Season 1, Episode 131

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Violant informs her Ambassadors in Avignon that two of Sibilla de Fortià’s knights have been imprisoned and that one of them, En Pontons, had carried out sorcery to make Joan ill.

Today’s Document

• Subject: the capture of two more of Sibilla de Fortià’s knights and Violant’s suspicion of evil sorcery
• Date: May 4, 1387
• Day of the Week: Saturday
• Language: Catalan
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R2056 f98r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipients: Ambassadors in Avignon

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: Violant continues to offer the most truthful updates about Joan’s health to the ambassadors in Avignon; possibly this is motivated by her desire to convince the leaders in the Papal Court that Joan is divinely favored; Violant, in this document, decides to move forward with connecting Joan’s illness to Sibilla de Fortià, accusing her advisers of causing Joan’s illness through evil magic

• Contextualization: since 1326, it was punishable by excommunication to be in possession of texts deemed sidereal¹; suspicion of the use of evil magic would have been grounds for severe criminal punishment by the state in many places during the fourteenth century

• Corroboration: the animosity that Violant had toward Sibilla is well-established in previous documents, tagged with Sibilla’s name; today’s document, however, raises the stakes significantly

• Close-Reading: the word ‘malefici’ can be interpreted as having sidereal aspects, meaning evil magic, or in other contexts the word can be interpreted as simply ‘misdeeds,’ such as criminal acts that don’t involve anything sidereal at all; in this document, based on what we see from her upcoming correspondence, Violant very likely intends to invoke the sidereal

What is this document doing?

• This document assignes a scapegoat for Joan’s illness.
• The document condemns particular individuals for practicing evil magic.

Questions

• Who originated the idea that evil magic had caused Joan’s illness?
• Did Violant hope to see Sibilla executed for this?
• How did this letter relate to the executions of two others of Sibilla’s advisers that Zurita asserts took place on April 29th?²
• What had the ambassadors written to Violant?

AI Usage

The transcription and translation of this document was carried out by my OpenClaw pipeline. The first part with Gemini glitched horribly and so for this document there is only the output from Claude.

Bibliography

• Duni, Matteo. “The Popes and Magic.” In The Cambridge History of the Papacy, 1st ed., edited by Joëlle Rollo-Koster, Robert A. Ventresca, Melodie H. Eichbauer, and Miles Pattenden, 486-513. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
• Flint, Valerie. The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe. Princeton University Press, 1994.
• Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. Third edition. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
• Ryan, Michael A. A Kingdom of Stargazers: Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon. Cornell University Press, 2011.
• Roca, Josep M. Johan I d’Aragó. Barcelona: Institució Patxot, 1929.
• Stanmore, Tabitha. Love Spells and Lost Treasure: Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• Tasis i Marca, Rafael. Joan I: el rei caçador i músic. Barcelona: Editorial Aedos, 1959.
• Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. The Macmillan Company, 1923.
• Zurita, Jerónimo. Anales de la Corona de Aragón. Digital edition coordinated by J. Iso. Vol. 4, edited by A. Canellas López. Institución Fernando el Católico, 2003. Available online at the website of the Institución Fernando el Católico.

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