Season 1, Episode 69

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Violant cancels the debt of a draper who owed money to an associate of Bernat de Fortià.

Today’s Document

• Subject: a debt owed to Guillem Piru, an associate of Bernat de Fortià
• Date: March 3, 1387
• Day of the Week: Sunday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1822 f134v-135r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipient: Francisco Martina, a draper

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: little is apparent about the draper and whether his cause is a just one; Violant would certainly take any opportunity to make a ruling that would heap additional debt onto Bernat de Fortià

• Contextualization: the textile trade was quite vibrant in the Crown of Aragon in the Late Middle Ages

• Corroboration: the document examined in Episode 45 corroborates the lucrative nature of the textile trade as Joan listed a range of what seem like expensive fabrics in his treasure shipment from Mallorca

• Close-Reading: line 16 of f135r mentions dealings from November of the prior year, but it is not clear what had been determined at that time

What is this document doing?

• This document shifts a heavy debt load to a political adversary of Violant.
• The document releases Francisco Martina from a substantial financial obligation.

Questions

• What had the 24,200 solidis been originally given to Francisco Martina for?
• What circumstances led Fransico Martina to refuse to pay the money back?
• Would the creditor, Guillem Piru, now pursue Bernat de Fortià for the 24,200 solidis?
• Did Violant see a just cause in Francisco Martina’s petition or was she simply happy to stick it to Bernat and Sibilla?
• What was Francisco Martina’s background as a draper? Was he a quite wealthy merchant?

AI Usage

The routine of starting with Gemini for a transcription and then pasting that into Claude appears to yield some very helpful results. This is a workflow that I’m going to stick with for at least a handful of episodes. Claude first did a transcription of its own, then reconciled it to create a final translated version. Certain unusual letter forms remain very challenging, for example Claude could not get over the special capital A for Alatzario and insisted it was an A.

Bibliography

• Burns, E. Jane. Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
• Navarro Espinach, Germán. “Textiles in the Crown of Aragon: Production, Commerce, Consumption.” In Textiles of Medieval Iberia: Cloth and Clothing in a Multi-Cultural Context, edited by Gale Owen-Crocker, María Barrigón, and Nahum Ben-Yahuda. Boydell Press, 2022.
• Silleras Fernández, Núria. “Money Isn’t Everything: Concubinage, Class, and the Rise and Fall of Sibil.La de Fortià, Queen of Aragon (1377-87).” In Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe, edited by Theresa Earenfight. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

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