Season 1, Episode 20

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Violant writes to the Pope that some difficulties, arduis urgentibus, have occurred in the succession process. Also, at the beginning of this episode, I do a little check-in to share a bit about the project overall and how my interest in it got started.

Today’s Document

• Subject: Violant writes to the Pope.
• Date: January 20, 1387
• Day of the Week: Sunday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1819 f74r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipients: Pope Clement VII

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: Violant writes to the Avignon Pope as part of a long-standing correspondence; the Pope is probably looking forward to the ascension of Joan and Violant to the throne, as they have promised to decisively place the Crown of Aragon on the site of the Avignon Papacy in the Great Western Schism

• Contextualization: the word ‘Romane’ in the address threw me off but after returning to the address line I think it’s clear that this is a term used even for the Avignon Pope, and that makes the Great Western Schism all the more confusing with a ‘Roman’ pope in Avignon at the same time as a competing Pope, Urban VI, sits in Rome; the Great Western Schism grew out of political decisions made by Pope Gregory XI in the 1370s, specifically in a violent conflict between the papacy and eight Italian city-states led by Florence - relatively little doctrinal difference emerged between the two Popes during the schism;

• Corroboration: Violant and Joan both write to Clement VII frequently, so it is possible that I might get a breakthrough on this letter from another one in the future

• Close-Reading: the ‘arduis urgentibus’ in the first line strikes me as a strong admission of difficulties encountered in the succession process for Joan; the presence of the word publicum in the second line creates a lot of questions for me - is Violant saying that the difficulties have become known?

What is this document doing?

• This document opens a new type of conversation between a secular authority and an ecclesiastical one, in which the secular authority reveals difficulties and implies a need for assistance.
• The document further establishes the diplomatic credentials of Violant as the Queen of Aragon.

Questions

• Burning question: what is the identity of the Master of Rodez? Why does Violant want this person in particular to come to the Crown of Aragon?
• Does this letter indicate a level of trust between Violant and Pope Clement VII?
• How does this letter’s date connect to what Violant knew of Joan’s illness?

AI Usage

I spent a lot of time with ChatGPT trying to figure out the meaning of this document, but to no avail! I really wanted to know the name of the person being requested in the third line, so I tried using Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude . Claude also struggled with the name and so I re-interpreted the second letter as u intead of e. This opened up the possibility that the person is from Rodez, which is Ruthena in its Latin form. I got excited about this breakthrough and went back to ChatGPT again to see if it could do better than Claude at possibily identifying the subject of this letter. Alas, I only got some tenuous possibilities and nothing that appeared reliable to me.

Medieval Studies Conferences

In the introduction of today’s episode, I mention UNM’s Insitute of Medieval Studies, and the Mediterranean Summer Skills Seminars. In addition, I mentioned the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK. I have also immensely benefited from the supportive community at the annual conference of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association.

Bibliography

• Ryan, Michael A. A Kingdom of Stargazers: Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon. Cornell University Press, 2011.

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