Season 1, Episode 76

Joan lets loose his anger at the Governor of Aragon.

Episode 76

Today’s Document

Subject: great displeasure with the governor’s refusal to confiscate properties of Bernat de Fortià
Date: March 10, 1387
Day of the Week: Sunday
Language: Catalan
Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1751 f23v-24r
Link to PARES
Place: Barcelona
Sender: Joan
Recipient: Sanxo Martinez, Governor of Aragon

Sourcing: in a sense, since he scolding and threatening a subordinate Joan is punching down; at the same time, it very well might be that Sanxo Martinez has possesses more of an established power base and authority among power elites in Aragon, leaving Joan in a somewhat weaker position
Contextualization: even though a new king sits on the throne in Barcelona, the whole cast of power players remains from the decades of rule under Joan’s father, Pere the Ceremonious; local nobles, bourgeois elites, and church officials all worked to establish their power through their own networks of authority, patronage, and reciprocity
Corroboration: this document clearly indicates Joan’s displeasure and impatience; thus, it establishes a baseline from which to infer about the tone of other documents; for another example of a document that captures Joan’s emotional state, see Episode 8; for other examples of the vindictiveness of Joan and Violant toward Bernat and Sibilla de Fortià, see the other episodes about them through Browing by Tags, and especially Episode 11
Close-Reading: several word choices in this document stand out as creating a tone quite unusual from all the other documents examined in the podcast thus far, such as ‘somos maravellados,’ ‘inobediencia,’ and ‘terror et exemplo’; Joan threatens the governor with suspension of his office if he doesn’t comply immediately

This document identifies an act of insubordination and threatens punishiment to exert influence over a local authority figure.
The document reveals that Joan faced resistance to his will in the early part of his reign.

What was Sanxo Martinez’s initial response to this letter? Was he alarmed?
Had Sanxo Martinez been intentionally subverting Joan’s will? Was he slow-walking this reluctantly?
How did Joan find out that Martinez had been dragging his feet on confiscating Bernat de Fortià’s property?
What was the total value of the property in question?
Was Bernat de Fortia currently residing in one of the properties listed in the document?
What was Joan’s plan for the properties once they had been seized? Was he expecting to sell them or give them to someone else?
What about this letter, its word choice and tone, would have helped achieve Joan’s desired outcome? What aspects of it might have been counter-productive for Joan’s goals?

I gave an initial transcription by Gemini to Claude for a reconciliation. Claude then produced a translation with footnotes.

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.