WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.320 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:12.839 it was March 26, 1387. My name is Jonathan Seyfried. 00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:16.620 I'm a PhD candidate in history at the University 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:20.600 of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's Notebook, 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.339 a podcast about how history gets made. Season 00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:29.660 1 is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We are looking 00:00:29.660 --> 00:00:33.219 at a document from each day of the first year 00:00:33.219 --> 00:00:37.840 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.000 Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:05.739 --> 00:01:08.219 So you know how a couple days ago we were looking 00:01:08.219 --> 00:01:11.920 at a document about how Joan needed to raise 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:19.079 money to get soldiers to go to Sardinia to combat 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:22.939 some of the resistance of the Sardinians against 00:01:22.939 --> 00:01:28.260 Catalan rule? Okay, well that costed some money 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:31.620 and he was worried that he wouldn't get the funding 00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:34.799 to pay those soldiers. There was a lot of urgency 00:01:34.799 --> 00:01:37.760 in that letter. Well, here we are a couple days 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:44.760 later and Joan is writing to the royal procurator 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:49.439 in Mallorca and it's on a completely different 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:53.500 topic and he doesn't really say anything about 00:01:53.500 --> 00:02:00.079 the money specifically, but I mean, he basically 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:06.640 says, whatever you need to obtain these things, 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:20.500 I will be providing to you. Right, and so he's 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:23.960 like I am gonna send you whatever provisions 00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:28.580 you need in order to buy all these things and 00:02:28.580 --> 00:02:35.180 What is it that is getting? purchased with money 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:42.879 who knows from where is a bunch of cool hunting 00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:49.639 bird stuff and something that ties in to an extremely 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:56.819 famous mappa mundi, a map of the world. All right, 00:02:57.099 --> 00:02:59.199 it's so fun to talk about these things that I 00:02:59.199 --> 00:03:01.520 don't even know which one to do first. Well, 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:05.800 Joan starts out with the birds. So this is 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:09.080 a really difficult thing to figure out what he's 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:11.419 talking about exactly, like what kind of bird. 00:03:11.939 --> 00:03:17.900 He uses the word gallines de India so it's 00:03:17.900 --> 00:03:22.240 like I mean the word is like chicken it's like 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:25.500 chickens from India but I don't think he's like 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:29.280 all that excited about chickens I think it's 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:33.340 some kind of like other bird like a hunting bird 00:03:33.340 --> 00:03:38.460 like not Falcons because he uses Falcons later 00:03:38.460 --> 00:03:43.300 on in the letter so I don't know exactly what 00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:46.370 type of hunting bird he has in mind, but I'm 00:03:46.370 --> 00:03:50.870 pretty sure it's a hunting bird. So he is writing 00:03:50.870 --> 00:03:56.150 to the procurator. I'm having trouble saying 00:03:56.150 --> 00:04:00.870 it in English now. The procurator, and he's saying 00:04:00.870 --> 00:04:10.370 you have to send the three pairs of Birds of 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:13.509 India there's some birds that have arrived from 00:04:13.509 --> 00:04:21.290 India and two of them are male He will maybe 00:04:21.290 --> 00:04:23.149 he's heard that there's a bunch of birds and 00:04:23.149 --> 00:04:26.110 he want and this is the quantity he wants He 00:04:26.110 --> 00:04:30.550 wants three pairs and he wants at least two males 00:04:30.550 --> 00:04:35.050 So that's how he starts the letter, you know 00:04:35.050 --> 00:04:38.939 send me these birds that I've heard about that 00:04:38.939 --> 00:04:42.860 have come into Mallorca from India. So right 00:04:42.860 --> 00:04:47.220 there we have really interesting revelations 00:04:47.220 --> 00:04:53.100 that Joan receives information about the kind 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:56.540 of stuff that arrives to Mallorca. We already 00:04:56.540 --> 00:05:00.019 got that. I mean earlier in, I guess it was maybe 00:05:00.019 --> 00:05:03.639 a couple weeks ago, he had verified that he had 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:06.199 received a whole bunch of treasures from Mallorca, 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:09.259 including sapphires and all kinds of gold stuff 00:05:09.259 --> 00:05:14.699 and cool textiles and carpets. So we know that 00:05:14.699 --> 00:05:20.040 he's frequent. shopper when it comes to the cool 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:24.060 stuff that arrives in Mallorca. But what's neat 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:29.699 is that we have this claim that there are birds 00:05:29.699 --> 00:05:34.160 that have come from India. And of course, you 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:37.779 know, what is it? What is the word India mean 00:05:37.779 --> 00:05:42.810 in this context? It could just mean from Far 00:05:42.810 --> 00:05:48.110 away it could mean Silk Road. It's not necessarily 00:05:48.110 --> 00:05:53.149 Claiming the actual place of India that we would 00:05:53.149 --> 00:05:57.870 know today but it is interesting that there's 00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:02.189 a possibility and it's definitely the case that 00:06:02.189 --> 00:06:07.329 Catalan merchants made it into the Red Sea and 00:06:07.329 --> 00:06:14.160 the Arabian Sea and so it is definitely a possibility 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:20.000 that when Joan is talking about these birds 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:25.079 from India that they actually did come from India 00:06:25.079 --> 00:06:32.540 someplace like Goa, for example, or maybe even 00:06:32.540 --> 00:06:37.759 further south someplace like Kochi. All right, 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:43.829 now let's move on to The next part of the letter, 00:06:44.189 --> 00:06:48.509 this is exciting. The name Cresques comes up. 00:06:49.569 --> 00:06:56.149 So, and also he's identified as a Jew. So, Cresques 00:06:56.250 --> 00:07:01.370 jehu. All right. The Jew Cresques . So already 00:07:01.370 --> 00:07:05.269 we've got interfaith context coming up here. 00:07:06.430 --> 00:07:24.399 So the, let me just read it out. So he has found 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:31.060 out that this Jew named Cresques who was making 00:07:31.060 --> 00:07:40.959 a world map for Joan has died. This is a reference 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:46.079 to actually someone that's very famous. One of 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:53.120 the most reproduced maps of this era, a Portolan 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:58.819 map made by Cresques is known as the Catalan Atlas. 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:04.100 It is currently in the Bibliotheque Nationale 00:08:04.100 --> 00:08:07.899 in Paris. And actually, I had the opportunity 00:08:07.899 --> 00:08:13.040 to go look at it myself. And so I think I'm going 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:17.860 to post a selfie that I took with the Catalan 00:08:17.860 --> 00:08:21.899 Atlas in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris 00:08:21.899 --> 00:08:26.660 onto the web page for today's document. This 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:29.439 map, and I'll put a couple different images on 00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:34.820 it, is often reproduced. in world history textbooks 00:08:34.820 --> 00:08:40.039 these days because it demonstrates the connectivity 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:44.899 all across the Mediterranean with in the kind 00:08:44.899 --> 00:08:50.360 of trade networks with the Saharan trade networks 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:55.240 and all the way into the Silk Road. So basically 00:08:55.909 --> 00:08:59.330 It's got a lot of little passages and details 00:08:59.330 --> 00:09:04.009 and illustrations. It's a beautiful work. Now, 00:09:04.389 --> 00:09:07.750 I don't think that the actual Catalan atlas that 00:09:07.750 --> 00:09:11.929 survived to this day and is reproduced so much 00:09:11.929 --> 00:09:15.590 is the one that Joan is referring to here. 00:09:16.090 --> 00:09:23.179 That particular map made by Cresques is one that 00:09:23.179 --> 00:09:27.820 he was commissioned to create for Charles V of 00:09:27.820 --> 00:09:36.100 France, and that was before 1380. So Cresques 00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:42.700 was making maps for a lot of high -profile clients. 00:09:43.379 --> 00:09:48.179 It is true that he had been appointed to a royal 00:09:48.179 --> 00:09:53.379 position for the Crown of Aragon. and he lived 00:09:53.379 --> 00:09:57.620 in Majorca this whole time. And so he had additional 00:09:57.620 --> 00:10:01.320 funding in order to increase the productivity 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:06.919 of his workshop and for all the materials. At 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:15.600 this time, Majorca hosted this map -making school. 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:20.490 It's actually called the Majorcan Cartographic 00:10:20.490 --> 00:10:23.490 School, and there's a little Wikipedia page about 00:10:23.490 --> 00:10:28.049 it that I'll link to on the webpage for this 00:10:28.049 --> 00:10:33.950 episode. The Majorcan Cartographic School produced 00:10:33.950 --> 00:10:38.129 Portolan chart maps, and there's a bit of a debate 00:10:38.129 --> 00:10:42.429 about whether it was the genoese or these Mallorcans 00:10:42.429 --> 00:10:45.750 who invented portolan charts when we say portolan 00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:49.049 we're talking about the custom in map making 00:10:49.049 --> 00:10:51.610 where there's all these straight lines these 00:10:51.610 --> 00:10:54.809 diagonal straight lines that are inter that are 00:10:54.809 --> 00:10:57.169 kind of connected in like intersections so it 00:10:57.169 --> 00:11:00.970 looks like a bunch of like stars in a way so 00:11:00.970 --> 00:11:07.899 that's portolan map making and It's an invention 00:11:07.899 --> 00:11:13.159 that really aids in navigation, and so it's possible 00:11:13.159 --> 00:11:17.039 that the creators of that were these Majorcan 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:20.519 cartographers, but it's up for debate. It could 00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:24.149 have been the cartographers in Genoa. that invented 00:11:24.149 --> 00:11:27.370 that. But the important thing to understand about 00:11:27.370 --> 00:11:31.090 this Mallorcan cartographic school is that they 00:11:31.090 --> 00:11:35.090 were almost all Jewish. So it was the Jewish 00:11:35.090 --> 00:11:39.909 community in Mallorca that gave rise to this 00:11:39.909 --> 00:11:46.769 group of artisan mapmakers, and they were renowned 00:11:46.769 --> 00:11:54.950 all over Europe. So they supplied maps to royals 00:11:54.950 --> 00:12:02.110 all over the place. And indeed, part of the launching 00:12:02.110 --> 00:12:09.159 of Portugal into major power player status. in 00:12:09.159 --> 00:12:12.799 the long -distance trade that was happening in 00:12:12.799 --> 00:12:18.440 the 15th century can be traced back to how the 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:22.840 King of Portugal recruited cartographers from 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:28.120 Majorca to move to Lisbon and to help start out 00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:33.000 a greater understanding of cartography and navigation. 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:37.919 So these maps and these particular map makers 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:44.240 are really important for the trajectory of Europe 00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:49.519 as a whole. And here we have Joan seeking out 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:54.220 a product from that particular school. It's not 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:58.120 clear which map this was or whether it currently 00:12:58.120 --> 00:13:02.480 survives. The Wikipedia page, which I know is 00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:04.419 not authoritative, and I'm going to talk about 00:13:04.419 --> 00:13:09.399 that in just a bit, but the Wikipedia page for 00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:13.620 Cresques , for Abraham Cresques , lists a bunch of 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:17.320 his maps that do survive, and none of them are 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:21.980 currently in Spain. So they're held in libraries 00:13:21.980 --> 00:13:25.700 in other places, like I think there's one in 00:13:25.700 --> 00:13:30.740 Florence, for example. Word of caution, when 00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:34.019 you look at the Wikipedia pages for the Majorcan 00:13:34.019 --> 00:13:38.100 Cartographic School, for Abraham Cresques, for 00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:42.440 his son Yehuda Cresques, and for the Catalan Atlas, 00:13:42.740 --> 00:13:45.460 there's a lot of inaccuracies on these Wikipedia 00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:49.659 pages. Generally speaking, they will give you 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:53.419 an accurate idea of what the importance of all 00:13:53.419 --> 00:13:58.289 of this was, culturally and economically. but 00:13:58.289 --> 00:14:01.289 there are small details that are again and again 00:14:01.289 --> 00:14:03.870 being repeated on these Wikipedia pages that 00:14:03.870 --> 00:14:09.570 are incorrect. So at one point, Joan is linked 00:14:09.570 --> 00:14:15.809 to Abraham Cresques in a way that is not possible. 00:14:16.169 --> 00:14:20.090 So here, you know, we have documentation in today's 00:14:20.090 --> 00:14:22.350 document from the Archive of the Crown of Aragon 00:14:22.350 --> 00:14:28.570 that Abraham Cresques had died around 1387 or 00:14:28.570 --> 00:14:32.309 maybe late 1386 and stuff on the Wikipedia page 00:14:32.309 --> 00:14:34.809 makes it seem like he was still alive into the 00:14:34.809 --> 00:14:38.470 1390s so obviously someone there creating those 00:14:38.470 --> 00:14:42.110 pages is getting confused and maybe some secondary 00:14:42.110 --> 00:14:46.529 sources have gotten confused but we are absolutely 00:14:46.529 --> 00:14:51.909 sure that Joan is not mistaken at this point. 00:14:52.429 --> 00:14:56.409 There's plenty of documentation later on, too. 00:14:56.570 --> 00:14:59.149 And actually, in July, we're going to look at 00:14:59.149 --> 00:15:05.470 a document where Joan is referring to Abraham 00:15:05.470 --> 00:15:11.029 Cresques' son, Yehuda. So it's pretty clear that 00:15:11.029 --> 00:15:15.470 Abraham Cresques died in late 1396 or around. 00:15:17.259 --> 00:15:26.559 1386 or 1387. Okay, so basically Joanne is interested 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:30.600 in getting a Mappa mundi. There were a lot of 00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:34.080 medieval elites that wanted to look at Mappa mundi's 00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:37.620 maps of the world, and for obvious reasons they're 00:15:37.620 --> 00:15:42.139 really interesting. And Joan was definitely 00:15:42.139 --> 00:15:50.059 somebody who was a acquirer of knowledge and 00:15:50.059 --> 00:15:53.980 culture, and these world maps I'm sure would 00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:58.480 have been a great joy for him to peruse. And 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:02.659 I am quite confident in saying that he would 00:16:02.659 --> 00:16:08.730 have shared this with Violant. Okay, let's talk 00:16:08.730 --> 00:16:11.870 about what else is covered in this letter. So 00:16:11.870 --> 00:16:15.710 he's heard, Joann has heard that Abraham Cresques 00:16:15.710 --> 00:16:19.330 has died. And so he's concerned, Joan is concerned 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:22.549 about getting his map that he had commissioned. 00:16:23.110 --> 00:16:28.779 And so. He says if it's not finished, then there 00:16:28.779 --> 00:16:34.000 is a Christian here in Barcelona that I know 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.820 who would be able to finish it. So just send 00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:41.600 it. So that's what he says to his procurator 00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:45.879 in Mallorca. And then he goes back to another 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:49.799 topic of another product that he's wanting to 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:54.000 get from Mallorca, Falcons. So he talks about 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.899 falcon—he was really into falconry, and there's 00:16:57.899 --> 00:17:01.879 just a whole gigantic literature about falconry. 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:04.680 I think I've talked about it once before on the 00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:11.380 podcast. Falcons are not efficient for obtaining 00:17:11.380 --> 00:17:16.559 prey for like cooking. Like for eating like there 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:19.880 it just takes a long time to train them and what 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:23.079 they get is not anything That's you know big 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:26.920 so if you're really concerned about hunting for 00:17:26.920 --> 00:17:31.819 the reasons of nourishment Then Falcons are not 00:17:31.819 --> 00:17:35.849 the way to go but if you are instead excited 00:17:35.849 --> 00:17:39.089 by watching a falcon hunt its prey by swooping 00:17:39.089 --> 00:17:43.089 around in the sky and you have a lot of spare 00:17:43.089 --> 00:17:46.130 time on your hands to train them or have a staff 00:17:46.130 --> 00:17:49.430 of people to train them, meaning you're wealthy, 00:17:49.930 --> 00:17:53.970 then in the middle ages you love some falcons. 00:17:54.430 --> 00:17:58.990 And there were a lot of falconers and there were, 00:17:59.069 --> 00:18:02.269 I mean, geez, you know, going all the way back 00:18:02.329 --> 00:18:07.670 to uh what's his face Frederick Frederick in 00:18:07.670 --> 00:18:12.930 um Sicily he god what's his name Frederick the 00:18:12.930 --> 00:18:17.589 second i think he had like 50 different people 00:18:17.589 --> 00:18:20.369 working as falconers and he knew them all by 00:18:20.369 --> 00:18:24.049 name he's just loving his falcons so there's 00:18:24.049 --> 00:18:26.829 definitely a lot of medieval elites that are 00:18:26.829 --> 00:18:29.710 just deep into falconry i guess it's kind of 00:18:29.710 --> 00:18:33.829 exciting and see him swooping around in the air 00:18:33.829 --> 00:18:36.549 and all that stuff. So anyway, Joan is really 00:18:36.549 --> 00:18:41.910 into falcons, and he mentions that there's some 00:18:41.910 --> 00:18:46.549 falcons that he would like his procurator to 00:18:46.549 --> 00:18:51.650 obtain from Majorca. I think there seems like 00:18:51.650 --> 00:18:56.829 they've been made in Majorca. So native Majorcan 00:18:56.829 --> 00:18:58.950 falcons. I don't know enough about falconry to 00:18:58.950 --> 00:19:03.859 know. If that's like, you know, the best Falcons 00:19:03.859 --> 00:19:07.900 out there, the ones in Mallorca, maybe. So mapmakers 00:19:07.900 --> 00:19:14.240 and falconers. Mallorca's got it going on. Alright, 00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:18.880 so I think that's pretty much it for today's 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:21.859 document, but it's really great because it connects 00:19:21.859 --> 00:19:27.259 into a material object that you can go to see. 00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:31.779 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and while 00:19:31.779 --> 00:19:36.259 that's not exactly the same object that Joanne 00:19:36.259 --> 00:19:39.440 looked at, you can be confident that as you look 00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:43.099 at the Catalan Atlas, it's known as the Catalan 00:19:43.099 --> 00:19:45.299 Atlas, that you were looking at something that 00:19:45.299 --> 00:19:49.450 Joan very similar to the product that Joan 00:19:49.450 --> 00:19:52.670 himself, and probably Violant too, would have 00:19:52.670 --> 00:19:55.410 looked at with great interest, as they were very 00:19:55.410 --> 00:20:00.549 curious about geography and the world all the 00:20:00.549 --> 00:20:06.170 way back 639 years ago. Thanks for listening 00:20:06.170 --> 00:20:09.289 to this episode of the Historian's Notebook, 00:20:09.569 --> 00:20:14.349 Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving 00:20:14.349 --> 00:20:17.259 with more questions than you arrived with, I've 00:20:17.259 --> 00:20:22.200 done my job. Remember, the motto of the Historian's 00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:27.079 Notebook is dissatisfaction guaranteed. Visit 00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:30.079 the website to see an image of today's document, 00:20:30.579 --> 00:20:34.099 a whole bunch of images of the Catalan Atlas 00:20:34.099 --> 00:20:39.099 made by Abraham Cresques, and additional show 00:20:39.099 --> 00:20:42.779 notes. and listen again tomorrow to hear about 00:20:42.779 --> 00:20:46.160 the next day in the first year of the reign of 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:51.500 King Joan I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. 00:20:51.740 --> 00:20:53.839 In the meantime, take care.