Season 1, Episode 110

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Violant follows up on a letter of recommendation sent a while ago by Joan.

Today’s Document

• Subject: holding a Hospitaller commander responsible for following Joan’s recommendation
• Date: April 13, 1387
• Day of the Week: Saturday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1822 f147r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipient: Tristan de Pucliomonte, a Hospitaller in Pamplona

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: the subtleties in this letter remain unclear but Violant wants the recipient to follow the recommendation already communicated by Joan; here we have a concrete example of co-rule, in which Violant’s authority is intermixed with Joan’s in an international context

• Contextualization: at this point, I am unclear about the connections between the Hospitallers and the Avignon Papacy, and details about the relationship between those two organizations would help to contextualize this document; Pamplona had grown over the centuries in large part due to the pilgrims traveling to the shrine of St. James of Compostela

• Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 62 corroborates this one in that both presume that the queen has a right to intervene in appointments for posts in the Hospitaller organization; this document, though, brings in the authority of the Avignon Papacy, showing multiple network connections at play

• Close-Reading: using the word ‘dudum,’ Violant begins this letter by citing Joan’s earlier correspondence to the Pope, thus attempting to combine her authority with the king and the pope in the eyes of the recipient; the use of the word ‘dedecus,’ a disgrace, implies that Violant is issuing a strong scolding

What is this document doing?

• This document transcends national borders by invoking the connections between the monarchs of the Crown of Aragon, the Avignon Papacy, and the Hospitallers.
• The document brings together several people involved both in Pamplona and internationally

Questions

• Why didn’t Tristan de Puclimonte comply with Joan’s wishes?
• What was the purpose of having Violant enter into this situation, rather than just having Joan issue a more stern warning?
• How was the Pope involved? How closely intertwined were the Hospitallers and the Avignon Papacy?
• Why were there so many people involved in the situation described in this document?

A note about the history of the letter D

In this episode, I forgot the term for the script of the d written with an ascender curved over its bow. That version of letter d is seen in Uncial script. I found a fun webpage that traces the history of the letter d through the ages.

AI Usage

Due to worm damage and difficult paleography the OpenClaw pipeline output was basically useless for this document. So I used Gemini for an initial transcription, which I then had Claude reconcile with its own initial transcription. Claude then produced a translation into English with footnotes. A usable output from Claude required me to transcribe almost half of this document.

Bibliography

• Luttrell, Anthony. The Hospitallers of Rhodes and Their Mediterranean World. Variorum Ashgate, 1992.

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