Season 1, Episode 97

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Joan commands the Governor of Aragon to attend to the discord in Barbastro and do something to remedy the situation.

Today’s Document

• Subject: discord in Barbastro
• Date: March 31, 1387
• Day of the Week: Sunday
• Language: Aragonese
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1751 f38r
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Joan
• Recipient: Sancho Martinez, Governor of Aragon

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: although Barbastro was somewhat distant from Barcelona, it still was in the mainland of the Crown of Aragon and Joan might have felt annoyed that a town under his rule faced feuding and discord; the recipient, Sancho Martinez, might not have been motivated to address Joan’s concerns since he had received such a scolding letter from him earlier that month

• Contextualization: at this time, a feud between different ruling factions caused strife in Barbastro¹

• Corroboration: the documents examined in Episode 76 and Episode 77 corroborate Joan’s general displeasure with the Governor of Aragon in this document

• Close-Reading: Joan starts out the letter by saying that he has heard, apparently not from the Governor, that the town of Barbastro is in a ‘muyto mal estamiento,’ a very bad state due to ‘discordia’ and ‘malas voluntades’; an easy way to recognize that this letter is not in Catalan is that the word used at the end for small seal is ‘pequenyo’

What is this document doing?

• This document continues the building of a negative record of the governor’s job performance.
• The document asserts that remedying factional strife is a job resonsibility of the governor.

Questions

• Did Joan consider it the Governor’s responsibility to keep the king appraised of situations like this?
• Where was Jaime Pallares at this time? Was he the source of information about the discord in Barbastro?
• Had Pere the Ceremonious, Joan’s father, considered Sancho Martinez to be good at his job?
• Did Sancho Martinez respect Joan?
• Would Sancho Martinez ever get into Joan’s good graces?

AI Usage

Since I could understand the Aragonese quite well, I skipped using the AI chatbots for this episode. I looked up a few words in my medieval Catalan glossary, at the back of Russell-Gebbett’s Mediaeval Catalan Linguistic Texts..

Bibliography

• Russell-Gebbett, Paul. Mediaeval Catalan Linguistic Texts. Dolphin Book Co., 1965.
• Sauco Álvarez, María Teresa. “Actividad económica y transformación social en la ciudad de Barbastro durante la Baja Edad Media.” Aragón en la Edad Media, no. 27 (2016): 299–331.

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