Season 1, Episode 174

Return to episodes list

Joan extends the duration of Isabella de Majorca’s safe passage documentation.

Today’s Document

• Subject: extension of safe passage for Isabella de Majorca throughout the Crown of Aragon
• Date: June 16, 1387
• Day of the Week: Sunday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1867 f11v-12r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Joan
• Recipient: Isabella de Majorca

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: since he’s granting her another extension, it is likely that at this date Joan does not know that Isabella de Majorca had sold her title to the Count of Armagnac;

• Contextualization: Joan’s father, Pere the Ceremonious, waged a bitter war against Isabella de Majorca’s father in order to keep the island a territory within the Crown of Aragon; a later attempt at a breakaway rebellion resulted in the death of Isabella’s brother, James IV of Majorca, in 1375

• Corroboration: this appears to be the second extension that Joan has granted for Isabella de Majorca since the document examined in Episode 61 includes a note regarding an extension granted in May; then Joan wanted Isabella to have an escort starting from the moment she crossed the border from France into the Crown of Aragon, arranged in a document examined in Episode 83; the fact that Isabella sold her title to the Count of Armagnac was discussed in Episode 118

• Close-Reading: this document, in line 13, identifies the number of horses as one hundred; the probata includes an extra two lines to state that the king saw this document himself ‘vidit eam dominus Rex’ and perhaps this indicates an unusual additional amount of participation that Joan had in the creation of this document

What is this document doing?

• This document demonstrates the ability for the record-keepers in the chancery to keep track of previous documents over a period of months.
• The document presumes the authority of the king over that of creditors seeking repayment for debts accrued by a member of the nobility.

Questions

• Why did Isabella de Majorca need additional time in the Crown of Aragon?
• If Joan had known about Isabella selling her title to the Count of Armagnac, what would have been his reaction at this moment? Would he have revoked her safe passage?
• Where in the Crown of Aragon was Isabella de Majorca at this time?
• Was it easy for the chancery staff to locate the earlier safe passage documents? Why/why not?

AI Usage

An initial transcription was done by Gemini. I was not able to do my usual process with Claude because on June 15, Anthropic had instituted new usage limits. My plan, for which I pay $17 per month, could not even cover Stage 1 of my usual three stage process. The model I chose was not even the most sophisticated version of Opus - intead of 4.8, I used Opus 4.6 on a “high” thinking level. If I wanted to upgrade, the next level up costs $100 per month.

Bibliography

• Bisson, Thomas N. Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History. Clarendon Press, 1986.

← return to episode list