Season 1, Episode 55

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Joan, through his court, writes to the Veguer of Roussillon asking to see documentation of proceedings against a debtor named Guillem de Modes.

Today’s Document

• Subject: a request for court documents for the prosecution of a debtor
• Date: February 17, 1387
• Day of the Week: Sunday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1944 f8r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Joan
• Sender: Barcelona
• Recipient: Veguer of Roussillon

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: the heading ‘pro curia’ above the text of this lettter raises questions about its authorship; possibly this was a letter sent by Joan’s small court and not directly by him; the Veguer of Roussillon was in charge of conducting court proceedings in the name of the king

• Contextualization: the bailiff was the one who was in charge of financial matters, but I think that was focused on collecting funds for the state; the court proceeding in this document, although about a financial matter, is now a criminal or civil court case and therefore handled by the veguer; at this time, the Crown of Aragon had more of a loose territorial claim over Roussillon

• Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 46 presents another instance of the authority of the veguers, and for that analysis I cited Marie Kelleher for an explanation of the difference between veguers and bailiffs

• Close-Reading: ‘clausas et sigillatas’ in line 6 could mean something like ‘under lock and seal’ and it does seem like formulaic language; at the same time, it is interesting to see an additional phrase used to convey the urgency of a confidential delivery of written records and I will keep a lookout for this phrase in other documents and contexts

What is this document doing?

• This document reinforces the authority of the king over the veguer’s proceedings.
• The document links a debt collection proceeding to the highest level of government in the Crown of Aragon.

Questions

• What was the nature of Guillem de Modes’s debt?
• Who were his creditors?
• Why did Joan’s court, or Joan himself, want to get involved in these proceedings?
• How did the ambiguous governance of Roussillon as a territory of the Crown of Aragon affect this case?

AI Usage

ChatGPT helped me to translate the Latin in this document but it made a mistake with ‘nonnullis’ at the beginning of line 5. ChatGPT asserted its incorrect interpretation with confidence, so this was a good lesson in the importance of checking the work of LLM chatbots. I used Perplexity to investigate the probata, but did not get any information directly about it. Perplexity did suggest some promising secondary sources.

Bibliography

• Beltran Todolí, Joan. “Gènesi i Control Documental a La Cancelleria Catalanoaragonesa Del Segle XV. Anàlisi a Propòsit d’un Dubte En l’autenticitat Documental al 1421.” Medievalismo: Revista de La Sociedad Española de Estudios Medievales, no. 35 (2025): 131–55.
• Girona y Llagostera, Daniel. “Itinerari de l’Infant En Joan, Fill Del Rei En Pere III. 1350-1387.” III Congreso de Historia de La Corona de Aragón (Valencia), Hijo de F. Vives Mora, 1923, 169–592. Available on Google Books, accessed December 26, 2025.
• Kelleher, Marie A. The Hungry City: A Year in the Life of Medieval Barcelona. Cornell University Press, 2024.
• 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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