Season 1, Episode 37

Violant discusses a land sale in the province of Maresme.

Episode 37

Today’s Document

Sourcing: Violant recently inherited a very large number of land holdings of various types and now has the opportunity to make money off of them; the leaders in the Maresme province might have requested a change in the ownership of the royal holdings in their region
Contextualization: Joan and Violant incurred tremendous criticism for selling off royal land, both from their contemporaries and later historians¹; this document also fits in with the larger pattern of Iberian queens administering a portfolio of their own revenues based on land ownership

Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 6 corroborates this one, in that Violant now holds authority over the portfolio of the Queen of the Crown of Aragon; other documents that mention Alatzario Golluff will provide good corroboration for how this financial transaction relates to others during Violant’s reign
Close-Reading: the word ‘apocha’ is used to indicate a receipt of a payment and apocham appears in this document at the end of line 4; this document definitely records information about a financial transaction but it is not certain to me at this point that Violant’s account is receiving the money

This document invokes state power to enact and codify a transfer of land ownership in Maresme.
The document also demonstrates Violant’s position as a financial manager.

Did promiment people in Maresme request this sale?
What was Alatzario Golluff’s station and position within the treasury?
Is Violant gaining money from the sale described in this document?
Were the lands in Maresme part of Sibilla de Fortia’s portfolio before January 1387?
How much money is being exchanged in the transaction described in this document?
Would this be seen as a sensible financial decision or was this a sale that provided short term gain at a long-term loss?

I consulted ChatGPT for help with the abbreviation of ‘habendum’ and also for the Latin toponym for Maresme.

“Poetry in the Dock: The Court Culture of Joan I on Trial (1396-1398).” In Donald J. Kagay, War, Government, and Society in the Medieval Crown of Aragon, XI, 48-99. Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS 861. Ashgate/Variorum, 2007.
Richou i Llimona, Montserrat and Fundació Noguera. La terra, la família i la mort al Baix Maresme, 1348-1486. Fundació Noguera, 2012. Available for free at the website of Fundació Noguera.

Donald J. Kagay, “Poetry in the Dock: The Court Culture of Joan I on Trial (1396-1398),” in Donald J. Kagay, War, Government, and Society in the Medieval Crown of Aragon, Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS 861 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2007), XI, 48–99 ↩