The Pujades Affair Jeroni Pujades (1568 - ca.1650?)

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The article disputes the claim that Jeroni Pujades, a jurist and historian from Barcelona, had died in 1635. The church register in Castelló d'Empúries, a town near the Pyrenees, lists January 7, 1635 as the date of his funeral, but his date of death is unknown. There is also the problem that Pujades referenced the 1640s in the Chronicle of Catalonia which can only be explained with a creative conjecture of two documented claims: While in charge of the French occupation in Catalonia (1640-52) as Visitador general, a protégé of Richelieu took the unpublished manuscripts of Pujades "by force of arms" from his widow and bribed the Franciscan friar Francesc Fornés to cover this up by rewriting the beginning and entire last volume of the Chronicle to pretend Pujades was still alive in the 1640s.

The elaborate cover-up implies that a major crime had been committed in 1635, perhaps even the murder of Pujades. However, there is persuasive evidence from local traditions in Castelló that the plot is even more Baroque: Pujades had "mortal enemies" and some Franciscan friars saved his life by staging a funeral with an empty coffin. In this version, de Marca and Fornés supported the "exitus" of Pujades so that he could continue his work on the Chronicle until around 1650, probably in a monastery. His testament, which is dated October 20, 1934, shortly before his alleged death, reveals that he joined the Franciscan order as a secular friar of the Third Rule and had some unusual requests for his burial.

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1. Introduction

For a better understanding of Baroque practices in the 17th century, including the bizarre scenarios that are mentioned above, the events and circumstances that led to 'The Pujades Affair' need to be reviewed first: When historians investigate the medieval "Spanish March" (Catalonia) they usually come across the Marca hispanica..., which was published in 1688 and is regarded as one of the great achievements of the French scholar Etienne Baluze. Although the core of the work is by Pierre de Marca, a protégé of Richelieu, minister of State, and finally archbishop of

Paris, Baluze had only been his secretary for six years when he inherited his library. This enabled him to edit the work posthumously and triple its volume by adding many unique documents (1).

Consequently, the editor is now more celebrated than the author but it is overlooked that many of the documents were discovered by Jeroni Pujades (2). We will show below that Baluze created the impression he had collected these documents himself and dismissed Pujades in the index as

"ignorant" (Pujadesii inscitia notadur).

The Baroque zeitgeist at the court of Louis XIV and préstige of his employer Colbert allowed Baluze to exploit Pujades because he was relatively unknown in Paris and only a few scholars would have noticed that the slanderous remark targeted a colleague. Thanks to John H.

Elliott (Oxford), who found a few diaries of Pujades in the 1950s, the historian got finally some attention as an eyewitness of the political struggle that led to the ill-fated revolt of the Catalans against Spain in 1640. That it was a difficult period for Pujades as well is shown by James S.

Amelang, a historian in Madrid: "Symbolizing the pressures placed on Catalan writers was the switch made by the jurist and historian Jeroni Pujades in the later volumes of the Chronicle of

Catalonia. After publishing the first tome in Catalan in 1609, Pujades – never one to muffle his strident anti-Castilian sentiments – felt compelled to write the rest of his work in Spanish, for the

2 sake of universal understanding" (See article). Amelang follows Elliott who mentioned his "anti-

Castilian bitterness" and a "warm reference" to the king of France. (3)

Although Baluze's plagiarism led him to an illustrious career, other historians had a different opinion of Pujades: Esteve de Corbera (4) praises him in Cataluña Illustrada (1678) as the first contemporary who "found a way in these difficult times to give us a chronicle of

Catalonia... he accomplished this with great care and prudence and searched the archives for ancient documents... dedicating a better part of his life to this laudable occupation without support, public or private, and even opposed by some out of jealousy..." Also in 1678, the

Franciscan historian Joan Roig i Jalpí (5) praises him even more highly: "The Second Part of the chronicle of Dr. Pujades illuminates everything noble about Catalonia, in general and in particular, and it is worth more, without comparison, than all the treasures of Venice." In 1821, the Dominican historian Jaime Villanueva (6) noted in his voluminous Viage literarario a las

Iglesias de España...: "There isn't a library in Catalonia, large or small, that doesn't have a copy of the Marca hispanica... but the Second and Third Part of the Chronicle of Catalonia of Dr.

Jeroni Pujades, which is full of precious documents, remains unpublished for almost two centuries" yet Baluze "repaid his benefector with an arrogant comment in the index... and exploited documents in this work and others that Pujades had collected during half a century in the archives of Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Roussillon, Conflente, etc., by enjoying them as if he had visited these holy places himself." (See link!)

Villanueva's accusation reflects the difficulties of travel in that age, which was time- consuming and a physical challenge. Like Villanueva during his Viage, Pujades had to spend days on horseback to reach the most isolated locations, even in the high Pyrenees, whereas

Baluze could "enjoy" these discoveries at his comfortable desk in Paris. This is a first indication

3 that de Marca was not responsible for the plagiarism of his secretary, but the reputation of

Baluze remains unchallenged and Pujades is ignored because a few scholars take his diaries too literally. Instead of relying on the erudite editors of the Chronicle who praised his "genius, subtleness and erudition" (see below), Amelang quotes from the diaries to describe Pujades as an over-zealous Roman Catholic with a deep hatred of Protestants and heretics, which makes him seem highly prejudicial and would call his reliability as a historian into question.

This is probably why the Chronicle is rarely referenced today although it follows a well- established Renaissance tradition that aimed to "illustrate" (7) the history of a country. A detailed study of the work would probably reveal that in addition to celebrating Catalonia, Pujades used a sophisticated rhetoric to attack Church history – which took some courage during the Spanish

Inquisition – and raised the bar for historians as well: he doesn't simply quote and record information without questioning the sources and their reliability, as was customary at the time, but uses his legal expertise to evaluate conflicting accounts.

Whenever he introduces new documents, which is often, Pujades addresses several sides of a controversy and raises many reasonable doubts (8). He usually defers the burden of passing judgment to his readers and when he adds his own opinion, he hides it often in other chapters. As a result, some rhetorical claims could be misunderstood if taken out of context, which is most apparent when he resorts to religious exaltation in the flowery Spanish language. Because the

Catalans are used to the above-mentioned subtleties and understatements, they would have clearly noticed a satire of Baroque customs and that it was inspired by Cervantes. Pujades raised also the bar with an index of almost 200 published sources for Part One (1609), and with references in the text and at the margins. This was rare at the time, especially when compared to

Francisco Diago, a Dominican historian and inquisitor whom he challenges regularly. In dealing

4 with the legends of Montserrat, for example, Pujades contradicts not only Diago, but also the

"badly informed" Antonio de Yepes (9), an official chronicler of the Benedictines. Pujades was also the first to debunk a historical claim about Guifré el Pilos who is celebrated as the founding father of Catalonia. Fully independent of Pujades, modern historians exposed the claim that

Guifré was raised in Flanders four centuries later as a forgery by an erudite ecclesiastic (10).

The critics of Pujades who base their evaluations on the diaries should at least honor the courage of their colleague by addressing some of the open questions: Why did the Spanish continuation of the Chronicle remain unpublished for two centuries? Did Pierre de Marca really take it, as claimed, by "force of arms"? Only the diaries of 1601-1610 and 1621-1630 seem to exist, but would such a passionate chronicler leave these gaps? Did Pujades capture the zeitgeist of Catalonia like an objective eyewitness, or did he reveal his personal opinion in the diaries?

And why should we rely exclusively on a brief notice of his funeral in 1635 – if there is overwhelming evidence that he was still alive in the 1640s?

2. Other Baroque Plots

The above questions require the kind of detective work few historians are willing to risk because no one wants to recall the darkest period in Catalan history – and because they could easily be accused of sensationalism. It's much easier to maintain that Pujades died in 1635 than having to explain why anyone would want to claim he survived his funeral by over a decade.

They would have to bring up that Pujades attacked some church historians and even had "mortal enemies" according to Miquel Pujols i Canelles (11). Then there is the obstacle that the

Bollandists (Jesuits) and Maurists (Benedictines) copied his research methods and are now among the leading authorities on the Middle Ages (12). If all this is considered, only an

5 independent study of the Chronicle could determine if Pujades had valid reasons to contradict so many historians and which of his findings have since been 'corrected' for religious reasons? Until the experts are ready, aficionados of his work have the advantage. Here is the most controversial example from the 1609 edition, which could explain why the continuations of the Chronicle disappeared for so long:

In 1600, during a visit of Sant Pere de Rodes (13), an ancient Benedictine monastery in the Pyrenees, Pujades discovered in its Latin register (no. 223) solid evidence that the grail legends had originated at the site. Although he never mentions the word 'grail', his cautious rhetoric and creative use of metaphors goes on to expose a forgery that contradicts every modern hypothesis on the subject. But because Pujades has been labeled "ignorant" (Baluze) and "prejudicial" (Amelang), his Chronicle of Catalonia is widely ignored today. There is also the problem that the monastery was looted several times between 1654 and 1708 and that the Latin register has since disappeared. Furthermore, the grail myth contains heretic elements that challenge Roman Catholicism which may have prevented Pujades from addressing it openly. The Inquisition was still active in Spain and the Dominican padre and philosopher Giordano Bruno had been convicted of heresy and was burned in 1600 at the stake in Rome.

These controversies are apparently the reason why the well-documented portion of the

Baroque plot gets little attention as well: The Chronicle of Pujades was rediscovered in the library of the archbishop of Rouen in 1696 who informed Pau Ignasi de Dalmases i Ros, a

Catalan scholar, and invited him to review the manuscripts. Dalmases compiled a summary of the work and recommended it to his peers in Barcelona. Josep Taberner i d'Ardena, the bishop of

Girona and a fellow scholar, was owed some favors at the court of Louis XIV and could get copies of the manuscripts in 1715 – which disappeared for another hundred years.

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The above-mentioned Jaime Villanueva claims that Pujades gave his manuscripts to Pierre de Marca voluntarily (14), which would not only reflect his "anti-Castilian bitterness" but also the history of the period: After their revolt in 1640, the Catalans had proclaimed Louis XIII as

"count of Barcelona", which gave them independence from Spain – and the Vatican. Villanueva may have had access to privileged information because he discovered the lost copies of the

Chronicle in the library of Taberner's pro-French descendants (15) in the early 1800s, which made it possible to get them published. It turned out, however, that the scribe did not understand

Spanish and his transcripts had so many errors and omissions that a major revision had to be made by Fèlix Torres Amat, Pròsper de Bofarull and Albert Pujol, an erudite team of scholars.

The work was published in Barcelona under the title Crónica Universal del Principado de

Cataluña in six volumes between 1829 and 1832. The above editors had the support of the Reial

Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona and, like Dalmases, were sympathetic to his ideas and intimately acquainted with Catalan zeitgeist and history. Furthermore, they seem to have made sure the censure had no linear access to the work so that all volumes could be published. They released vol. 1 (I-II) and vol. 3 (V) in 1829, followed by vol. 4 (VI) in 1830. The controversial volumes 2 (III-IV) and 5 (VII) were held back until 1831, which could explain (see below) the strange foreword in volume 6 (VIII), which followed in 1832.

In volume 5, the editors had introduced in their 'Advertencia' a newly discovered church register that lists the funeral of Pujades on January 7, 1635, and add that his descendants maintain Pierre de Marca had robbed the manuscripts and documents "by force of arms" from the widow of Pujades. The French bishop had allegedly ordered his soldiers to evict the family and close down the house. Nevertheless, the editors felt obliged to contradict this sinister plot and speculate that Pujades may have been alive in the 1640s because he referred to certain notes and

7 documents (flosculos) he had in Paris and which suggested he had a friendly relationship with de

Marca. In volume 6, however, the editors are no longer identified as authors of the 'Advertencia'.

The anonymous writer insists that Pujades died in 1635 and goes on to accuse de Marca of having removed many other unique documents during the occupation, even from the famous monasteries Ripoll and Sant Jeroni de la Murta. As an important witness of the 17th century, the above-mentioned Franciscan Roig i Jalpi is quoted extensively to call the character of de Marca into question. In an elaborate dramatization of certain events in the 16th and 17th century the writer argues that Pujades, his father, and his son José had served the Spanish crown with great zeal and had always been ardently pro-Castilian, which had not only been disputed earlier by the editors of the Chronicle, but also by Elliott and Amelang two hundred years later.

3. Why should it matter when Pujades died?

If he died in 1635 the forewords, first two chapters of the Chronicle (tome I, Esp. 117) and the entire last part (tome IV, Esp. 120) would have to be elaborate forgeries. As long as this is maintained, the Catalans can continue to accuse a French bishop of "robbing" (16) priceless documents from their churches and monasteries, rather than one of their own. They apparently fail to consider that Pujades saved them from disappearing in the Vatican Archives and that they would have to explain why so many ecclesiastics were involved in the "Pujades Affair", either in his support or in opposition. This is probably why over 25% of the Chronicle's subscribers were churchmen, including two abbots of Montserrat and an archbishop of Tarragona.

Although it is difficult to determine if the Catholic Church was involved in the fate of

Pujades, because some of his findings dispute its official position, we may have to begin with the problem that the published information offers a choice of two entirely different scenarios:

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a) The Plagiarism of Pierre de Marca

The notice of the funeral on January 7, 1635, supports the claim that the French bishop took the manuscripts of Pujades by "force of arms" to exploit them in his own historical works. The robbery would have occurred between 1644 and 1651, when he was "Visitador general" (intendant) in Catalonia. In the following ten years, the former protégé of Richelieu became archbishop of Toulouse and minister of State, and so influential at the court that he almost succeeded his friend Mazarin as cardinal. But Louis XIV decided to rule alone and made him (only) archbishop of Paris in 1662, the year of his death – but without confirmation by the Vatican.

b) The Survival of Jeroni Pujades

When the editors introduced the obituary in tome VII, they gave the Baroque plot a whole new spin: They show that Pujades worked on the Chronicle in the 1640s and even claimed: "I'm alive today on January 6, 1645" (VII, p.349). This day is not only celebrated as "revelation" (Epiphany) – but it reveals a date that's precisely 10 years after the alleged funeral – which is quite a message! This version confirms the account of Villanova that Pujades handed his manuscripts to de Marca after 1635, and it is supported by the Catalan Diccionari Biografic and some French and Italian dictionaries that maintain he died "near 1650" (17).

These scenarios raise some interesting points. Above all, they are solid proof that there was a cover-up because only one version can be true. But which one? Then there is the strange fact that the date of the funeral is disputed exactly ten years later, which is difficult to dismiss as a coincidence.

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4. New perspectives from Barcelona

In April, 2014, the Barcelona conference Jeroni Pujades i el seu temps ended two centuries of silence and finally bestowed some honors on Pujades. The previous time the Reial

Acadèmia de Bones Lletres had praised him was in the early 19th century when it recommended his work as "an ancient codex with rare and important information, like a rich mine... for the benefit of history" (18). This was after another century of silence when the academy was still known as the Acadèmia dels Desconfiats, literally the “Academy of the Distrustful”. One of its founders was the above mentioned Dalmases, the scholar who had studied the lost Chronicle in

Rouen and communicated to his peers how highly he thought of Pujades. These endorsements are an important legacy our modern historians seem to ignore!

One of the organizers of the Barcelona event was Eulàlia Miralles, who talked about the

"posteritat" of Pujades, and James Amelang addressed "el dietari", the diaries of Pujades. Until their papers become available we can only hope they had the courage to bring up Pierre de

Marca and mentioned that Pujades may have survived his "funeral" in 1635. Although they are the leading experts on Pujades, these scholars may have avoided this controversy by embracing the hypothesis of Marc Mayer (p.220), one of the guest speakers who suggested that Josep, the son of Pujades, may have given some manuscripts to de Marca in 1651. Although Mayer et al. impress with their defense of Pujades against a German scholar, their references support neither the handover nor the date (19). If they have the entire letter, where this is allegedly stated, the implications are not as convenient as it may seem: We will show below that this could support a second scenario right after the death of Pujades "near 1650".

Antoni Cobos and Joaquim Tremoleda presented a paper about “Pujades i Sant Pere de

Rodes” and if they have done their homework would have included his greatest discovery at the

10 monastery: the above-mentioned Latin chronicle 223. Hence, we await with curiosity if this illustrious group of experts shared the enthusiasm of Dalmases or if they were merely in town to recycle their own ideas and enjoy world-famous Catalan cuisine. If the conference was not the overdue vindication of Pujades, and merely "business as usual", some erudite Catalans will hopefully revive the Acadèmia dels Desconfiats – this time on the internet!

Meanwhile, we can google "Jeroni Pujades" and a lot of relevant information is easily available. Although Elliott is still regarded as the academic authority on the "Revolt of the

Catalans", there are new generations of scholars in Barcelona that have begun to explore this

Baroque maze: In 1988, Angela Serrano was the first to show that the Catalan aristocrat Josep

Margarit is falsely characterized by prominent historians like Sanabre and Soldevila as a "mal catala" (bad Catalan) and confused terrorist. Following Josep Pella i Forgas (1875), she disputes their position and hopes to restore his reputation as a true patriot. Margarit was sent in 1641 to

Paris where "he so impressed Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, and Richelieu that they made him general or governor of Catalonia" (p.218). She points out that Margarit was a "gran amic" (great friend) of Pierre de Marca (p.219), and ends with Pella who saw Margarit as a true hero and

"exemplary individual with a fanatical love for Cataluña". She makes no mention of Pujades, who would have been another great friend, but shows rather eloquently why some Catalans were pro-French at the time.

A detailed study by Eulàlia Miralles of the Pujades manuscripts Esp. 117-120 followed in

2002, which she had conducted at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). She discovered two unpublished prologues and a complete Spanish translation of the First Part with illustrations from the 1609 publication pasted into the manuscripts to which the editors had no access in the early 19th century. In addition to Esp. 120, where Pujades keeps referring to the 1640s, she

11 noticed claims in Esp. 117 that also contradict the date of the funeral: "...yo escrivo esto el de

1637" ("I'm writing this in 1637", p.260) and a reference to Joan Luis de Moncada as "dean de

Vique", which he became "in late 1639" (p.235). But the most important discovery of Miralles is that the prologues in tome I (Esp. 117) and the entire tome IV (Esp. 120) with the references to the 1640s are not written by Pujades himself, but by a scribe! She identifies the Franciscan friar and historian Francesc Fornés who had signed the prologue of the translator. She points out that he added important notes to the other manuscripts as well, like an editor, and improved the flawed Spanish of Pujades (p.230). What's even more revealing is that Fornés belonged to a "pro-

French nucleus... of historians and erudite Catalans who were under the protection of Pierre de

Marca." (p. 231). This is a major break-through for our researches because Fornés is the missing link between de Marca and Pujades, which would support Villanueva's account of their friendly relationship, but it is apparently not enough for scholars like Miralles to question 1635 as the alleged date of his death.

5. Was Pujades murdered in 1635?

It is rather odd that twelve years have passed since the important discoveries of Miralles were published, yet her peers continue to maintain that Pujades had died in 1635. They seem to ignore the fact that he was a prominent personage and that there was no mention of his death in

Barcelona, Castelló d'Empúries or Figueres, only a brief notice in a church register that omits the date of death. If he died in 1635 they would be forced to accept that every reference to the 1640s throughout the last third of the Crónica is a forgery. However, this pertains not only to dates, which could be dismissed as the mistakes of a scribe or an elderly man, but also to indirect references of which some are in a complex rhetoric that challenges the reader to calculate the

12 dates. Nevertheless, these historians are convinced that Fornés created the diverse forgeries for the benefit de Marca. Although very little is known about the Franciscan friar, Miralles (p. 231) has discovered, without making the connection, that he was nominated by Louis XIII in 1643 as

Bishop of Urgell. She refers in footnote 29 to a letter de Marca had written to Le Tellier in 1645 where he affirms that two-hundred fifty escudos should be sent to Fornés as down-payment of the pension the king had granted him. A comparison with the Barcelona edition shows that the portion of Fornés is more than a third of the entire Crónica, and the large payment indicates that a major crime was covered up, which might be another reason why historians seem to ignore it.

However, the murder theory is not only discredited by the hidden reference to the funeral after exactly ten years , but it makes it part of the plot and implies that Fornés was asked to edit the Crónica for a publication and complete tome IV for Pujades. If all of this is considered, only conspiracy theorists could still maintain that Pujades was buried in 1635. Above all, they would have to explain why de Marca didn't have an anonymous scribe imitate the handwriting of

Pujades. We would have never known the truth! If it really was a forgery, why did he allow

Fornés to use his own ornamental, Baroque style – and even let him add his signature?

6. The manuscripts at the BnF

In the mid-1980s, when we first examined the Crónica in Paris, the manuscripts were in an excellent condition and seemed untouched for centuries. They have greatly deteriorated since because of improper handling during their conversion to microfilm. The first volume (Esp.117) is virtually falling appart and a consultation of the microfilm is mandatory. Checking the orginal requires the special permission of a senior librarian, which is necessary because the signature

(below) is obscured for some mysterious reason by a dark rectangle on the microfilm.

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The above sample is not a photocopy, but a quick sketch that was made in 1989, long before Miralles had identified Fornés. It shows that it was impossible to decipher the Castilian

"Fray Francisco Fornés" and "Indigno fray menor". Due to his identification by Miralles (p.

264), we re-examined Esp. 117 in January of 2010 and noticed that the scribbles have faded in twenty years to a lighter brown and don't obscure the signature anymore. It is clearly readable now, which reveals that an inferior ink was used to cross it out. We noticed also that Fornés continued after the forewords and penned chapters 1 and 2, which is followed by chapter 3 in the hand of Pujades. Although this would still support the adventurous conjecture that the beginning and end of the Crónica were replaced by a forger, the above signature attests to the contrary.

Miralles (p. 229) notes that Pujades "wrote always" one column on the left side of a page to leave room for comments at right. It would seem that she didn’t have had access to Esp. 119, which

was probably being microfilmed at the time. On the first page (at

left), which has the mysterious headline "Jhs Maria Francisco"

(20), Pujades uses most of the page. The "Jhs" stands either for

Johannes or it is the Christogram ΙΗΣ, which is derived from

the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus. If the headline

didn’t refer to a location like a monastery, who might Jesus

Maria Francisco have been? There was a Franciscan friar by that

name, but he was born in Barcelona in 1654 and went to the

New World, where he was killed by Apaches in 1682.

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7. The unsolved mystery of Esp. 119

That Miralles had limited access is also exposed by her comment in footnote 19, that

"another hand, French and posterior, added some notes to ms. Esp. 119", which is more than a

Catalan understatement. Beginning with book XII (Barcelona edition, tome VI, p. 320), an anonymous scribe had written the most inspired part of the "illustrated" history of Catalonia!

These 28 chapters are in many ways the heart of the Crónica as they cover the last years of

Guifré el Pilos, the celebrated founding father of Catalonia, including his patronage of Santa

Maria de Ripoll and the history and legends of Montserrat, which Pujades introduces with the passion of a poet because it is so revered by the Catalans. But he never forgets that he is a legal expert doing historical researches and backs up his poetic "illustrations" with a judicial tour de force: He connects the forged legends of Guifré el Pilos to the forged legends of the famous

Black Madonna of Montserrat, with conclusions in chap. 11 (Barcelona, tome VI, pp. 384-388), and continues with Montserrat until chapter 28 (Barcelona, p. 418). During his arguments, some covert, others openly, Pujades debunks Francisco Diago and the "badly informed" Antonio de

Yepes – and all in the hand of this anonymous scribe!

Although we had assumed that Fornés penned these chapters, because of some similarities in the Baroque style, we compared the handwriting in Esp. 117, 119 and 120, once again in early

2011 and had to conclude that the important chapters in Esp. 119 are not written by Fornés. (See samples!) If they were written a decade after 1635 and a grapholgist could identify the scribe as friar Joan Roig i Jalpi, we will show below that it would be positive proof that Pujades survived his funeral. The scribe uses Baroque letters and writes in such a fluid style that he was obviously transferring the drafts of Pujades. In fact, we can document that Pujades did not dictate these chapters because he was not present when the work was being done: In the beginning of chapter

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29, p. 472, (Barcelona, p. 419), the scribe stops after "...des del año 885. Reynaba en Francia

Carlos crasso…” and Pujades continues in mid- sentence with “poseyendo aquellos estados por lo∫ menos des del año hasta al año”, and keeps on writing until the end of the volume. The above sample shows the scribe above and Pujades below and, as customary at the time, both write often an ’s’ that looks like an f. The difference of their style is most noticeable with “885. Reynaba”, which is quite ornamental whereas the style of Pujades is rather simple.

Because Pujades completes Esp. 119 himself, which is followed by Esp. 120 in the hand of

Fornés (Miralles), an interesting scenario can be noticed: Because the scribe stops in mid- sentence, he appears to have been surprised by Pujades who had suddenly entered the room. If this occurred in the 1630s, as most scholars would claim, the correction would have been done at the residence of Pujades. If it was after 1635, as we contend, Pujades had taken refuge in a large residence or monastery. He was apparently sick in bed in another room or cell, and got up to see the scribe or monk who worked on the Crónica, and strongly disagreed with what he saw. Had this occurred where Pujades was not living at the time, the surprise element would have been missing. The horse or carriage of Pujades would have been heard in the street and he would have been announced, which would have allowed the scribe to end the sentence. The interaction is documented rather well: When the scribe stops, Pujades grabs the pen and makes a mistake he has to scratch out. The fact that he runs out if ink shows that an argument had probably started.

Similar corrections continue on the next page, which is an indication that Pujades had not fully recovered, and some corrections are actually paper swatches that are glued on the page. Two explanations come to mind why Pujades might have been upset: He either didn't know that the

16 scribe had completed his "illustration" of Montserrat, which he had been looking forward to, or he disagreed with the scribe's changes. Without knowledge of the change of hands, the editors of the Barcelona edition sided with Pujades and rephrased the portion of the scribe as follows:

"...desde el año ochocientos ochenta y cinco reinabia in Francia el emperador Cárlos craso...", yet they left the continuation of Pujades unchanged, the "... poseyendo aquellos estados por lo menos hasta el año...".

Although Pujades completed the volume himself, the 28 chapters are strong evidence that he was too ill to do the work. Furthermore, the continuation in mid-sentence establishes several important facts: 1. It documents that scribes were used. 2. Because this one was apparently not up to the task, a better scribe would have been necessary if the health of Pujades did not improve. 3. This opened the door for Fornés, who was a historian himself.

Furthermore, the decision of Pujades to use the whole page indicates that the manuscript had to be lighter and easier to transport, which would support our conjecture that this was done after 1635. Apparently, the locations where Pujades took refuge required some travelling because both volumes, Esp. 119 and 120, have crease marks, which indicates they had to be concealed. The sketch at right was done at the BnF in 1989 and shows a view of two pages from above that are bound together and folded in half. This could mean that only a few chapters were transported each time because the manuscripts are voluminous and only a limited amount of pages could be folded together. That "Jhs Maria Francisco" was added on top of each volume could relate to this scenario, unless it is the location where Pujades spent the last years of his life. The patchwork suggests also that he may have suffered from arthritis or another illness that made it difficult for him to write and would explain his collaboration with Fornés.

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8. First evidence that the funeral of Pujades was staged

However, before we penetrate this Baroque maze deeper than most scholars are willing to risk, we need to address the unsolved mystery of the "obituary". The editors of the Crónica had

to rely on a certified

copy, dated August 23,

1831, which they

translated from Catalan

into Spanish (21). Two

hundred years later it is

relatively simple to get

scan of page 58 of the register, which is cropped to feature the Pujades entry and the contrast has been enhanced for better readability because of major water damage. It is a curious fact that the date of death is not mentioned, only that Pujades had died after an illness and received the final sacraments, that his body was lying in state at the parish church Santa Maria of Castelló d'Empúries on January 7,

1635, and then buried at the Franciscan monastery Sant Francesc. The entry mentions also what the churchmen were paid for their services, which was apparently the custom. Because of the alleged finality of an 'obituary', it leads experts like Amelang and Miralles to ignore the circumstantial evidence and maintain that Pujades died in 1635. They don't even bring up that the date of death is unknown because they would have to explain why over a third of his historical work in mss. Esp. 117 and 120 was allegedly forged to create the illusion he was still alive in the 1640s. In search for a motive, istorians used to attribute the alleged forgery to a cover-up of de Marca's plagiarism, but it is has since been shown that Baluze was the culprit.

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These were difficult times, however, and the comments of Elliot and Amelang place

Pujades in the opposition of the pro-Castilian faction, and because he had ‘mortal enemies’ according to Pujol, it would have interfered with his passion to document the history of his beloved country. He had little time left because he turned 66 in 1634, and the 'obituary' could have facilitated an orchestrated exitus into hiding with the help of a few friends. (Young visitors of this site may find it difficult to understand such a motivation, but this writer is in the same age-group as Pujades and is trying to document the "Pujades Affair" for related reasons!)

The above-mentioned Father Pujol (22) is a historian and the retired rector of Vilafant at the outskirts of Figueres where the ancestors of Pujades resided for generations. He and Miralles are the most important informants for this article because of Pujol’s comprehensive "Aportació a la biografia de Jeroni Pujades...", which includes the testament of Pujades and an inventory of his possessions. As a priest and historian he is acquainted with the local customs which allowed him to correct the scholar Josep Maria Casas Homs (p. 117) who edited the diaries and had concluded falsely that Pujades was buried first at Santa Maria. This error may have been a major obstacle for scholars to investigate this cover-up because if the funeral and burial were at the same location, the brief church record would have more credibility. However, Pujol points out that it was mandatory since 1616 (p.148) that any deceased person had to first lie in state in the parish church Santa Maria at Castelló d'Empúries if the burial was going to be outside the city walls where the monastery Sant Francesc was located. He writes that Pujades was transferred

"immediately" from Santa Maria to his family crypt at the monastery (p.160), where his mother, his first wife Elisabet, and some of their children had been entombed (p.147).

Thanks to the detailed documentation of Pujol we can access the testament of Pujades, dated October 20, 1634, and the inventory of his possessions that was notarized on January 27,

19

1635 (pp. 256-36), which are specific dates like his funeral on January 7, 1935. That the date of his death remains a mystery is quite unusual because Pujades was employed by the wife of the

Duke of Cardona and became later the legal representative of the Spanish viceroy. His father was a well-known attorney in Barcelona and born in Figueres, which is about seven miles from

Castelló d'Empúries. The ancestors of Pujades lived for centuries in Figueres, and he had two wives and numerous sons, daughters, and grand children with many relatives living in the region

(p.157). It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that the death and funeral of such a prominent personage would have been recorded somewhere in addition to the notice in the church register.

It is rather strange that no records have been found in Barcelona either, not even an obituary, although Pujades had taught law at the university, belonged to the city council, and the First Part of the Crónica had been published there. This may explain why Fèlix Torres Amat of the Reial

Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, who edited the work in the early 19th century, maintained that

Pujades was still alive after the date of his funeral.

9. The Franciscan connection

Thanks to the researches of Angela Serrano and Eulàlia Miralles we learned that there was a nucleus of pro-French Catalans during the revolt against Spain that included Margarit and

Francesc Fornés. The latter penned the controversial parts of the Crónica which would be a forgery if Pujades had died in 1635. However, the first historian to mention that the Second Part of the Crónica is in French hands was Joan Roig i Jalpi in 1678, the Franciscan friar who wrote that it is "worth more, without comparison, than all the treasures of Venice". However, the friar was born in 1624 and therefore eleven years old in 1635 when Pujades allegedly died, which proves he was given access by his confratre Fornés to the manuscripts after he joined the order,

20 which mares him the last to publish first-hand information. Furthermore, friar Joan was from the coastal town Blanes and shares the name 'Roig' with the first wife of Pujades from nearby

Mataro, which indicates that they were probably related. More conclusive is the name 'Jalpi', which he shares with his cousin Josep de Jalpí i Juliá, the illustrious prior of Santa Maria de

Meià. The personal relationship of the prior with Pujades will be covered below, and that he employed his cousin to write a book about the priory. Friar Joan became later its official

'examinador sinodal' for Girona and Barcelona and finally 'provincial' of the Franciscan order in

Catalonia. This closes the circle because it establishes that the Franciscans had inside formation about the "Pujades Affair".

According to Father Pujol (pp.147, 163-64) Pujades embraced the "Franciscan sprit" as well and become a lay member of the Third Rule which is mentioned in the testament he made a few weeks before his alleged death. He requested a simple burial without vanity and superficial pomp, to be dressed like an undignified Franciscan friar minor and buried in a simple coffin as poor as a pauper. Pujades ended his funeral requests by demanding that "especially" no one should carry his corpse above their shoulders (p. 234). These unusual requests, which were obviously fulfilled, suggest that there was neither a procession nor a public funeral, and that the coffin may have been sealed in a secluded, private setting. It is also unusual that neither the testament nor the inventory mention the Crónica, the life-long passion of Pujades. Even his vast collection of rare documents is omitted, which Pujol points out but fails to explain. According to

Amelang, Esteve de Corbera who had so much praise for Pujades died in 1631 and did address his works in his testament. In view of Pujol's findings the following scenario comes to mind:

January 7, 1635 was a Sunday, a day after Epiphany, which was celebrated as the Festa de Reyes for the children of the parish. The rector of Santa Maria had therefore a busy weekend and was

21 easily persuaded by a Franciscan friar to "simplify matters" in the Franciscan spirit and look the other way, especially if he was a friend of Pujades and got the sueldos that are mentioned in the register. Consequently, an empty coffin could have been deposited pro forma in the parish church of Castelló d'Empúries and taken "immediately" to the monastery outide the city walls and deposited in the family crypt inside the church. It didn't even have to be buried, but was simply placed there and the wall sealed as customary to this day! This scenario would also explain the missing date of death in the church register because Franciscan friars would not lie and make up a date, even when asked.

This raises some interesting questions: Would the Franciscans desecrate such a holy place with the Baroque farce of a fake funeral? If we check the testament of Pujades (p. 233) it seems that his family crypt in Castelló was vacated and the remains of his family transferred to the

Franciscan monastery Sant Nicolau in Barcelona, where his parents were entombed. Any

Franciscan would have gladly supported such a well-organized plot to save a human life and wouldn't have regarded it as a sacrilege to place an empty coffin in an empty crypt. Something we can no longer prove because, according to Pujol (p.114), the monastery and church were destroyed in 1822. (Note: It would be consistent with this scenario that the remains of Pujades are today at San Nicolau, which some Catalan students or scholars should check out!) That the

Crónica and documents are not addressed in the testament of Pujades could be an indication they were already in French hands in 1635, along with the diaries from after 1630 which Pujol attests to have existed (p.160). Again, this disproves de Marca's robbery, and in view of Occam's Razor, a Franciscan concept, the simple solution of an empty coffin makes a lot more sense than the elaborate Baroque plot of forged volumes that casts a jealous bishop as the villain who corrupted a poor Franciscan friar to become his accomplice.

22

Our informant is again Roig i Jalpi, because he praised "the illustrious and magnificent

Señor Archbishop of Paris, Pierre de Marca... a great investigator of antiquities and one of the most esteemed geographers of his time", a decade before the Marca hispanica was published by

Baluze (23). We have shown that he appears to have been the informant for Villanueva's account because he was the first to accuse Baluze of plagiarism and report that the archbishop had taken the Crónica to France. This was published in 1678 and is persuasive evidence that a "Franciscan connection" existed, and that Pujades had their support. Miralles researched the information about Francesc Fornés and localized him in 1632 in Conflente, which was part of Catalonia until the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), and in Paris in 1642-1643, when Louis XIII nominated him bishop of Urgell. He was back in Catalonia in 1645 and preached a well-documented sermon in

Barcelona on January 12, 1646, in which he criticized Roman Catholicism with Catalan version of Gallicanism as promoted by de Marca. Hence, it is conceivable that he worked at the time on the Crónica as well.

10. An important second opinion

As we explore this Baroque maze, an investigation of the death of Pujades would have to include the most qualified experts, the scholars who edited his works two centuries ago, right between Pujades and our era: Fèlix Torres Amat, Pròsper de Bofarull, and Albert Pujol. They knew every word Pujades has written and everything that was written about him. Like Dalmases, they were sympathetic to his ideas and intimately acquainted with Catalan zeitgeist and history. As prominent academics and liberal churchmen, they had sufficient influence to make sure the censure would not have linear access so that all six volumes could be published, as we will show below.

Brief profiles of the editors are inserted below:

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Félix Torres i Amat de Palou (1772-1849) was the language expert and in charge of the project. He had taught philosophy, mathematics, and theology in Tarragona, and translated the bible into "vulgar Castilian". In 1817, he transferred from Madrid to Barcelona, and as "canónigo sacrista y vicario general de Barcelona" chose Bofarull and Pujol as collaborators. He was a liberal theologian and accused of Jansenism, a movement within the Catholic Church that leaned towards Calvinism. His apologetic biography of an uncle by the same name, an open Jansenist, was put on the Index by the Vatican. After completing his work on the Crónica, he retired to the monastery San Jeroni de la Murtra near Barcelona in 1631 where Pierre de Marca had spent his summers two centuries earlier to work on the Marca hispanica. He was ordained bishop of Astorga in 1834 in spite of his questionable faith, and became known as obispo reformador. At the time, he worked also on the "Memorias para ayudar a formar un diccionario critico de los escritores catalanes ..." with his brother Ignatius, a Jesuit, on a critical dictionary of Catalan authors, which was published in 1836.

Pròsper de Bofarull i Mascaró (1777-1859) was president of the Academia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona (1823), director of the "Archives of the Crown of Aragon" (1814-1849), and an erudite historian with a law degree. He is described as a "moderate liberal and meticulous person" and appears to have profited, or was inspired by his work on the Crónica when he wrote Los Condes de Barcelona Vindicados, which was published in 1836 and corrects some historical errors. In 1856, he published an interpretation of the "Llibre del Repartiment del Regne de Valéncia" , featuring prominent pro-Catalans of his era.

Albert Pujol i Gurena (1783-1847) was an Augustinian monk, like Martin Luther, who left the order in 1622 for a secular life. He is probably the most fascinating personage of this trio of liberals. He was lame (cojo) and "short in stature, but large in talents and literary activities", and was called by his friends "Pujolito". He taught theology and Spanish literature at the famous college Santa Ana in Barcelona, and wrote about education of the poor as well as sermons on morality, inspired orations, and eulogies. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Natural Sciences and Arts in Barcelona and the Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais. In 1836, he became vice-president and rector of the restored University of Barcelona, where he taught law.

More research is pending, but it is already clear that the liberal team of editors was

highly qualified, and that at least two of them had distinguished careers after the

publication of the Crónica. The exception is Torres Amat, who may have been forced to

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retire in 1631 at fiftynine years of age. That he was nominated Bishop of Asturga in 1634

could have been a removal from his sphere of influence in Barcelona to the far-West of

Spain. This hypothesis has some support from the foreword of vol. 2, which was published

after vol. 5 and announced vol. 7 with corrections, revisions and documents (flosculo)

which was apparently cancelled. A detailed study of vol. 6 is pending because its rhetorical

concept is quite different from vol. 5. If it doesn't contain the usual controversies and

hidden messages aside from the 'famous last words', a comparison with the original in

Paris might reveal that it was forged by an anonymous scholar.

The editors were apparently aware of the fact as well that Pujades survived his

"obituary" but could not reveal it openly, which is suggested in the "Memorias..." of Torres

Amat et al. The extensive biography of Pujades (pp. 509-515) follows the praise in the

Crónica very closely, yet the scholar concludes:

"No he podido averguar de fijo el dia ni año en que murió..." ("I could neither establish conclusively the day nor year he died", p. 509)

The facts speak for themselves: The certified copy of the "obituary" is dated 1831 and was published in tome VII in the same year. The Memorias followed five years later, in 1836, yet

Torres Amat (24) limited himself to the above disclaimer and omitted the date of the funeral and the alleged pro-Castilian views of Pujades that were claimed in volume 6. Critics might argue that his retirement prevented him from making these changes, but he had just spent years with the Crónica and was familiar with all aspects of the controversy. The editors even adapted the rhetorical style of Pujades and suggested, among other things, that one of his claims is phrased in flawed Spanish as if coming "from his own mouth". The unique idea that Pujades may have found a way to speak to us from the grave will be the subject of our final arguments!

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The ediors were not only important academics in Spain, but also "liberal theologians" like

Villanueva who had to flee to England and spend the rest of his life there. If we consider further that the Crónica was censured and required a royal license, we probably owe it to their sophistication and connections that it could be published. Pujades exposed so many controversial sources that only a publication outside Spain may have been possible in the early 1600s. Two hundred years later, the editors were able to solve these problems rhetorically, like Pujades, and honored him by always addressing both sides of a controversy, even in 1831, when they had to introduce the obituary. They questioned its relevance by pointing out that Pujades referred repeatedly to curious notes or sources in Paris: ...ut habes in flosculo meo primo, o secundo, ut habes in flosculo meo Parisiensi, etc. which they pretended rhetorically to find difficult to explain. They even speculated that if these notes were already in Paris during the life of Pujades he had a friendly or literary relation there which "could have been the archbishop of Paris..."

(tome VII, p.III) They avoid mentioning his name but imply de Marca, which supports

Villanueva's account and would explain why the Crónica is not mentioned in the will. The editors add that the flosculo are at the Bibliothèque Royale (today BnF) in Paris, and registered under Baluze (mss. 234, 238, 239). It remains to be seen if the list is complete, although Jesús

Villanueva Lopéz writes, following Abadal, that only one document of the flosculo is used in the

Marca hispanica (25). But, according to the erudite editors, these were "flosculo ó documentos antiguos" (Tome IV, p. II), which goes beyond notes and appears to be a message that all

Catalan documents from Pujades and de Marca were included, even the Gesta comitum barcinonensium which is also registered under Baluze. Although the editors do not question the

"obituary", they follow the kind of rhetorical set-up Pujades uses in his works: Instead of closing the controversial "Advertencia" (Tome VII, p. IV) with his tomb in Castelló d'Empúries and the

26 dates on his gravestone, as the readers would have expected, or the news that the monastery had been reduced to rubble, they direct readers to page 11 and the parochial church of nearby

Empuries with a veiled reference to the

"inteligencia del cómputo de los años" and with an inscription at Nuestra Señora del Pino in Barcelona, the church where Pujades was confirmed as a child in 1574. We will see below that they mirrored a sophisticated idea of

Pujades to take the controversy to a higher level and actually speak to us from the grave!

11. The mental world of Jeroni Pujades

Before we investigate the secret messages of Pujades, which only a few scholars will be able to follow, some disturbing facts have to be addressed that will turn them off completely as they eliminate his competence as an unbiased historian. We had mentioned earlier that the historian James S. Amelang described Pujades as an "an over-zealous Roman catholic with a deep hatred of Protestants and heretics", but his critique is even more severe: Based on the diaries, he identifies the "xenophobia" of Pujades and rates him as a "fervent Catholic" who followed traditional religious practices like "the veneration of relics and saints". He notes that

"his remarks on religious matters betray a militant and highly defensive awareness of being engaged in an endless battle against heresy", and that he is obedient "to the apostolic Catholic

Roman see – an attitude which explains his (rare) expression of delight when he heard of a massacre of Huguenots in southern France in 1611”. Amelang concludes: "It is perhaps this, the dark side of Pujades for the modern reader, that best testifies to his role as a spokesman for his times and for a mental world most would regard as better left behind." (26)

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This is devastating news for aficionados of the Crónica, and especially for the "Pujades

Affair' because it means that "ignorant" (Baluze) and "prejudicial" (Amelang) are valid characterizations of Pujades, and would actually be understaments. But before we quote from the editors of the Crónica in an attempt to vindicate Pujades, there is a modern expert, Father

Pujol whom we cited above and who adds the perspective of a compassionate catholic priest. He hopes that his researches "can serve as homage to the great personage that was Jeroni Pujades and would contribute to a better understanding of this extraordinary figure". He writes that the diaries of Pujades reflect the extreme chaos and instability in the early 17th century which was

"marked by a religiosity of superstitious and naive beliefs – of which Pujades himself was not immune – among a people with a low morale and suffering severely under epidemics." (27)

There is, of course, the possibility that Pujades started out as a "fervent Catholic" and experienced a change of heart later in life. However, we have shown above that Pujades liked to emulate Cervantes with his passionate, religious outbursts, and which Amelang's comments tend to confirm. Johannes Kepler was a contemporary of Pujades and he expressed his regrets of having to live in an “unfortunate” era because some arguments can’t be made openly because of a dark power in the background: the “suffocating” authority of the theologians (28). The Baroque was marked by religious conflicts and "declarations of faith" were expected by everyone, even by scientists and humanists. However, the compassionate evaluation by Pujol doesn't seem to relate to either profile of Pujades, neither to the humanist nor to the "over-zealous Roman catholic" whose passionate remarks have a Quixotic character. We propose, therefore, that

Pujades used a rhetorical concept to report the zeitgeist from the point of view of a fervent

Catholic with all the superstitious and naive, religious beliefs. This could explain why Amelang regarded Pujades as a "spokesman" and noted the "unbiographical" character of his diary.

28

Aficionados of the Crónica can confirm that Pujades was never a "fervent" supporter of the "apostolic Catholic Roman see", as his diaries suggest. He attacked Church historians regularly in the Crónica and displayed a Catalan version of French Gallicanism by criticizing

Rome and Madrid whenever Catalan abbots and monks were replaced by Italians and Spaniards.

This is definitely not the "xenophobia" Amelang noticed in the diaries or the liberal editors of the

Barcelona editions would have pointed it out! What the editors do say, repeatedly, is that we must understand the difficult period in which the "wise" and "indefatigable chronicler" had to do his work – which implies that he could not express himself openly. In tome VII, p.28, they add in a footnote that he admired "la mania del Heroe del inmortal Cervantes, coetano de nuestro

Cronista", and even Father Pujol points out that Pujades refers to Cervantes already in in tome

V, at the end of chapter VI of book IX (p.215). When the editors praise in another footnote the

"genius, subtleness and erudition of the chronicler" (see below), it fully contradicts his over- zealous expressions in the diaries. Hence, we can only understand the mental world of Pujades if we consider his humanistic position in the Crónica, and that he had to endure the Inquisition, the

Counter-Reformation, the Thirty Years War, the Plague, and the poverty, starvation and epidemics that contributed to the ill-fated revolt of the Catalans.

This is why we propose, following Amelang, that Pujades presented the official "dark side" like a true journalist in his diaries, which most Catalans regard “as better left behind", and preserved his enlightened, secret side with a hermetic 'time capsule' in the Crónica.

12. Did Pujades "cheat the devil"?

"The mental world of Jeroni Pujades" is a title we borrowed from Amelang because

Pujades inhabited a complex, Baroque world. This remains an obstacle for most historians today because their academic discipline is rather "forensic" and almost exclusively based on their

29 interpretation of facts. When they see an obituary, its "finality" closes their mind while scientists have the freedom to include their imagination, which is why Einstein said "imagination is more important than knowledge". Only this interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to explore the mind of Pujades, and especially his messages about the 1640s. They stand out because such trivia has no place in a historical work, not even in an "illustration" of Catalonia, as it turns off modern historians: they can't accept that it an important, rhetorical tool. Besides, they would have to accuse de Marca and Fornés of having invented a "time capsule" as part of their voluminous forgery, which they couldn't bring up because their reputation would be at stake.

The first example of the "inteligencia del cómputo de los años" is offered in tome VII, p.

125, when Pujades requests a calculation from his "confirmation" as a child on Monday, April

26, 1574. An important clue is that it occurred in the parish of the above-mentioned church

Nuestra Señora del Pino (Our Lady of the Pine) of which he says "it was built in 970, making it over 670 years old". The requested calculation takes us to the 1640s, and Pujades confirms in the middle of the next page that we are on the right track by revealing his age as '76 años de mi edad' in the context of the life-death symbolism of the pine tree. Pujades explains the name of the church with the myth of Pan and his adoration of Pitys, whom Pan transformed into a pine tree, which he regards as a symbol of Mary's mortality. According to St Jerome, he explains, the birth of Jesus from a mortal Mary concealed his divinity from the demons and, ut ejus partus celaretur a diabolo, was a way to cheat the devil. How he develops this to conceal his own death may seem like weird stuff for historians who dismiss this kind of detective work as pseudo- scholarship, but they should give his rhetoric some serious thought because their peers of the

19th century, the editors of the Crónica, were quite impressed by Pujades! They say in a footnote

(tome VII, p.127):

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"Esta metafora nos da una idea del ingenio, sutileza y erudicion del Cronista" (This metaphor gives us an idea of the genius, subtleness and erudition of the chronicler.)

That Pujades found a way to "cheat the devil" himself is confirmed exactly 54 chapters later, probably because Plato calculated (1 + (1x2) + (1x3) +4 +9 + 8 + 27 = 54) for the

Generations of the Soul. The calculation mode continues when Pujades mentions the year 1637

(p.339) and with the priory Maria de Meyá in chap. LXIII. Here are three controversial statements of Pujades that are strangely repetitious (29):

1. “En que se pone la lista ó catálogo de los (nombres de los) Priores que ha tenido el priorato de Meyá desde el año 1005 hasta el que corremos hoy, que es el de 1645…" Note: The insert in paranthesis is not in the Barcelona edition. (Here is a list or catalog of the (names of the) priors of the priory of Meyá from the year 1005 until today, which is 1645... p.347)

2. “…los años y nombres de los que lo fueron desde dicho año 1005 hasta el presente de 1645 en que es prior el ilustre José de Jalpí y Juliá, y son los que siguen…" ( ...the years and names from 1005 until the present in 1645, when the illustrious José de Jalpí y Juliá is the prior, are the following..." p.347)

3. “En el año 1633, á 15 del mes de agosto del dicho año, tomó la posesion del priorato de santa Maria de Meyá el ilustre é insigne José Jalpí y de Juliá teniendo de edad solos 28 años 11 meses y 7 dias. Vive hoy que contamos 6 de enero del año 1645 ..." (In the year 1633, on August 15 of said year, took possession of the priory Santa Maria de Meyá the illustrious and renowned José Jalpí y de Juliá of only 28 years, 11 months, and 7 days of age. He is – or: I am – alive today, which is January 6 of the year 1645..." p. 349)

In view of his "genius, subtleness and erudition", Pujades seems to have anticipated the identity problem and decided to speak to his readers from the grave – but phrased in flawed

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Castilian "as if it were from his own mouth"! The enlightened editors point this out in their

Advertencia (p. II) “…hablando de D. José Jelpi, Prior de santa Maria de Meyá, dice como en boca del mismo Cronista "Vive hoy que contamos 6 de enero de 1645.”

With this claim in bad Spanish, which Fornés did not correct, Pujades gives his readers another chance to be ahead of the experts because of the esoteric reference to the pine seeds he had planted earlier! Or, as Chrétien said in the first lines of the Conte du Graal as a set up for his

"contes" (calculations): "If the seeds are planted in a rich soil, the fruits will be a hundred fold".

This is based on a parable in St Matthew, whom Pujades follows by picking January 6, one of the holiest days of Christianity, to reveal that he is still alive as we have shown above. He uses the gospel in a most dramatic way to hand his readers the magic key to unlock the hermetic time capsule – because it is the day of the Biblical Magi, which is celebrated as epiphany ("revelation" in Greek, "to manifest" or "to show") – which demands a closer look at his words:

"Vive hoy que contamos 6 de enero del año 1645..."

Now that Pujades has trained his readers to "count" and "compute the years" he is challenging them to make two calculations. Friends of esoterica would learn that the prior was born in September, 1604, when Kepler's planetary triangles formed in the sky, but more important is that everyone would calculate that January 6, 1645 disputes his funeral on January

7, 1635, because it was 10 years to the day earlier. In addition to these revelations, which confirm the Franciscan funeral with an empty coffin, we will show below that this claim is the key to the "time capsule" on several levels. Its secrets are easier to unlock if we keep in mind that

Pujades was an attorney and judge who conducted his historical researches from a legal point of view. In dealing with the identity problem, because this is written by Fornés, he decided to represent himself and guide his readers through the Baroque maze personally. According to the

32 established facts there is the date of a funeral, which would mean he had died, but this is only circumstantial evidence! There is no death certificate, no date of death and no corpus delicti – only a brief record of the funeral. On the other hand, there is substantial evidence to the contrary:

Illustrious bishops and archbishops are involved, even Louis XIII and the court of France!

The "revelation" and challenge of exactly ten years indicates that the date of the funeral was chosen with the intention to deny it later. In view of Plutarch's second opinion (30) about

Plato's Timaeus, the ten years are a Pythagorean number and a metaphor of the lifespan of the

Phoenix, which is calculated by subtracting the false statement of 10 because the nymphs are lying when they claim to live as long as ten phoenixes. These are, of course, messages for a future generation to open his empty coffin – although Pujades couldn't foresee that the monastery would be reduced to rubble.

Back to the esoteric communications "from the grave": A judge, and doctor of civil and canon law, would never make a conclusive statement that could be false: That the prior of Maria de Meyá "is alive today..." would merely be hearsay if there is no proof he had seen the prior that particular day! Miralles followed up and confirms that the prior headed the priory from 1633 to

1678, but addressed neither the secret message nor the comments of friar Joan Roig i Jalpi. The way Pujades develops his argument from a specific day is an important part of his legal concept.

When he says "I am alive today, which we count as 6 of January of the year 1645..." it is ambiguous in Spanish and only the context reveals that it pertained to the prior. To assure his readers again that they are on the right track, and not reading anything into his words, Pujades follows up with the positive proof (p. 339) when he states later that he saw saw the prior that day: 'He consoled me by saying that he would give me certain papers’ (me consoló diciendo, que me daria ciertos papeles) and ‘On the same day, he sent me one of his servants with said papers’

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(el mismo dia me envió un criado suyo con dichos papeles). Out of context, the information about the papers and the same day is irrelevant and much too personal for a historical work, but necessary to confirm the hidden messages.

The next paragraph is in such bad Spanish that Fornés would have surely corrected if the ambiguities didn't have a rhetorical function. Pujades writes that the "illustrious prior" was looking for an expert in 1637, another date after the alleged funeral, to search for records in his library to find out when and by whom the church and monastery were founded, and why at this specific location? After an "exhausting and tiring" and seemingly endless search, the prior found only one document from the year 1005 CE that lists Maria de Meyá as a Benedictine priory.

Pujades implies that he was involved by adding that it may have been founded by Charlemagne, or by his son Louis the Pious. However, friar Joan Roig i Jalpi was twenty-one years of age and could have worked for Pujades at the time and continued these researches later as published in

1678. Pujades mentions that Maria de Meyá was originally part of Urgell, which is another important key as we will show below. Fornés didn't even change the most controversial claims of

Pujades: Six chapters after Maria de Meyá, he weaves the complex history of Ermesenda through nine chapters and makes some confusing calculations to prepare his readers for a higher theme that relates to the Platonic 6 x 9 = 54. The editors explain in a footnote (p. 407) that the sources of Pujades differ and confuse dates because he doesn't clarify that the years began in this period on either March 25, the "conception" of Christ, or on his his "incarnation" on December

25, which he uses in the diaries. However, what the editors didn't know is that this was written by a scribe who could have corrected the confusion because Fornés was not only an erudite historian and fluent in Spanish, but also the Bishop of Urgell!

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In the handwriting of Fornés, Pujades goes on to quote from Ermesenda's testament and praises her most ardent Catholicism rhetorically by showing how generously she distributed her wealth among over fifty monasteries, churches, and ecclesiastics, and even had a few vessels sent to the Roman pontiff. Pujades plays over several pages with the etymology of siphos, sciphos and ciphos to present a history of sacramental vessels. He goes from cups to bowls and pitchers, and that a cipho in the shape of a boat was used by Hercules, and sciphus in book 8 of

Virgil's Aeneid. He points out that the early Church used wooden cups for the Eucharist, which was later declared an "abuse" by the popes and banned in the Middle Ages. The last mention of these vessels is 'duas copas de argento' (p. 414), which is a major clue because Pujades is also a poet yet he teases his readers by never using the word 'grail' as some would have expected. In a sense he is demonstrating that an omission is the purest form of a Catalan understatement!

Critics who reject these references to the grail myth, which had started with Sant Pere de Rodes, should contemplate this metaphor of Pujades:

"Kings inform themselves rarely of the truth by drinking the clear waters at the source, but usually after they passed through conduits that are not always clean but darkened, polluted and corrupted, or served in vessels that are neither jars from Portugal, nor porcelain from India, nor a horn of the Unicorn..." (31)

13. More grail stuff

Another example of the "genius, subtleness and erudition" of Pujades is that he takes his readers from sacramental "vessels" to the diocese of Urgell in the Pyrenees to which Maria de

Meyá used to belong, and all in the handwriting of the new Bishop of Urgell. The last will of

Ermesenda becomes an invisible bridge to the testaments of her deceased relatives with similar names, to Count Ermengol I of Urgell (d. 1010 CE) and his half-sister Ermengarda (d. 1030 CE).

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Both had the same father, Count Borrell of Barcelona, but different mothers and although

Pujades had covered their lives and death a few chapters earlier and had even mentioned that the first Count of Barcelona was an Iconoclast necause "he did not venerate the holy images". These testaments are clearly the target of his chapter on "vessels" because they document the etymology of grail for the first time in history as "gradales duas de argento", which Pujades translated into Spanish as "duas copas de argento" as a hidden signal for enlightened readers

(32). Skeptical scholars might argue that we are imagining his esoteric concept, but it has surprising back-up: In the high Pyrenees above Urgell, nine Romanesque churches with frescoes of fiery grails (33) have been discovered in the early 1900s, which scholars like Chandler R.

Post, Charles L. Kuhn and Otto Demus (34) linked to grail romance. They survived because of their isolated mountain location, which indicates that other churches in Catalonia may have had depictions of grails which were white-washed or painted over centuries ago and are yet to be discovered. The two examples (below) document the metamorphoses of an enclosed reliquary at

Sant Pere de Burgal at left to the open "grala" at Sant Climent de Taüll from around 1123 CE.

This has great importance for our research because these frescoes were painted over half a century before Chrétien de Troyes coined the word graal (grail).

We have seen above that Pujades translated 'duas copas de argento' , which predates the

Glossaium of du Cange by many decades. This reference to the etymology of ‘grail’ relates to the paper trail from Pujades to Baluze who impressed he savants at St-Germain-des-Prés with

36 the documents he had inherited. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: "Baluze, together with

Luc d'Achéry, Mabillon, Sainte-Marthe, Ducange, Montfaucon, and others, gathered an immense quantity of rich materials which the historians of the nineteenth century... used with the greatest skill". How much of these materials came from Pujades and de Marca remains an open question because Baluze had amassed at the time of his death "1100 printed books, 957 manuscripts, more than 500 charters, and seven cases full of various documents".

This shows clearly that Baluze enabled sieur du Cange to use ‘with the greatest skill’ the etymology of ‘graal’ of Pujades without giving him any credit. The Baroque scenario is probably better understood if we consider that it involves different generations of scholars.

Pujades was born in 1568 and would have been a father figure for de

Marca (at right), who was born 26 years later in 1594. Du Cange was born

in 1610 and Baluze (at left) in 1630, too young to have met Pujades although he bashed him as "ignorant" to suggest it was his employer's opinion. He was barely 25 years old when he joined de Marca in 1656 as his secretary, yet managed after only six years to inherit his entire collection of books and documents, including the flosculo of Pujades.

According to Jesús Villanueva Lopéz (34) de Marca had been told by Mazarin to remove many rare documents from Catalonia and although some of these may have become part of the

Mazarin library, it remains unclear how many were held back by Baluze that are now registered at the BnF under his name.

Back to Maria de Meyá and the esoteric "time capsule': That Pujades saw the prior on

January 6, 1645, and got the promised papers "the same day" contains another important revelation: The scenario requires two trips that day, which indicates that Pujades could not have lived very far from the priory, at the most a few hours by horse or carriage. If we consider that he

37 had studied at the University of Lleida until his doctorates at age 23, and that his son Dalmau had studied there as well, they would have had many acquaintances and friends in the region.

According to Gaquère (35), Pierre de Marca visited the Cistercian monastery Santa Maria de

Poblet in 1647, which may be a clue that Pujades was living in the region.

14. Those famous last words

We have reached a point of no return and the elaborate 'time capsule' and bribe means either that Pujades was murdered in 1635 or that funds were necessary to save his life and preserve the grail secrets. In the support of the latter, it would be another esoteric message that

Pujades denied his funeral three times as we have seen above. This could be an entertaining pun on Gallicanism and Peter's three denials of Christ each time the cock crowed, which Pujades implies with Sant Pere de Galligans, a monastery in Girona. This relates to Sant Pere de Rodes, which Pujades alleges holds the secret of St Peter's empty tomb at the Vatican. This would be a sophisticated allegory because the tomb of Pujades was empty as well at the time of his writing and it offers a perfect set-up for the final message at the end of the last volume, tome VIII. On the last page, the last chapter of his life's work ends with written proof that Pujades lived near

Lleida. Just to make sure the above messages are not dismissed too quickly, he leaves us those

"famous last words" to close the Crónica – and again phrased as if it were from his own mouth:

"...ultimanente promovido al obispado de la santa iglesia de Lérida. SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA"

For the last time, Pujades entertains his readers with his "limitations" by exploiting the flowery Spanish language! Promotion is meant, but taken out of context and from his own mouth

"promovido" is also an "initiation". By playing with etymology, like Chrétien, Pujades leaves us

38 the message that his "ultimate promotion and initiation" (death) will be in the bishopric of Lérida

(Lleida in Catalan), and "only in God's honor and glory". This interpretation should get some academic support, although most scholars will probably dismiss these "words from the grave" as some adventurous conjectures or just plain nonsense (36).

15. Epilogue

Many of our adventurous conjectures will be rejected by the academic establishment, but they are included as an impetus for students who’ll be around long enough for other documents that come to light that either support or correct “The Pujades Affair”. For now, we hope to have made a convincing case that Pujades was not murdered in 1635 and that he had the support of de

Marca and Fornés. This would mean that the funeral was arranged on January 7, 1635, with an empty coffin to save his life. It was appropriate, therefore, that we chose Occam's Razor to favor a "minor" Franciscan plot that celebrates good deeds over the elaborate Baroque alternative that casts Pierre de Marca as the villain, and perhaps even murderer, who corrupted a Franciscan friar with money and a fancy title to make him invent a complex 'time capsule' to cover everything up.

Until there is new evidence it seems rather clear that there was only one villain in “The

Pujades Affair”: The overly ambitious Etienne Baluze who betrayed his employer after only six short years of service (38). This is another Baroque intrigue that deserves to be addressed by an objective historian because Baluze inherited the library of de Marca, including the documents of

Pujades, and then waited about 26 years to publish the Marca hispanica.

Baluze may have inherited their documents on the condition he would publish both works, the Catalonia illustrata (Marca hispanica) in French and Latin, and the Crónica Universal, as edited by Fornés. But as soon as his employer was under the ground, Baluze joined the savants at

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St-Germain-des-Prés to promote himself. He gave the work of de Marca the pretentious title Marca hispanica; sive limes hispanicvs, hoc est, geographica & historica descriptio

Cataloniae, Ruscinonis, & circumjacentium populorum and tripled its size with documents like the Gesta comitum barcinonensium. In the process, he removed most references to Pujades and slandered him as "ignorant' in the context of the few he kept and thus damaged the reputation of

Pujades and de Marca. The first draft impressed Colbert, the powerful minister of finance under

Louis XIV, and got him the job as librarian in 1667. That this was a well-calculated plan is shown by the way he printed Colbert's name larger than his own and dedicated the work to him.

We would have never known why he slandered Pujades, had Dalmases not been alerted of the Crónica's existence. Miralles writes that the "archbishop of Rouen" found the manuscripts in his library, but a bit of googling reveals his identity and another Baroque scenario:

It was Archbishop Jacques-Nicolas Colbert – Baluze’s employer!

He had bought the Colbert Library in 1692 for a nominal price after the death of his famous father and older brother. Because he was also a doctor of the Sorbonne and member of the Académie française, his interest in Pujades shows he was aware of Baluze's plagiarism and slanderous remark, and simply ordered Baluze to send him the work. Hence, we can imagine what Colbert and Dalmases may have discussed in 1700 over a few glasses of wine when they noticed the esoteric 'time capsule'. The involvement of some kind of secret order like the

Rosicrucians or perhaps even the Alumbrados comes to mind, because some Jesuits and

Franciscans are known to have been sympathizers.

Although these adventurous ideas may seem a bit over the top for modern scholars, such controversies were published in Latin which eliminated the language barriers in Europe. They would have also talked about the plagiarisms of Baluze and du Cange, and about some findings

40 in the Crónica that have since been 'corrected' by the Mauriststs and Bollandists, which might explain why Dalmases founded the Acadèmia dels Desconfiats upon his return to Barcelona.

It is a fitting conclusion of the "Pujades Affair" that the forgers of Cardinal Bouillon's genealogy were arrested in 1700 and Baluze fired by Colbert ten years later. His lack of morals and ethics had finally caught up with him and brought his downfall and banishment from Paris.

Nevertheless, he is still highly esteemed in academic circles and only a prominent scholar could bring him down from his lofty pedestal.

Unfortunately, the same scholar would have to support some of our wild conjectures, which is probably too much of a burden. Although our interpretation of Pujades' esoteric side will always remain controversial, we need to defer some of the responsibility to our informants who were almost exclusively churchmen: Joan Roig i Jalpi was the first to expose Baluze's plagiarism and Jaime Villanueva rediscovered the lost copies in Catalonia. In addition to Pierre de Marca and Francesc Fornés, the unsung heroes of the "Pujades Affair" are Pau Ignasi de

Dalmases i Ros, Josep Taberner i d'Ardena and Jacques-Nicholas Colbert. Then there are the enlightened editors Fèlix Torres Amat, Pròsper de Bofarull and Albert Pujol who dared to support the esoteric side of Pujades and bridged two centuries with such eloquence that his work became accessible for modern readers. It is therefore not another coincidence that this writer, who learned English as a fourth language, seems so opinionated, prejudicial, and passionately pro-Pujades. That's because he has similar issues with foreign languages – and because he spent the most meaningful years of his life in the 1970s by living in a little village at the river Muga with a clear view of the Pyrenees and Mont Verdera where the grail legends originated.

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Notes:

1. Jesús Villanueva Lopez, La Marca hispanica de Pierre de Marca y Étienne Baluze a través de sus tres momentos de composición... (Barcelona, 2004), pp. 205-232. Available on-line. 2. Gerónimo Pujades, Crónica Universal del Principado de Cataluña, tome V, (Barcelona, 1829), p.VI. 3. J.H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans, (Cambridge, 1984), paperback, pp. 253-54 4. Estevan de Corbera, Cataluña Illustrada, (Napoli, 1678), p.6. The quote paraphrases the praise, which is much more flowery: "Uno dellos es el Dotor Hieronymo Pujades q’a sido el primero que rompiò este hilo, y abrio camino entre tantas difficultades dandonos una Crónica general de Cataluña, y aunque poco conocido de los Estrãngeros por haverla escrito en lengua Catalana, y mal reçebida dela emulacion de sus cónaturales, estra texida, y continuada con gran cuydado, y prudencia, y con advertencias, y curiosidades muy dignas de estimacion, ha trabajado mucho, y siempre a su costa reboluiendo Archivos, averiguado antiguedades, y empleando lo mejor de su vida en diligencias, y peregrinaciones encaminadas a este fin tan loable, sin que aya tenido jamas arrimo o favor publico, o particular que le alentara, y socorriere en tan honrosa ocupacion ; antes algunos que no saben lo que valen aquellos trabajos quieren a carga cerrada codenarlos ; tristes effetos de una emulacion enbidiosa. Condenan lo que no alcançan que ay grandes leguas dela presuncion ala Obra." 5. Fr. Joan Gaspar Roig i Jalpi, Resumen historial..., (Barcelona, 1678), p. 508. 6. Jaime Villanueva, Viage literarario a las Iglesias de España, vol. 6, Carta L, (Valencia, 1821), pp. 233-34. Volumes 1-6 were originally published in Madrid between 1803 and 1806. His account in Carta L triggered our dispute of Pujades' death in 1635 before we discovered Fr. Joan (see above, n.5) See quote. 7. Jesús Villanueva (see above, n.1), pp. 221-2. Italia Illustrada (1448-1458) by Flavio Blondo was the first work to “recompile all illustrious events of the country for the admiration of the locals and foreigners”. This was followed by Germania illustrata (ca. 1500), Illustrations de Gaule (1511-1513), Illustrations dels comtats…(1586), Hispania illustrata (1603-1608), and Cataluña Illustrada, written until 1630 by Esteve de Corbera. Pierre de Marca intended originally to publish his work as Catalonia illustrata, in French and Latin, and dedicate it to Mazarin. We should add that 'illustration' has lost some of its meaning which used to be more like illumination, including clearing up and embellishing. 8. Marc Mayer, Xavier Espluga, Alejandra Guzmàn, L’epigrafia a la Corònica de Jeroni Pujades (1569-1636), (Barcelona, 2004), pp.224-25: “Que nadie puede ser buen censor, ni juez, que no oiga ambas partes. Quado se ofrecerán encontradas opiniones, las referiré; y, si es posible, como lo

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será las más veses, las consiliaré y reduciré a concordia; y quado no pueda llegar á tanto, puiestos los fundamentos y razones de ambas partes, quedará la decision de la duda a la discresión del lector." 9. Pujades, (see above, n.2), (1830), tome VI, pp.384-388. Pujades dedicates an entire chapter to correct the "mal informado" abad Antonio Yepez. The ecclesiastic died in 1618 as abbot of the monastery San Benito de Valladolid, where his chronicle was published. 10. Ibid, p. 279. Pujades corrects here the Dominican historian Francisco Diago: Because Baldwin I “Ironarm” abducted Judith in 862 CE and Guifré is documented in 870 CE in Catalonia, the eight-year interval was too short for Judith to have gotten pregnant with a daughter that was old enough to get pregnant herself. Hence, the Gesta comitum Barcinonensium (BnF) states falsely that Guifré got the daughter of the Counts of Flanders pregnant and married her later. See also Miquel Coll i Alentorn, Historiografia, (Barcelona, 1991), p. 54. He writes that Guifré's vita in the Gesta only pretends to be a legend, whereas it is in fact rather “erudite, and probably dreamt up for pragmatic reasons.” Stefano Maria Cingolani, Gestes dels comtes de Barcelona I reis d’Aragó, (Valencia, 2008), p. 44, adds that "the forger seems to have been very familiar with history.” 11. Miquel Pujol i Canelles, Aportació a la biografia de Jeroni Pujades, Una biblioteca particular de començament del segle XVII, writes "enemics mortals", p.158. Although Pujol referenced the year 1608, it goes without saying that except for a minority of nobles, nationalists and historians, most Catalans regarded a pro-French position as treason. Pujol's manuscripty is available on-line, but two pages of notes are missing! We contacted him in October, 2010, and although Father Pujol did not endorse our "detective work" in any way, he kindly provided the missing pages which are linked here as p. 228 and p. 229. 12. Harald Zimmermann, Das Mittelalter, 1. Teil, (Braunschweig, 1975), p. 9: "Den Bollandisten und den Maurinern blieb die Führung in der Mittelalterforschung gewahrt, was um so leichter möglich war, als hier wie dort die Arbeit von der ganzen Gemeinschaft getragen wurde."

13. Pujades, (see above, n.2), (1831), tome IV, pp.186-190. Also in the Catalan edition Coronica vniversal del principat de Catalunya, (Barcelona, 1609), f.316r. Instead of the grail, both versions mention an "ampolla with the holy blood of Christ". But Esp.118 in Paris shows that Pujades specified later "a vessel, or ampolla", as this scan shows, but the change was never published. According to the Latin chronicle, Roman clergymen in a ship took refuge from a storm in the early seventh century and decided to hide their cargo in a cave, including the holy vessel and the right arm and skull of St Peter. When they returned, they failed to find the cave and kept searching for the rest of their lives. These are the basic ingredients of grail lore (with a bit of Monty Python and skull & scrossbones), because there would ineluctably have been witnesses if generations of 43

Italians were climbing up and down these mountains until they died of old age. Had anyone asked them what they are looking for, they would have mentioned a simple "gradalis", nothing of value, and some "reliquiae insignes". If pressed for details, they might have admitted to a search for old bones, the bones of a fisherman, an important fisherman. As time went by, the tale grew in the imagination of poets to the "quest" for the Holy Grail, which is "guarded" by a fisherking according to Chrétien de Troyes. The higher theme of grail romance evolved when a later generation realized that spiritual values are more important than material things, and abandoned their search for the last relics. This would mean, of course, that they are still in that cave! Just as in the Gesta (see above, n. 9), these chroniclers seem to have forged history for pragmatic reasons because their claim that the cave was finally rediscovered, and a monastery built over its entry, was already disputed by Pujades. He writes that the rediscovery of such important relics would have been celebrated in all of Christendom and proposes that these events occurred at another time. He is proven right again, because recent excavations at the monastery identify foundations from "before the sixth century" which proves that the cave was located somewhere else and never found. (See detailed tale). 14. Pujades, (see above, n.2), tom. V, p. IV. 15. Ibid, tom. V, p. VII. According to Viage literarario..., vol. 6, letter 50, pp. 233-5, the copies were inherited by Bishop Taberner's brother, the count of Darnius. When the Marqués de Villel married the Condesa de Darnius in 1784, they became part of his library. It is rather curious that the illustrious "Marqués de Villel, Conde de Darnius, grande de España y gentilhombre de Cámara de Su Majestad con ejercicio" led a double-life as a pro-French member of "La Nobleza Catalana Bonapartista 1808 - 1815", which might explain why he alerted Villanueva of the copies in his possession. There is also an entertaining quote from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (La España Revolucionaria): "En Cádiz, que era lo más revolucionario de España en aquella época, la presencia de un delegado de la Junta Central, el estúpido y engreído marqués de Villel, provocó una insurrección el 22 y 23 de febrero de 1809 que, de no haber sido desviada a tiempo hacia el cauce de la guerra por la independencia, hubiera tenido las más desastrosas consecuencias." For the German version google "Karl Marx Friedrich Engels (MEGA)", the Spanish link is available on-line with lots of other interesting trivia. 16. Jesús Villanueva, (see above, n.1), p. 213 17. Diccionari Biografic, vol.III, (Barcelona, 1966), p.594. The Enciclopedia Italiana, XXVIII, Roma, MCMXXV-XIV, proposes that Pujades died "...verso la metà del secolo seguente", and the Biographie Universelle, Michaud, tome 34, Paris, writes he died "...vers 1650”. 18. Pujades, (see above, n.2), tome V, p.VI. "No puede dudarse, dice la censura de la Real Acadèmia de la historia, que el autor á costa de mucha aplicacion y trabajo, recopiló en su Crónica cuanto estaba esparcido en los antiguos autores, que reconoció muchos archivos, y se aprovechó de sus códices y

44 documentos: y aun de puede asegurar, sin ecsageracion, que ilustra la historia de Cataluña con muchas noticias mas que cuantos le precedieron… Nos parece que se puede mirar y publicar como un códice antiguo lleno de noticias curiosas é importantes, y como una mina que pueden beneficiar los Editores con grandes ventajas de la historia…" 19. Ibid., (1832), tome VIII, pp. I - IX. 20. At this point, we are unable to determine if it is a location or the name of another Franciscan friar. It should also be noted that the Barcelona editions are organized differently than Pujades intended: They begin the first chapter of book IV, which is the birth of Christ, on p. 262 in the edition of 1629 (I-II). In the four volumes in Paris, tomes I-IV, Pujades begins the Second Part in tome II, and the Third Part in tome III, both of which are headlined with "Jhs Maria Francisco" which may eventually help us resolve the open questions. That, perhaps, Fornés had entrusted the original manuscripts to a confratre as messenger, which would explain why they are folded. It could also be a location because the two headlines are written in different hands. (The above sample is merely a rough sketch of the original.) 21. Pujades, (see above, n.2), tome VII, p. II. The translation: “Hoy á los siete de enero de mil seiscientos treinta y cinco fué enterrado el cuerpo del Señor Gerónimo Pujades, Doctor en Derechos de la presente villa; en su enfermedad ha recibido todos los sacramentos de la Sta. Madre Iglesia : se le ha hecho sepultura mayor en la iglesia mayor, y despues le llevaron á san Francisco, y allí está su cuerpo enterrado. Dieron á cada Capellan dos sueldos por la sepultura, y al Rector semanero cuatro sueldos. Cujus anima requiescat in pace, Amen. Por mí Jayme Correja Pbo. y otro de los Rectores de Castelló y de San Juan Sescloses.” 22. Pujol, (see above, n. 11), p.146. 23. Roig i Jalpi, (See above, no. 5) p. 245. Available on-line, which does not confirm the translation we quoted from another source. In fact, he is often highly critical of de Marca, but did accuse Baluze of exploiting the reseaches of Pujades and de Marca. Even before the Marca hispánica was published, as for example in tome 10 of Balzuse's works on Councils, published in 1671, col. 614. 24. Fèlix Torres Amat, MEMORIAS para ayudar..., (Barcelona, 1836), p.509. Here is the complete quote: "No he podido averguar de fijo el dia ni año que murió, pero en su Crónica libro XIV cap. 62, dice que aquello lo escríbia en 1645, y segun esto tenia entonces 77 años de edad." (Available on- line at Google) 25. Jesús Villanueva, (see above, n.1), p. 214. 26. James Amelang, Spain, Europe and the Atlantic word, Essays in honour of John H. Elliott, ed. Richard L. Kagan and Geoffrey Parker, The mental world of Jeroni Pujades, (Cambridge UK - 1995), p.216 27. Pujol, (see above, n. 11), p.101.

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28. Johannes Kepler, Mysterium Cosmographicum, De Stella Nova, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1, ed. Max Caspar, (Munich, 1938), pp.441-61. He writes: "Mit drei Argumenten wird offen operiert... Ein viertes, das den Menschen Mund und Augen verschliesset, steht dunkel im Hintergrund: die Autorität der heutigen Theologen bei allen Parteien. Diese ist so erdrückend, dass ich nicht umhin kann, dieses Zeitalter als unglücklich zu beklagen.” Also: Johannes Kepler, Über den neuen Stern im Fuss des Schlangenträgers, tr. Otto and Eva Schönberger, Eberhard Knobloch, (Würzburg, 2006), pp.170/71. In an elaborate rhetoric, Kepler debunks all popular, superstitious beliefs to conclude in chapter 27 that only two options remain: Either a supernova ignited in 1604 among the fixed stars because the "natural laws" govern the universe, or it was a "supernatural event" caused by "a firm decision by the almighty God to bring salvation to mankind"! He adds a passionate declaration of his Christian faith to close the chapter with: "Praised be the name of the Father from eternity to eternity, as He has the wisdom and the power". (Der Name des Herrn sei gelobt von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit, denn sein sind Weisheit und Stärke"). 29. Pujades, (see above, n. 2), vol. VII., pp. 347-349 30. Plutarch’s Moralia, de defectu oraculorum, Pearson/Sandbach, Vol. XI, (Harvard, 1927), pp.381-387 31. Pujades, (see above, no. 2), tome VI, p. 263. This poetic metaphor relates to the father of Guifré el Pilos, who was unjustly slandered and lost the support of Charles the Bald. It is paraphrased from: "…los reyes en el informarse de las cosas y en el saber el justo valor de ellas pocas veces beben agua clara saliendo de sus manantiales; y no tomándolas de sus principios, sino de relaciones pasadas por conductos no siempre límpios, ántes muy amenudo charcosos, corrompidos y gastados, ó presentados en vasos que no son búcaros de Portugal ni porcelanas de la India ó hueso de unicornio; es muy posible lleguen gastadas ó en de peligro serlo, y aun de estragar los estómagos de quien las bebe." 32. C. du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium mediæ..., (Niort, 1885), Tom. IV, p.91. Followed by Joan Cromines, Diccionari Etimològic Complimentari de la Llegua Catalana, Vol. IV, (Barcelona, 1984), p.637: GREAL “del cat. Greala ‘escudella’ (cat. arcaic gradal, f.)… La dada més antiga que es té del mot en qualsevol país es troba en una escriptura catalana, in més concretament Urgelllesa en latí en l’any 1010 (du C.) 'ad Sancta Fide coenobio gradales duas de argento'... d’Ermengarda, filla del comte Borrell de Barcelona, any 1030, tornem a trobar 'vexela de auro et de argento, id sunt enapos V, et gradals II... Coromines had apparently not read Pujades, or he would have known where du Cange got the etymology! 33. Manuel Castiñeiras and Jordi Camps, Romanesque Art in the MNAC collections, with Joan Duran-Porta, tr. Andrew Langdon-Davies and Andrew Stacey, pp. 27-28, 46, (Barcelona, 2008). See also Joseph Goering, The Virgin and the Grail: origins of a legend, (New Haven, 2005).

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34. Chandler Rathfon Post, A History of Spanish Painting, (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), vol. I, p. 195, Charles L. Kuhn, Romanesque mural painting of Catalonia, (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), p. 20, Otto Demus, Romanische Wandmalerei, (Munich, 1968), p. 160. 35. François Gaquère, Pierre de Marca, Sa Vie, ses Oevres, son Gallicanisme, (Paris, 1932), p.71 36. Critics of our creative conjectures will also dismiss these "last words" of Pujades, which are in his own hand. At left is a detail of the last lines of Tome III (Esp.119), that end with "...bajo la obediencia, censura y correccion de la Santa madre Yglesia Catholica Romana; en cuya obedencia con el divino favor protesto vivir y morir como fiel y Catholico Christiano. Amen." The importance of this declaration of faith is enhanced graphically, with the lines getting shorter as if they were meant to shape a bowl or ‘grala’. We have seen above with Kepler (no. 28), that such statements were common and even expected of humanists and scientists. The Barcelona edition, VI, p.484, shows at left that the editors, of whom Torres Amat leaned towards Jansenism, changed Yglesia Catholica to a simple "Iglesia" and Catholico Christiano to "católico cristiano", but left the ambiguous "protesto" untouched, which is commonly used in the sense of "protesting" and only rarely as "professing". Based on the other “last words” where Pujades exploits his flawed Spanish to speak to his readers, he may be signaling some if his readers here that he "protests" to live and die as a Roman Catholic. This is quite a creative stretch of the imagination, but Calvin and Luther were widely discussed at the time, especially among theologians and humanists. 37. Jesús Villanueva (see above, n.1), p. 208: He proposes that Baluze became the secretary in 1656, only six years before de Marca's death.

Copyright © 2008 by W. v. Chmielewski

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