Season 1, Episode 106

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Violant orders the bailiff of Girona to cooperate with her official, Bernard Company, in the investigation of violence against the sons of a Jew named Mossen Falcon.

Today’s Document

• Subject: criminal investigation of violence against a Jewish family in Girona
• Date: April 9, 1387
• Day of the Week: Tuesday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1819 f94r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipients: the bailiff and judicial official of Girona

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: Violant, as the head of state and the direct governing authority over the Jewish aljama of Girona, would be highly motivated to ensure that criminal acts of violence against Jewish subjects did not go unpunished; however, the municipal authorities would not have the same motivation as the queen because they had no financial incentive to protect Jews or their property and any Christian leader attempting to stand up for the Jews might suffer social sanction or attacks as a result

• Contextualization: in the days leading up to Easter, which was Sunday, April 7th, Christians would attack Jews with more frequency and with greater severity; Easter brought feelings of religious fervor to the forefront and would open opportunities for people to act on long-held antagonism; although religious holidays don’t usually inspire this kind of fervor or violence in the 21st-century USA, it is easier to imagine the connection to patriotic fervor around July 4th each year and how violent individuals might lash out due to the increased emotionality that comes with expressions of nationalism on that day

• Corroboration: the document from Violant’s Commune Register 1822 examined in Episode 96 was the first in the thread about violence against Jews in the city of Girona; this document corroborates the analysis of Benjamin Gampel in 1391 that the directives of the monarchs were often ignored when it came to their condemnation of violence against Jews

• Close-Reading: the number of people involved in this document, described in various phrases in Latin, made a close ready of this document very difficult; Easter is not mentioned in this document but it is clear from this documenbt and others that the upsurge in violence against Jews in Girona coincided with the arrival of the Easter Holiday in 1387

What is this document doing?

• This document attempts to initiate legal action against Christians who attacked Jews.
• The document presumes that attacks on Jews, even during the fervor of Easter, are reprehensible acts.

Questions

• What were the injuries and losses suffered by Mossen Falcon? Was someone, maybe his son, killed?
• What familiarity did Violant have with Bernard Company, the official she sent to investigate in Girona?
• Would the Christian leaders of Girona have taken Bernard Company seriously? Why or why not?
• Had the attacks Jews discussed in this letter been even more directly connected to the Easter holiday?

AI Usage

Register 1819 was one of the six I put through the OpenClaw agentic AI pipeline. Here is the OpenClaw AI Pipeline transcript for this episode. This was the first register in my agentic AI process and Gemini stopped producing output due to usage limits. In this episode I observe how Claude failed to accurately expand the abbreviation for S-E-R.

Bibliography

• Gampel, Benjamin R. Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Guerson de Oliveira, Alexandra. “Coping with Crises: Christian-Jewish Relations in Catalonia and Aragon, 1380–1391.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2012.
• Nirenberg, David. Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton University Press, 1996.

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