Season 1, Episode 160

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Joan’s court officials ask the magistrate of Morella to send records about the investigation of the murder of Jacme Guiffa, a resident of Chiva de Morella.

Today’s Document

• Subject: information sought about a murder case
• Date: June 2, 1387
• Day of the Week: Sunday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1825 f160v-161r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Joan
• Recipients: the justice officials in the town of Morella

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: Joan’s court officials had the authority to request information about any legal proceeding; perhaps someone had made a complaint to the court that the restitution in this case was not sufficient; the people whose names are at the end of the text block for this document are Francesc ça Costa, Joan’s vicechancellor from 1387-1389, and Dominic Masco, who served as a vicechancellor for Valencia¹

• Contextualization: murder inquests in the medieval Crown of Aragon could be extremely extensive, with one case identified by the scholar Marie Kelleher involving fifty-three witnesses²

• Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 106 makes for a useful comparison to this one in that the earlier document intervenes in a case that might very well have been a murder case, but within an interfaith context since the victim was a member of the Jewish aljama

• Close-Reading: the word crossed out in line 3 is ‘illate’ which is a form of ‘infero’ and has a range of meanings around ‘inflict, or cause’; the writers of this document wanted to repeat ‘perpetrate’ perhaps in order to underscore the criminality of the act

What is this document doing?

• This document extends the authority of the state into a local criminal investigation.
• The document initiates additional generation of records and their transmission.

Questions

• Why does a document about a murder case originate with the royal treasurer?
• How did this murder case come to the attention of royal officials in the first place?
• How involved was Joan himself in any of the details of this case?

Additional Notes

See Episode 4 for an introduction to Daniel Girona i Llagostera’s itinerary project.

AI Usage

I gave an initial transcription by Gemini to Claude for a reconciliation. Claude then produced a translation with footnotes. AI helped me to identify the word ‘necis’ as central to the meaning of the document. On the other hand, it failed to connect ‘xvia’ to the place name of Chiva, which was a readily available piece of information on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Bibliography

• Bisson, Thomas N. Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History. Clarendon Press, 1986.
• Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton University Press, 1957.
• Kelleher, Marie A. The Measure of Woman: Law and Female Identity in the Crown of Aragon. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
• Trenchs i Odena, Josep, Antonio María Aragó, and Rafael Conde y Delgado de Molina. Las cancillerías de la Corona de Aragón y Mallorca desde Jaime I a la muerte de Juan II. Institución “Fernando el Católico,” 1983.

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