Season 1, Episode 157
Violant writes to an official who oversees governance in Girona to clarify that the jurisdiction is Joan’s but the revenues are hers.
Episode 157
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ACA CR R2053 f12v Source: PARES
Today’s Document
- Subject: judicial and financial administration of the towns and aljamas in Catalonia
- Date: May 30, 1387
- Day of the Week: Thursday
- Language: Catalan
- Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R2053 f12v
- Link to PARES
- Place: Barcelona
- Sender: Violant
- Recipient: Mossen Pere de Aninone, administrator for Catalonia
Historical Thinking Notes
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Sourcing: in this document, Violant pronounces an interpretation of earlier agreements, the ‘Capitols,’ and part of that interpretation involves the role of the king; the final word on who has what role in governance might be expected to come from the king, but Violant positions herself as authorized to draw the lines of authority for both herself and Joan
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Contextualization: this document also fits in with the larger pattern of Iberian queens administering a portfolio of their own revenues based on land ownership; the scholarship on queen lieutenancy frequently characterizes the queen’s role as a separate sphere without much overlap with the portfolios of other members of the royal family but documents like today’s complicate this interpretation
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Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 8 is from Violant to another ‘Gubernatori’ in Majorca, and although that document is quite short the mention of the king creates a notable comparison to today’s document months later; for an example of Violant intervening in law enforcement, perhaps with the kind of jurisdiction mentioned in today’s document, see Episode 51 regarding Valencia
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Close-Reading: the frequent use the words ‘esquivar’ and ‘aspar’ create a tone in this document that accuses others of trying to avoid the terms of the earlier agreement, the ‘Capitol’; I don’t recall any earlier instances of the word rollarem in the probata and this might indicate some other kind of workflow for the creation of this document
What is this document doing?
- This document attempts to reduce perceived ambiguities in a previous legal agreement.
- The document places the recipients in the role of evaders and the sender in the role of enforcer.
Questions
- How egregious had the evasion of the terms of the Capitols become?
- Why did Violant’s court write this document instead of Joan’s?
- Does this document indicate that problems with governance in Catalonia were as severe as those in Aragon?
- How did this document fit into the larger effort to secure additional revenue from many of the municipalities throughout the realm in these months?
AI Usage
The transcription and translation of this document was carried out by my OpenClaw pipeline.
Dictionaries on the Internet
In this episode I used Google Translate to help with some of the phrases in the document, but primarily relied on the following dictionaries.
Bibliography
- Earenfight, Theresa. “Absent Kings: Queens as Political Partners in the Medieval Crown of Aragon.” In Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain, edited by Theresa Earenfight, 33-51. Ashgate, 2005.
- VanLandingham, Marta. Transforming the State: King, Court and Political Culture in the Realms of Aragon (1213-1387). Brill, 2002.