NAMES, MONEY, AND MEASURES

This book contains testimony from many named individuals. Some of them, like the monarchs of the Crown of Aragon, are well-known; others may not even have a family name recorded in the sources. As the documents I was working with were set down in multiple languages—primarily Latin and the fourteenth-century versions of Catalan and Castilian Spanish—a single name of an individual or a place might appear differently in different documents. For place names, I have opted for the most common English-language variant where one exists, and the current language of the place where it does not. For personal names, I have usually rendered them in the form they exist in the document where they appeared (e.g., “Bernat” instead of “Bernard”). The one exception I have made is for monarchs and other well-known individuals: these I have rendered the way they appear in most English-language sources in print and online in order to facilitate the research of English-speaking readers who wish to learn more about these individuals.

Monarchs of the Crown of Aragon present a further problem in terms of naming. The Crown of Aragon took shape over many centuries, combining several distinct polities, each with their own naming and numbering conventions of their monarchs. Alfonso III of Catalonia and Valencia was actually the fourth King Alfonso of Aragon; the same is the case for the kings named Peter. I have adopted the slightly awkward convention of using a combined numbering system (e.g., Peter II/III) and providing regnal dates at the first instance. The result is somewhat visually intrusive, but I hope it will at least avoid confusion.

The currency system used in fourteenth-century Catalonia is based on the Roman system of libri (Catalan: lliures), solidi (sous), and denarii (diners), with twelve diners to a sou and twenty sous to a lliure. Solidi/sous and denarii/diners were the most common forms of currency in circulation; lliures, like other forms of currency such as morabetins, maravedis, and obols that occasionally appear in Barcelona's fourteenth-century documents were generally money of account rather than actual coins exchanged. The Romans likewise provide part of the dating system used in these documents with their days of the month organized around calends, nones, and ides, but with years figured from the incarnation. Most disorienting to the modern reader may be these documents’ practice of turning the year on March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation in the Catholic liturgical calendar) rather than January 1—a system that would change only a few decades after the events of this book. I have standardized the years to align with modern calculations.

Finally, any book that takes place during a famine year has occasion to bring up weights and measures. The various Mediterranean locations that Barcelonans purchased their grain from each had their own system of weights and measures. The most common form of measure for grain in Catalonia was the quartera/quarteras, a variable unit of measure equivalent to around 70 dry liters. Regions around Lleida and Tortosa used the cafís/cafices, approximately 200 dry liters or just under three times the size of the quartera. Flour might be sold by the quartera or half-quartera, but also in smaller retail quantities such as the peça/peças (about a pound).