Season 1, Episode 1

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It’s December 25, 1387. Happy New Year!

Today’s Document

• Subject: Aragonese students in trouble with authorities in Montpellier
• Date: December 25, 1387
• Day of the Week: Tuesday
• Language: Catalan
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1822 f117v
• Link to PARES
• Place: Girona
• Sender: Violant, Duchess of Girona
• Recipient: Prohomens of Montpellier

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: duchess, demonstrating authority over subjects, extending jurisdiction, intercessionary
• Contextualization: ascension imminent, Crown of Aragon as a collection of polities, patriarchy, Aragonese lieutenancy for elite women
• Corroboration: Joan’s letter of January 2 also mentions the Montpellier students
• Close-Reading: claims responsibility for the students but not attempting to vindicate them; perhaps hinting at mercy or light treatment; only alludes to the crimes vaguely as ‘a case’

Questions

• What did the students do? What type of crime?
• Does Violant have Montpellier in her portfolio or have particular jurisdiction over it?
• How unusual was it for the Duke and Duchess to intercede on behalf of students in trouble?
• Were the students connected to elite figures or friends of Joan and Violant? (Joan’s Jan. 2nd letter makes it seem like the answer is no)
• What does the precipitating incident say about student identity or lifestyle in university towns?
• How many Crown of Aragon subjects went to distant lands for university training? Were there physician training universities in Iberia at this time? (I think Montpellier might be the closest one but I’m not sure.)
• How does Violant’s imminent ascension to the throne shape the content or tone of this letter?
• Did Joan also directly intercede at some point? Before or after Violant?

Additional Notes

In the late-fourteenth-century the Crown of Aragon, the new year began on the same day as Christmas, December 25th.

On this day, Violant de Bar, not yet queen, wrote to the political leaders of the city of Montpellier about some troublesome students of Aragonese origin.

In Episode 1, I lay out some general expectations for how the podcast will go. Each 15-minute daily episode features a document from that day in 1387, the first year of Joan and Violant’s reign as King and Queen of the Crown of Aragon. Sometimes the episode will focus on that document’s content and other times the document will simply jumpstart a conversation about some background knowledge.

There are over 60,000 documents connected to Joan and Violant in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon. This season of The Historian’s Notebook will take you on a journey into that abundant source of historical information. Thematically, the podcast will also explore how medievalists today write about gender in the Middle Ages.

Bibliography

• Alvarez, Sandra. “Celebrating the New Year, Medieval Style.” Medievalists.Net, December 31, 2015. .
• Wineburg, Sam. Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone). The University of Chicago Press, 2018.¹

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