Season 1, Episode 61

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Joan issues a safe passage letter for the indebted Isabella of Majorca.

Today’s Document

• Subject: safe passage letter for Isabella of Majorca
• Date: February 23, 1387
• Day of the Week: Saturday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1751 f15r-v
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Joan
• Recipient: Isabella of Majorca

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: the recipient of this document, Isabella de Majorca, would have been very relieved to obtain it, since it protected her from collections by her many creditors, to whom she owed a great deal of money; in 1387, Isabella de Majorca was 50 years old and had renounced her claims to rule Majorca long ago, in 1358; Joan might have extended generosity to Isabella because at this time she posed no threat to the Crown of Aragon’s control over Majorca

• 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 Isabell’s brother, James IV of Majorca, in 1375

• Corroboration: the document offers an interesting comparsion to other safe passage letters examined in Episode 25 and Episode 57; at this time I cannot detect anything notably different in the way that Joan wrote a safe passage letter for Isabella de Majorca versus the one he wrote for the minstrel Jacob de Bar or Pedro de Guardia

• Close-Reading: line 7 contains a strikethrough correction regarding the number of horses in Isabella’s retinue; certainly including the accurate number would be extremely helpful to Isabella, as a letter that protects 60 horses would leave 40 of them open to confiscation if she showed up with 100 horses; the explanation for the back-and-forth regarding the number of horses opens up a tantalizing mystery regarding the way information circulated in the royal chancery

What is this document doing?

• This document invokes the authority of the Crown of Aragon to create a barrier between a debtor and her creditors.
• The document reinforces and presupposes the primacy of the king over the power of creditors to collect.

Questions

• Exactly how indebted was Isabella de Majorca?
• Who were her creditors within the Crown of Aragon?
• Why did Joan view Isabella de Majorca more sympathetically than his father?
• Why did Isabella need an extension on her safe passage letter to cover her through May?
• Did Joan have anything to gain, financially or otherwise, from helping Isabella de Majorca?
• Is the disagreement over the number of horses a reflection of changing information arriving to the chancery staff after someone receives updates or confirmations? How much time passed between the original writing, the first strikethrough, the second strikethrough, and the final determination of 60 horses?

AI Usage

Both ChatGPT and Gemini struggled with identifying Isabella de Majorca. This revealed that LLMs might take a research direction that prevents them from drawing what seem to us like obvious conclusions from Wikipedia entries. Gemini insisted on a nonsensical interpretation, saying that the letter was written for Isabella d’Armagnac when plenty of readily available information on the Internet lists d’Armagnac’s death as over ten years prior to this date. At the same time, Gemini helped me greatly to identify ‘menses Mady’ in the subscript note.

Bibliography

• Casteen, Elizabeth. From She-Wolf to Martyr: The Reign and Disputed Reputation of Johanna I of Naples. Cornell University Press, 2015.

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