Season 1, Episode 93

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Violant sends a letter about the good health of Joan and general good tidings.

Today’s Document

• Subject: Violant sends good tidings to her father and mother
• Date: March 27, 1387
• Day of the Week: Wednesday
• Language: Catalan
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R2053 f4r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Violant
• Recipients: Robert de Bar (mutatis mutandis to Marie, Duchess of de Bar)

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: as queeen, Violant’s interests are firmly in promoting a picture of Joan as strong and healthy; this document does not mention any rumors or news of conflicting information, but Violant repeats earlier communications in which she asserted that there was no problem with Joan’s health

• Contextualization: any indications of weakness or illness in the physical body of the king would likely lead to problems with the king’s authority and consequently also affect the queen’s exercise of power

• Corroboration: thus far in the podcast we have examined nine documents about Joan’s illness; see especially the letter from Violant to her father in which she admits there have been rumors, examined in Episode 56

• Close-Reading: Violant’s word choices in this document, such as ‘plenarement restitut’ and ‘perfectament,’ continue to emphasize the completeness and fullness of Joan’s recovery

What is this document doing?

• This document, perhaps desperately, attempts to convince close family members of the good health of the king.
• The document reinforces the conceptual link between the health of the king and the legitimacy of his rule.

Questions

• At this point in time, was there actually any reason for Violant to be worried about Joan’s health?
• How much would Violant’s parents have believed that Joan was fully recovered?
• Who were the merchants mentioned at the start of the letter?

AI Usage

On the day I was working on this episode, Claude had a major outage. I did run the image of today’s document through Gemini and got ok results. The real benefit of the LLMs today was the explanation that ChatGPT gave me for mutatis mutandis. I also consulted the Wikipedia page for the history of that phrase.

Bibliography

• Bratsch-Prince, Dawn. “The Politics of Self-Representation in the Letters of Violant de Bar (1365–1431).” Medieval Encounters 12, no. 1 (2006): 2–25.
• Lizondo, Mateu Rodrigo, and Jaume Riera i Sans. Col·lecció documental de la Cancelleria de la Corona d’Aragó: textos en llengua catalana, 1291-1420. Universitat de València, 2013.
• Roca, Josep M. Johan I d’Aragó. Barcelona: Institució Patxot, 1929.
• Rubió y Lluch, Antonio. Documents per l’historia de la cultura catalana mig-eval. Vol. 1. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 1908. Full text available on Hathi Trust
• Tasis i Marca, Rafael. Joan I: el rei caçador i músic. Editorial Aedos, 1959.

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