WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.219 Hello! In the Crown of Aragon 639 years ago, 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:12.419 it was March 27th 1387. My name is Jonathan Seyfried. 00:00:12.779 --> 00:00:16.219 I'm a PhD candidate in history at the University 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:20.160 of New Mexico, and this is the Historian's Notebook, 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:24.820 a podcast about how history gets made. Season 00:00:24.820 --> 00:00:28.839 one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're looking 00:00:28.839 --> 00:00:31.859 at a document from each day of the first year 00:00:31.859 --> 00:00:37.020 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:41.200 Violant de Bar. Let's begin today's document. 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:10.019 Today's document is a letter from Violant to 00:01:10.019 --> 00:01:16.120 her parents, the Duke de Bar and the Duchess 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:22.040 of de Bar. And in previous letters to her parents, 00:01:22.299 --> 00:01:25.640 Violant has been a little bit more candid than 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:29.439 usual there was one a while ago I think it was 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:32.420 in February where she said don't believe the 00:01:32.420 --> 00:01:37.560 rumors about Joan's health he's fine admitting 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:41.170 that there were rumors I mean it could be that 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:44.290 she was not being all that candid because possibly 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:48.010 some of the rumors were actually true and Joan 00:01:48.010 --> 00:01:50.950 wasn't doing so well health -wise and she didn't 00:01:50.950 --> 00:01:53.670 want her parents to know but at least you know 00:01:53.670 --> 00:01:56.030 she's candid to the extent that she admitted 00:01:56.030 --> 00:02:00.170 there were rumors so when i look at a letter 00:02:00.170 --> 00:02:04.349 from Violant to her parents i'm looking for 00:02:04.349 --> 00:02:08.860 opportunities to notice anything as subtle as 00:02:08.860 --> 00:02:12.800 it might be that might tip off that there's still 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:17.599 some problems with Joan's health. And this particular 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:20.560 letter doesn't really give me all that much to 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.280 work with, to be honest. She does use the word 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:29.060 convalescence when talking about Joan and his 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:34.509 health, but she is continuing to use this very 00:02:34.509 --> 00:02:38.189 extreme language about how well he's doing so 00:02:38.189 --> 00:02:43.430 she mentions that he is plenarement restitute 00:02:43.430 --> 00:02:48.870 like fully recovered and that he's got perfecta 00:02:48.870 --> 00:02:54.550 sanitat he's got perfect health so okay we've 00:02:54.550 --> 00:02:58.740 got you know, these statements that assert that 00:02:58.740 --> 00:03:03.419 everything is going just fine with Joan's health 00:03:03.419 --> 00:03:09.259 even though we see weird ambiguities and inconsistencies 00:03:09.259 --> 00:03:12.939 earlier in March. I think the last document that 00:03:12.939 --> 00:03:17.900 we looked at that was about this way that they're 00:03:17.900 --> 00:03:20.719 reporting Joan's health condition was on March 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:25.400 22nd. So on the webpage for this document, I'm 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:30.219 going to be putting all kinds of links to other 00:03:30.219 --> 00:03:34.860 episodes in the corroboration section of the 00:03:34.860 --> 00:03:39.680 webpage. So here we have this letter. It's basically 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:42.860 putting in the record that Joan is doing great 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:47.659 health -wise. And I just want to take a moment 00:03:47.659 --> 00:03:52.680 to give you a heads up about what's coming. because 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:56.900 what I'm really looking for are when cracks begin 00:03:56.900 --> 00:04:00.840 to show in this narrative about Joan's health 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:06.580 being just fine because the real drama with his 00:04:06.580 --> 00:04:12.419 health and his next moment of peril comes in 00:04:12.669 --> 00:04:15.370 April 27th. And when I say the next moment, what 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:19.569 I'm talking about is the existing historiography. 00:04:19.990 --> 00:04:25.009 So the historians that have identified documents 00:04:25.009 --> 00:04:28.810 already that talk about Joan's health during 00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:33.970 this period as we get into the springtime and 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:40.449 approaching summer of 1387. They have already 00:04:40.449 --> 00:04:44.610 found and written about documents regarding Joan's 00:04:44.610 --> 00:04:48.230 health and Violant's response to something very 00:04:48.230 --> 00:04:54.430 serious that happens in late April and into May. 00:04:55.170 --> 00:04:58.829 I'm gonna do a quick rundown of the historians 00:04:59.310 --> 00:05:04.149 who have written about this and identified documents 00:05:04.149 --> 00:05:08.790 in these registers about what happens to Joan 00:05:08.790 --> 00:05:14.329 at the end of April. So the first document is 00:05:14.329 --> 00:05:19.430 April 27th and Dawn Bratsch Prince wrote about it 00:05:19.430 --> 00:05:24.720 and it mentions that Joann is ill. Then we go 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:28.439 to a series of documents that Josep Roca wrote 00:05:28.439 --> 00:05:34.860 about, and those are April 29th, April 30th, 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:41.139 and May 4th. And those documents mention a very 00:05:41.139 --> 00:05:46.699 severe condition that Joan has. It doesn't specify 00:05:46.699 --> 00:05:49.000 what's going on, but that he's in bad shape. 00:05:50.429 --> 00:05:54.769 Then in the folios that are right around the 00:05:54.769 --> 00:05:56.930 ones that Roca talked about, I found another 00:05:56.930 --> 00:05:59.589 one. I don't think any historian has written 00:05:59.589 --> 00:06:03.430 about it yet. It's from May 15th, where there's 00:06:03.430 --> 00:06:10.170 mention of a grave fever. And then May 25th, 00:06:10.230 --> 00:06:13.610 there's a document that Rubio e Lluch talks about. 00:06:14.350 --> 00:06:18.529 still talking about how Violant is responding 00:06:18.529 --> 00:06:26.470 to Joan's illness. May 27th there's one by Rodrigo 00:06:26.470 --> 00:06:34.629 Mateo Lizondo and then on July 12th we have a 00:06:34.629 --> 00:06:38.230 letter that Dawn Bratsch Prince discusses in which 00:06:38.230 --> 00:06:43.269 Violant is discussing the recovery that Joan 00:06:43.269 --> 00:06:48.870 has made, and on July 25th there's one in the 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:54.850 collection by Lizondo about miracles that brought 00:06:54.850 --> 00:06:57.930 Joan out of his illness. So we've got this 00:06:57.930 --> 00:07:02.949 period that is roughly from the end of April 00:07:02.949 --> 00:07:07.790 through pretty much the entirety of May in which 00:07:07.790 --> 00:07:10.790 Joan is in big trouble health -wise. That's 00:07:10.790 --> 00:07:14.170 how I'm reading this right now, but what I'm 00:07:14.170 --> 00:07:17.870 really looking for are indications that something 00:07:17.870 --> 00:07:22.230 was going wrong earlier in April, and we're now 00:07:22.230 --> 00:07:25.709 in March 27th, and so we're really on the lookout 00:07:25.709 --> 00:07:29.689 for this, and then trying to figure out what 00:07:29.689 --> 00:07:34.569 Joan was capable of. in terms of his normal 00:07:34.569 --> 00:07:38.009 duties during the month of April and when he 00:07:38.009 --> 00:07:40.670 gets into trouble and how long he's out of commission 00:07:40.670 --> 00:07:46.050 and then when in May he seems to be back back 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:50.930 in terms of functioning enough to to resume the 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:54.970 level of activity that he had and that we see 00:07:54.970 --> 00:07:59.180 in other moments in the archive so What's gonna 00:07:59.180 --> 00:08:05.279 be really interesting is to track How what we 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:08.620 know which is that there is some moment where 00:08:08.620 --> 00:08:13.060 Joan is not okay and and try to figure out 00:08:13.060 --> 00:08:18.759 how that shows up in the archive the Moments 00:08:18.759 --> 00:08:23.500 that Joan was in big trouble in January. We 00:08:23.500 --> 00:08:29.420 do see a little bit of a more chaotic representation 00:08:29.420 --> 00:08:33.139 of a lot of the documents in that late January 00:08:33.139 --> 00:08:37.139 period but that overlaps with when they're transitioning 00:08:37.139 --> 00:08:40.860 into becoming king and queen so it's really hard 00:08:40.860 --> 00:08:46.019 to understand what is chaotic in the records 00:08:46.019 --> 00:08:48.360 because of Joan's illness and what's chaotic 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:52.159 just because of the transition that we're seeing 00:08:52.159 --> 00:08:57.600 from one reign to another. So this will be interesting 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:03.399 to see what I notice in the registers as we move 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:06.960 forward. And then there's this other wrinkle, 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:13.279 which is that Rafael Tasis y Marca and Josep 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:18.309 Roca are making an argument about how some of 00:09:18.309 --> 00:09:24.110 the letters that we see in the end of April are 00:09:24.110 --> 00:09:28.029 actually referring to what happened in January. 00:09:28.090 --> 00:09:31.629 And I'm trying to evaluate that argument and 00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:35.830 trying to figure out why Roca was making that 00:09:35.830 --> 00:09:38.669 assertion. Still haven't quite figured that out. 00:09:38.669 --> 00:09:42.750 I have to go back and read what Roca wrote very 00:09:42.750 --> 00:09:46.299 carefully. And just to keep in mind, that Josep 00:09:46.299 --> 00:09:49.980 Roca spent a ton of time in these archives and 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:55.299 was very masterful in his understanding of all 00:09:55.299 --> 00:10:01.570 of this material. He was writing in the 1910s 00:10:01.570 --> 00:10:07.149 and 1920s. I think that his big biography of 00:10:07.149 --> 00:10:10.950 Joan was 1929, but if you try to read that cover 00:10:10.950 --> 00:10:14.750 to cover, it's a really tough read because it's 00:10:14.750 --> 00:10:17.570 almost like sort of what I'm doing with this 00:10:17.570 --> 00:10:21.730 podcast. He's got a gigantic number of documents 00:10:21.730 --> 00:10:24.470 that he's trying to weave together and it's more 00:10:24.470 --> 00:10:28.649 of like a journal of the documents thematically 00:10:28.649 --> 00:10:33.370 than it is like what we would expect of a biographical 00:10:33.370 --> 00:10:36.950 treatment so for example he's got a whole chapter 00:10:36.950 --> 00:10:40.990 on what he calls Joan's superstitions things 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:48.480 like astrology and other kinds of Joan getting 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.899 into what would be called the sidereal the magic 00:10:52.899 --> 00:10:58.799 and the Health cures that were you know, maybe 00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:01.019 what we would think of as less medical and more 00:11:01.019 --> 00:11:05.419 magical and so he had Roca has this whole chapter 00:11:05.419 --> 00:11:08.659 on what he calls Joan superstitions and he 00:11:08.659 --> 00:11:11.220 basically goes from like beginning to end like 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:16.080 from Joan's entire life looking at documents 00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:23.480 about his belief in magic or pursuit of the sidereal. 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:27.519 And so he's got these, then he's got another 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:30.940 chapter on his marriage, Joan's marriages. And 00:11:30.940 --> 00:11:34.600 so it doesn't read chronologically. And then 00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:37.799 what's more confusing about this, which would 00:11:37.799 --> 00:11:40.899 be fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with doing 00:11:40.899 --> 00:11:43.539 a work of history like that, but what's confusing 00:11:43.539 --> 00:11:49.039 is that Roca is is inserting a lot of direct 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:52.179 quotations from the documents and he just kind 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:55.179 of tends to jump around chronologically a lot 00:11:55.179 --> 00:11:59.100 so it's like he he made notes about all these 00:11:59.100 --> 00:12:02.279 documents and then he's he's kind of transcribing 00:12:02.279 --> 00:12:06.379 his notes more than he is pursuing an argument 00:12:06.379 --> 00:12:11.269 so it reads more as a notebook than it does as 00:12:11.269 --> 00:12:14.090 a historical argument. So I mean, you know, maybe 00:12:14.090 --> 00:12:16.389 after listening to this podcast that will feel 00:12:16.389 --> 00:12:18.990 very comfortable to you. But you also have to 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:23.070 be able to read Catalan or have a way to translate 00:12:23.070 --> 00:12:25.549 the Catalan. Which can be kind of tough. Some 00:12:25.549 --> 00:12:30.269 of that 1920s Catalan is not really the same 00:12:30.269 --> 00:12:34.269 colloquially as the Catalan writing today. So 00:12:34.269 --> 00:12:36.110 there's been a couple moments where I've been 00:12:36.110 --> 00:12:38.590 really tripped up as I'm trying to read that. 00:12:38.570 --> 00:12:43.590 which is why I can't at this point figure out 00:12:43.590 --> 00:12:47.090 why he's saying that stuff that's written about 00:12:47.090 --> 00:12:51.029 Joan's perilous health condition in late April 00:12:51.029 --> 00:12:54.370 is referring back to January, but it does seem 00:12:54.370 --> 00:12:57.490 like that is what Roca is saying. Alright, so 00:12:57.490 --> 00:12:59.929 that's what's coming up. That's what we're looking 00:12:59.929 --> 00:13:04.090 for, and I would say that, you know, we've just 00:13:04.090 --> 00:13:07.370 got this steady drumbeat of Violant saying that 00:13:07.370 --> 00:13:11.370 Joan's health is good and it's and she's writing 00:13:11.370 --> 00:13:14.429 a letter like that almost once a week to somebody 00:13:14.429 --> 00:13:17.309 and you know there's certain moments where she's 00:13:17.309 --> 00:13:21.929 writing it you know to everybody. So we have 00:13:21.929 --> 00:13:25.169 this steady drum beat about Violant putting 00:13:25.169 --> 00:13:29.769 out there that Joan is doing well health -wise 00:13:29.769 --> 00:13:33.429 and what we're going to look for is how she handles 00:13:33.429 --> 00:13:38.740 it when It's just like really scary for her about 00:13:38.740 --> 00:13:41.899 you know, is he gonna survive and I think that 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:47.120 we're gonna see that in the upcoming weeks and 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.500 Yeah, I'm just curious about when the first instance 00:13:50.500 --> 00:13:54.100 is that we'll we'll see that and if it is something 00:13:54.100 --> 00:13:57.320 that we're gonna notice before The document that 00:13:57.320 --> 00:14:00.539 Dawn Bratsch Prince identified which is dated April 00:14:00.539 --> 00:14:05.500 27th so today's letter we can do a little bit 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:09.539 more discussion of it in particular. Violant 00:14:09.539 --> 00:14:12.940 is writing to her father, and she starts out 00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:16.899 with this information about some merchants. So 00:14:16.899 --> 00:14:20.360 in line three, it's like fourth word from the 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:23.720 end of the line, there's mercaderes. So there's 00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:27.659 some kind of, you know, fet del, dels mercaderes, 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:31.039 some kind of business of the and if some kind 00:14:31.039 --> 00:14:35.919 of decision that has to be made later on in the 00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:39.940 letter about four lines down we see the word 00:14:39.940 --> 00:14:46.860 decisio del negoci. So there's some kind of decision 00:14:46.860 --> 00:14:49.700 about the business regarding the said merchants, 00:14:49.940 --> 00:14:53.899 but nothing specific is mentioned here. And then 00:14:53.899 --> 00:14:56.759 there's also the word justicia, some kind of 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:58.659 justice. There's some kind of decision that has 00:14:58.659 --> 00:15:00.980 to be made about some merchants that somehow 00:15:00.980 --> 00:15:04.580 her father knows about or has given her information 00:15:04.580 --> 00:15:07.720 about. Don't know what that is referring to. 00:15:07.899 --> 00:15:12.279 Maybe we'll see something about that later. Second 00:15:12.279 --> 00:15:15.299 half of the letter is all about the health of 00:15:15.299 --> 00:15:18.220 everybody, Violant says, you know, Joan is 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:21.279 convalescing perfectly, everything's great, and 00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:25.940 then wishes all of her family back in France 00:15:25.940 --> 00:15:30.059 the best of health. There's some interesting 00:15:30.059 --> 00:15:33.600 stuff at the bottom of this letter, which is 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:38.820 the Latin instruction at the very bottom left, 00:15:38.860 --> 00:15:42.580 right below the text block. in which we see that 00:15:42.580 --> 00:15:48.019 the scribe, her I think most trusted consistent 00:15:48.019 --> 00:15:51.419 scribe Bartolomeo Sirvent, has written that 00:15:51.419 --> 00:15:56.299 there's been another letter that has been sent 00:15:56.299 --> 00:16:02.220 to the duquesa debar, so her mother. So basically 00:16:02.220 --> 00:16:07.789 what we see here in the second two the last line 00:16:07.789 --> 00:16:09.970 I guess you could also say the middle line of 00:16:09.970 --> 00:16:13.590 that Latin phrase is mutatis mutandis and we've 00:16:13.590 --> 00:16:16.049 seen that before in one of the letters I think 00:16:16.049 --> 00:16:19.250 maybe it might have been in one of the Scarampi 00:16:19.250 --> 00:16:25.730 letters not sure but mutatis mutandis is idiomatic 00:16:25.730 --> 00:16:31.309 for saying that with all the things changed that 00:16:31.309 --> 00:16:34.559 should be changed so this is actually a phrase 00:16:34.559 --> 00:16:39.860 that is still used in legal contexts today in 00:16:39.860 --> 00:16:42.179 courts in the United States and legal documents 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:45.320 basically shorthand for saying like the main 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:49.179 points are all identical but we're just changing 00:16:49.179 --> 00:16:54.879 around some of the smaller details and it's basically 00:16:54.879 --> 00:16:58.799 saying like you don't need to have an entirely 00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:05.009 new copy recorded here because it's just common 00:17:05.009 --> 00:17:09.490 sense to understand that when the same letter 00:17:09.490 --> 00:17:14.049 is being sent out to somebody else certain necessary 00:17:14.049 --> 00:17:17.349 details will be changed such as instead of saying 00:17:17.349 --> 00:17:22.789 molt car pare it will probably start molt cara 00:17:22.789 --> 00:17:28.230 mare or something like that so that phrase let's 00:17:28.230 --> 00:17:32.009 just do a little latin lesson here because I 00:17:32.009 --> 00:17:34.529 think it's really interesting to figure out well 00:17:34.529 --> 00:17:38.930 like how is this phrase operating and how did 00:17:38.930 --> 00:17:44.690 it go from being a literal phrase like literally 00:17:44.690 --> 00:17:48.250 what it would be translated to is something like 00:17:48.250 --> 00:17:54.490 having been changed needing to be changed that's 00:17:54.490 --> 00:17:56.650 literally what those words are being translated 00:17:56.650 --> 00:18:01.619 to in their particular tenses and what's going 00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:04.700 on grammatically is that this is a construction 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:10.500 known as the ablative absolute the ablative absolute 00:18:10.500 --> 00:18:16.599 is when you have a noun and a participle in a 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:21.680 pairing that is meant to be a separate phrase 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:25.960 so it usually stands alone as a separate clause 00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:31.720 and basically it's used to indicate that there 00:18:31.720 --> 00:18:35.619 is kind of some sort of separation from the other 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:38.720 content of a sentence or maybe that there's some 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:43.839 kind of other person doing something so a noun 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:48.000 plus a participle that is separated out from 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:51.180 the rest of the sentence that is an ablative 00:18:51.180 --> 00:18:58.119 absolute so the participle part of that is participle 00:18:58.119 --> 00:19:01.019 is a grammatical term that means a verb that 00:19:01.019 --> 00:19:06.720 is acting as an adjective so in this sense the 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:11.160 ing part of something like needing to be changed 00:19:11.160 --> 00:19:17.880 the needing is now a an adjective it's it's not 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:22.180 a verb because it's got the ing it's in the when 00:19:22.180 --> 00:19:28.140 you have the ing it's the gerundive So mutandis 00:19:28.140 --> 00:19:33.279 is the ablative case of a plural gerundive and 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:40.420 it means needing to be changed. Mutatis is an 00:19:40.420 --> 00:19:45.339 ablative plural and also let me just explain 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:51.420 the term ablative. The term ablative is the word 00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:54.420 used in grammar to mean that there's some kind 00:19:54.420 --> 00:19:58.099 of separate something is separate or has some 00:19:58.099 --> 00:20:03.099 kind of separate agent within some clause that's 00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:08.660 not connected in the direct meaning of the sentence. 00:20:09.059 --> 00:20:12.619 Is that at all understandable? I'm not sure. 00:20:13.869 --> 00:20:17.789 But I thought I would just break down mutatis 00:20:17.789 --> 00:20:22.230 mutandis for you all in case anyone was curious 00:20:22.230 --> 00:20:25.549 About how Latin works a little bit and I've probably 00:20:25.549 --> 00:20:28.369 mangled that explanation people who really know 00:20:28.369 --> 00:20:31.789 their Latin if you're listening to this Yeah, 00:20:32.130 --> 00:20:34.650 I I know I messed that up in some places, but 00:20:34.650 --> 00:20:39.349 it's the general idea here that we have this 00:20:39.349 --> 00:20:45.160 method in Latin for putting together concepts 00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:47.740 that in English we would need a prepositional 00:20:47.740 --> 00:20:50.660 phrase for. We would need something like the 00:20:50.660 --> 00:20:54.720 word with. in order to get the meaning across. 00:20:55.079 --> 00:20:59.500 But in Latin, you can play with the endings of 00:20:59.500 --> 00:21:03.200 the words that change based on your tenses and 00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:06.359 the function grammatically in the sentence. And 00:21:06.359 --> 00:21:10.099 you can get these fun phrases that are alliterative, 00:21:10.299 --> 00:21:14.000 fun to say, mutatis mutandis, and they stick 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:16.539 around. You know, it's something that's very 00:21:16.539 --> 00:21:20.759 useful. It's a very shorthand way of saying with 00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:24.400 the things changed that should be changed and 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.039 it's a concept that is useful because it saves 00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:32.299 you the time of writing a whole new copy in your 00:21:32.299 --> 00:21:35.400 archival register if we're talking about this 00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:40.019 particular document from 1387 and it also saves 00:21:40.019 --> 00:21:45.430 you time in a contemporary legal context where 00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:48.109 there's an understanding that we're not going 00:21:48.109 --> 00:21:51.730 to have to go through painstakingly copies copies 00:21:51.730 --> 00:21:55.549 copies of things when we can just overall say 00:21:55.549 --> 00:21:59.390 look these documents have been changed where 00:21:59.390 --> 00:22:02.170 they need to be in the small details but the 00:22:02.170 --> 00:22:07.569 overall point and meaning is the same all right 00:22:11.399 --> 00:22:15.019 you now know a whole lot about that phrase, and 00:22:15.019 --> 00:22:19.019 I do too. And let me explain that I didn't just 00:22:19.019 --> 00:22:21.859 come up with that on my own, all that explanation. 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:27.380 Nope. I had the help of good old AI chatbot, 00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:31.480 ChatGPT. So ChatGPT helped to break down the 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:35.819 grammar for me. As I was looking at it, I recalled 00:22:35.819 --> 00:22:38.980 explanations from some of my Latin teachers, 00:22:39.460 --> 00:22:43.920 and so... it tracked with what i remembered and 00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:46.579 so it's not like i was just going to chat gpt 00:22:46.579 --> 00:22:51.500 but in this case the ai chat bot was a helpful 00:22:51.500 --> 00:22:56.779 assistant for my memory and my own refreshing 00:22:56.779 --> 00:23:00.619 of my understanding one other thing about ai 00:23:00.619 --> 00:23:04.140 usage for today's episode i for the last several 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:08.059 episodes have had the same routine with doing 00:23:08.059 --> 00:23:12.250 some transcription through Gemini and Claude, 00:23:12.650 --> 00:23:17.990 but today, on March 27th, Claude was having some 00:23:17.990 --> 00:23:23.829 problems. It was not able to function. Basically, 00:23:23.869 --> 00:23:27.069 there's a major outage for Claude on the morning 00:23:27.069 --> 00:23:32.750 of March 27th, 2026. And so I ran this document 00:23:32.750 --> 00:23:40.250 through Gemini and I got, you know, some okay 00:23:40.250 --> 00:23:43.829 transcription, but there is a lot that Gemini 00:23:43.829 --> 00:23:49.390 didn't quite get, and so basically it was not... 00:23:49.390 --> 00:23:52.029 I didn't spend much time looking at that. Just 00:23:52.029 --> 00:23:54.670 checking a couple things. Thanks for listening 00:23:54.670 --> 00:23:57.970 to this episode of the Historian's Notebook, 00:23:58.150 --> 00:24:02.500 Season 1, Molt Cara Companyona. If you are leaving 00:24:02.500 --> 00:24:05.660 with more questions than you arrived with, like 00:24:05.660 --> 00:24:08.480 my explanation of Latin grammar might not have 00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:11.599 really been that great. Well, if you still have 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:15.359 questions about that, I've done my job. Well, 00:24:15.359 --> 00:24:18.259 also I'll post the chat GPT transcript so you 00:24:18.259 --> 00:24:22.180 can get a better understanding of the ablative 00:24:22.180 --> 00:24:28.640 absolute and mutatis mutandis from there. Well, 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:32.319 okay. Remember, the motto of the Historian's 00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:36.660 Notebook is, dissatisfaction guaranteed. Visit 00:24:36.660 --> 00:24:39.819 the website to see an image of today's document 00:24:39.819 --> 00:24:43.940 and additional show notes, and listen again tomorrow 00:24:43.940 --> 00:24:46.660 to hear about the next day in the first year 00:24:46.660 --> 00:24:50.980 of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and Queen 00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:54.440 Violant de Bar. In the meantime, take care.