Season 1, Episode 142

Violant shares with her ambassadors in Avignon her conclusion that Joan’s illness resulted from evil curses and sorcery.¹

Episode 142

Today’s Document

Subject: a review of Joan’s near death illness on April 28th and suspicions of sorcery
Date: May 15, 1387
Day of the Week: Wednesday
Language: Catalan
Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R2056 f96v-97r
Link to PARES
Place: Barcelona
Sender: Violant
Recipients: Ambassadors to Avignon Papacy

Sourcing: evidently, Violant has decided that the ambassadors in Avignon need to hear something that is close to the full truth about Joan’s health; everything about her role as queen and wife would have pushed her to stay optimistic about Joan’s recovery but in this document she does not shy away from including details about how weak Joan became as a result of his recent bout; the pursuit of advisors and officials connected to Sibilla da Fortià reflects her status as Violant’s chief antagonist
Contextualization: in the fourteenth century, a suspicion of evil sorcery was not an idea dismissed as unrealistic or outrageous; rather, it would have been irrational to ignore the possibility of the influence of magic for a development without an easily traceable cause; especially in the Late Middle Ages, in texts and in performance, magic was a regular presence in the courts of medieval elites²

Corroboration: in the document examined in Episode 131, dated May 4th, Violant had already introduced the idea that some of Sibilla da Fortià’s advisors had used evil magic against Joan
Close-Reading: there is no explanation for the repetition of details from her April 30th letter; at the top of f97r, the phrase ‘semblance e tante’ likely communicates that in the subsequent days after April 28th, Joan continued to experience severe attacks; the conclusion of the narrative of Joan’s health is upbeat, with Violant insisting that he is convalescing well

This document tasks the ambassadors in Avignon with finding spiritual interventions to help Joan.
The document operates under a presumption that evil magic is a primary cause of Joan’s illness.

What is the explanation for the unusual formatting of this letter, with addendums seemingly smushed into the space on the page?
How do Violant’s word choices for the evil magic (sortilegis, malifici, construccions, negromancy) reflect common knowledge about magic at the time and also her particular knowledge of sidereal topics?
What was the content of the confession of Saragosi de Mallorques that Violant heard in recent days? Did Violant hear it second hand or did she visit the prisoner?
Did Violant have ideas of what kinds of counter-spell resources might be available in Avignon? Was there someone, or a group of people, connected to the papal court that could render this service?

The transcription and translation of this document was carried out by my OpenClaw pipeline.

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.
Roca, Josep M. Johan I d’Aragó. Barcelona: Institució Patxot, 1929.
Ryan, Michael A. A Kingdom of Stargazers: Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon. Cornell University Press, 2011.
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.
Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. The Macmillan Company, 1923.

This document has been partially transcribed by Josep M. Roca, Johan I d’Aragó, (Barcelona: Institució Patxot, 1929), 392. ↩
Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, Third edition (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 118-123. ↩