Season 1, Episode 144

Joan tells his procurator in Mallorca to continue purchasing falcons and hunting birds from India.

Episode 144

Today’s Document

Sourcing: that the recipient is the Procurador indicates that Joan is asking for some kind of purchase; it is curious that as Violant is asking the Pope for help with counter-magic, Joan is shopping for elite hunting animals
Contextualization: luxurious hunting practices were key in self-fashioning projects for medieval elite men in Western Europe during the Middle Ages (see the bibliography below); at the same time, hunting was not always seen as purely masculine, since excessive hunting was a trait of feminity in some medieval representations¹

Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 8 corroborates Joan’s intense interest in hunting even during moments of great tumult; Joan’s interest in hunting dogs from distant locals is corroborated in a document on the same folio as the one examined in Episode 78; the most impactful corroboration would be a document confirming that ‘mandavit mihi’ in the probata indicates that Joan authors the hunting documents himself, even when he is recovering from illness
Close-Reading: the phrase ‘tots los falcons de les agres nostres’ remains confusing because it is not clear what all of the falcons already in Joan’s possession have to do with purchasing more falcons; perhaps this indicates that Joan wanted to trade some of his falcons for others

This document initiates a financial transaction for luxury items.
The document presumes an ongoing exchange and the recipient’s position as a broker.

Was this letter a sign of Joan’s recovery?
How did the falcons that Joan wanted purchased relate to the falcons that he already had?
Did the falcons identified as from India actually come from India?
What was the amount of money required for this purchase?

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

Almond, Richard. Daughters of Artemis: The Huntress in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. D.S. Brewer, 2009.
Almond, Richard. Medieval Hunting. Sutton, 2003.
Buquet, Thierry. “Hunting with Cheetahs at European Courts: From the Origins to the End of a Fashion.” In Animals and Courts: Europe, c. 1200-1800, edited by Mark Hengerer and Nadir Weber. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019.
Cummins, John. The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting. Phoenix, 2001.
Goldberg, Eric Joseph. In the Manner of the Franks: Hunting, Kingship, and Masculinity in Early Medieval Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.
John of Salisbury. Policraticus. edied by Clemens C.I. Webb. Oxford: Clarendon, 1909.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, no. 1 (1990): 3–32.
Klemettilä, Hannele. Animals and Hunters in the Late Middle Ages: Evidence from the BnF MS Fr. 616 of the Livre de Chasse by Gaston Fébus. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015.

Ruth Mazo Karras, “Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, no. 1 (1990): 3–32, at 26-27; for excessive hunting as a reflection of a lack of manhood, see John of Salisbury, Policraticus, Book VIII, ed. Clemens C.I. Webb (Oxford: Clarendon, 1909), 390-398 (Cap.4). ↩