year in the dating
clause. So that's an interesting output from
the large language models. And I'm not quite
sure what that reflects. Maybe something like
their dedication to patterns is something that
will override some even obvious data that, I
mean, it's obvious to the human eye, but to them
is not going to be strong enough to override
a pattern. So yeah, with those AI models, patterns
are very, very powerful, and this is a good example
of that. Thanks 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, maybe about the history
of Sardinia, I've done my job. 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.
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.