Season 1, Episode 147

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Violant sends out letters to 39 localities to let them know her alguatzir is coming to collect funds from them.

Today’s Document

• Subject: taxation procedures, possibly for an extra levy of funds for the royal treasury
• Date: May 20, 1387
• Day of the Week: Monday
• Language: Catalan
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1819 f100r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipients: Prohomens and other local authorities throughout the realm

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: the 39 towns receiving this letter would almost certainly be ones in Violant’s portfolio; as queen, she had the authority to raise revenues; Violant identifies the recipients as especially enthusiastic supporters of her reign

• Contextualization: this letter fits into a long-established pattern of the Crown of Aragon as a corporate monarchy; particular localities composed the queen’s portfolio; however, these documents do not appear to be addressed to religious minority communities

• Corroboration: it would be useful to corroborate this document with evidence from the towns themselves about how enthusiastically they supported the new monarchs; the document examined in Episode 29 also informas localities of additional taxation, but the language in that earlier document is less ornate; many other documents about the introduction of new taxes can be found by browsing the episodes tagged with finances

• Close-Reading: the differences between the two documents on this page are very subtle; the abbreviations in the probata are slightly different; the first document begins with ‘Prohomens’ and the second document omits that title; perhaps it was politically important to not address anyone by the title Prohomens unless they had it officially designated; the use of second person plural in the second document makes it clear that this is also addressed to a corporate body, not an individual; Violant uses the word ‘zelador’ to designate the recpients of these letters as particularly enthusiastic supporters of her and Joan

What is this document doing?

• This document justifies the collection of extra taxes by claiming good performance and future plans from the present governing authorities.
• The document explicitly links its authority to the vassal relationship.

Questions

• Would all of the town leaders receiving these documents agree with Violant’s assessment of them as especially enthusiastic supporters of the new reign?
• What made this revenue collection similar or different from all the others that show up in the registers?
• What was Berenguer Eymerich’s role in this and how did he get chosen to be the collector?

Additional Notes

For this episode I used the online database Corpus Informatzia del Catala Antique to determine the frequency of the word ‘zelador’ in medieval Catalan texts.

AI Usage

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

Bibliography

• Sánchez, Manuel, Ángel Sesma Muñoz, and Antoni Furió. “Old and New Forms of Taxation in the Crown of Aragon (13th-14th Centuries).” In La fiscalità nell’economia Europea secc. XIII-XVIII, edited by Simonetta Cavaciocchi. Firenze University Press, 2008. Available for free at CSIC

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