Violant sends out letters to 39 localities to let them know her alguatzir is coming to collect funds from them.
Episode 147
ACA CR R1819 f100r Source: PARES
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
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.
The transcription and translation of this document was carried out by my OpenClaw pipeline.