Season 1, Episode 78

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Joan expresses frustration with the Pope that action has not been taken on matters despite four previous requests.

Today’s Document

• Subject: Joan conveys dissatisfaction with the Pope ignoring his four previous requests
• Date: March 12, 1387
• Day of the Week: Tuesday
• Language: Latin
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R f24v-25r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Joan
• Recipient: Avignon Pope Clement VII

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: the relative positions of the sender and the recipient of this letter remain somewhat mysterious to me because on the one hand Joan’s decision to put the Crown of Aragon firmly behind the Avignon Papacy might have given him leverage over Pope Clement VII but at the same time the letters to the Pope are always couched in the language of requests

• Contextualization: the political details of the Great Western Schism again appear as the big background to this document; sometimes it appears that not even the competition between two popes could diminish the ultimate authority that Avignon Pope Clement VII wielded over the monarchs in his camp; at the same time, it seems unlikely that either of the two popes could take secular rulers for granted or treat them with contempt, although maybe the popes calculated that switching loyalties was not likely enough to worry about

• Corroboration: so many of the documents examined in the last few weeks are letters from Joan and Violant to Avignon Pope Clement VII so Browsing by Tags is best for making comparisons; the lighthearted tone of the letter to the pope ostensibly written by the three year-old Jaume, examined in Episode 73, offers an interesting contrast to this one

• Close-Reading: for me, the key to understanding this document relies on the single word ‘quadruplicatis’ which reveals that Joan has asked something of the Pope on four previous occasions

What is this document doing?

• This document builds on earlier documentary efforts that the king has created in his attempt to gain a favorable action from the pope.
• The document reveals that the pope feels no urgency to respond favorably at the fourth iteration of a request from the king, thus establishing the pope’s perception of his own power as superior to that of the king.

Questions

• Did Joan really think that with the fifth time asking, the pope would accede to his request?
• What was it about the office of cardinal that Joan had been repeatedly asking the pope about?
• If the pope was aware of this issue, why had he ignored Joan four times?
• Would the pope have read this letter as containing a grumpy tone?

Additional Notes

The other letter on folio 24v mentions ‘lebrers de bretanya’ which would refer to hunting dogs from Brittany or England.

The letter that starts on the second half of folio 25v is written to the King of Granada.

AI Usage

Gemini and Claude did initial transcriptions. Then Claude produced an English translation with footnotes. This particular document’s paleography proved challenging for the LLMs paleography and I had to provide a lot of help for the final product from Claude.

Bibliography

• Rollo-Koster, Joëlle, and Thomas M. Izbicki, eds. A Companion to the Great Western Schism (1378-1417). Brill, 2009.

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