Season 1, Episode 98

Return to episodes list

Joan sends Jaime Pallares back to Barbastro to address the current discord there.

Today’s Document

• Subject: addressing the ongoing discord in Barbastro
• Date: April 1, 1387
• Day of the Week: Monday
• Language: Aragonese
• Archival Reference Number: ACA CR R1751 f37r-v
• Link to PARES
• Place: Barcelona
• Sender: Joan
• Recipients: Jaime Pallares and the Prohomens of Barbastro

Historical Thinking Notes

• Sourcing: as king, Joan would likely be concerned with feuding in any of the towns within his realm, but this particular discord might have distrupted a revenue stream and thus caught Joan’s particular attention; as a knight, the recipient of the first letter discussed in today’s episode would have a particular utility for the king as an armed enforcer with a more securely established loyalty to the monarch compared to the town leaders in a distant province

• Contextualization: the monarchy relied on tax revenue from all localities and during the late fourteenth century, additional innovations in that tax collection process brought additional revenue to the Crown at the expense of putting additional strain on various municipalities like Barbastro¹

• Corroboration: the document continues the story of Barbastro examined in Episode 91 and Episode 97; this document also reveals additional information about Joan’s lack of trust in the Governor of Aragon, as discussed in Episode 76

• Close-Reading: the variations on the name of Jayme Pallares reveals the willingness of the chancery scribes to embrace inconsistency with spellings since on folio 37r we see Jayme, Jacme, and Jacabo all referring to the same person

What is this document doing?

• This document arranges for multiple subordinates to address the discord in Barbastro, implying a lack of trust in any one individual to solve the problem.
• The document possibly connects the problem of feuding factions to difficulties with tax collection.

Questions

• Did the discord in Barbastro originally come to Joan’s attention for financial reasons?
• How much faith did Joan place in Jayme Pallares to produce a solution to the discord in Barbastro?
• Who were the leaders of the factions and what was the origin of the discord?

AI Usage

I used Gemini for an initial transcription, which I then had Claude reconcile with its own initial transcription. Claude then produced a translation into English with footnotes.

Bibliography

• Feliu i Montfort, Gaspar. “Finances, Currency and Taxation in the 14th and 15th Centuries.” Catalan Historical Review, no. 9 (2016): 25–44.
• Sánchez, Manuel, Ángel Sesma Muñoz, and Antoni Furió. “Old and New Forms of Taxation in the Crown of Aragon (13th-14th Centuries).” In La fiscalità nell’economia Europea secc. XIII-XVIII, edited by Simonetta Cavaciocchi. Firenze University Press, 2008. Available for free at CSIC
• 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.

← return to episode list