Season 1, Episode 173

Return to episodes list

Violant complains to Charles III of Navarre about an enemy of hers, Ramon d’Abella, living in Charles’s ‘regne e casa.’

Today’s Document

• Subject: general good tidings and a note of displeasure about an enemy in Charles’s house
• Date: June 15, 1387
• Day of the Week: Saturday
• Language: Catalan
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R2056 f16v
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipient: Charles III of Navarre

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: Charles III of Navarre is probably the other monarch with whom Violant feels the most confidence and so it is interesting that he gets the same level of information about Joan’s illness that she sent to her family; the utomost priority, for Violant, as queen, would have been to bolster the message that Joan was physically strong and therefore their rule entirely secure; perhaps the closer connection she had to Charles III would have made it unnecessary for her to specify exactly what she wanted him to do about the presence of Ramon d’Abella in Navarre

• Contextualization: by fleeing from the Crown of Aragon and crossing the border into Navarre, Ramon d’Abella evidently hoped that he would not be extradited to Barcelona; the Kingdom of Navarre had been a distinct political unit since the Peace of Támara in 1127, which took place in the context of Christian military forces wresting control of Iberian territory from Muslim rule

• Corroboration: this document’s framing of Joan’s health closely resembles the one that Violant sent to her father, mother, and brothers, discussed in Episode 170; the document examined in Episode 114 declared Bernat d’Abella as a traitor and confiscated his property and Ramon d’Abella in today’s document is likely a close relation to Bernat; the early modern chronicler Zurita records that Bernat d’Abella was executed on April 29th, Episode 126

• Close-Reading: the erasure in line 7 likely indicates that descriptions of Joan’s illness were still tension-filled moments in correspondence; the word ‘lineage’ is used in this document to describe a close family connection and perhaps connotes a stronger suspicion of Ramon than if Violant had chosen to describe him as the father, son, or brother of Bernat

What is this document doing?

• This document conveys both good tidings and displeasure, attempting to balance out a complaint with an overall positive tone.
• The document leaves unsaid the appropriate course of action desired by the sender about the problem of an enemy residing in her friend’s house.

Questions

• What was Violant’s purpose in this letter? Did she expect Charles III to take action against Ramon d’Abella?
• What was Violant’s perception of Ramon d’Abella’s crimes and his level of participation in any sorcery or other attacks on Joan?
• Was there a chance that Charles III would extradite Ramon d’Abella to the Crown of Aragon?
• Why did the scribe need to erase what had originally been written about Joan’s illness in Line 7?
• Would Charles III have detected any major differences in tone or content of this letter compared to others he had received from Violant in the past year?

AI Usage

The transcription and translation of this document was carried out by my OpenClaw pipeline. The agentic AI pipeline missed ‘forts accidents’ (interpreting it as ‘fertes acudets’) and thus failed to connect this document to the thread of Joan’s illness.

Bibliography

• Hillgarth, J. N. (Jocelyn Nigel). The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250-1516. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
• Zurita, Jerónimo. Los cinco libros postreros de la primera parte de los Anales de la Corona de Aragon. Vol. 2. Zaragoza: Pedro Lanaja y Lamarca, 1668. available on Google Books. Accessed April 17, 2026.
• Zurita, Jerónimo. Anales de la Corona de Aragón. Edited by A. Canellas López. Digital edition coordinated by J. Iso. Vol. 4. Saragossa: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2003. available at the website of the Institución Fernando el Católico. Accessed October 18, 2024.

← return to episode list