Affective networks across the divide: singlewomen, the notarial archive, and social connections in the late medieval Mediterranean

Abstract

Agnes de Soto, an immigrant from Castile to Mallorca, had been very, very sick. She suffered for a long time with a "cruel illness" (crudeli infirmitate), during which she surely contemplated her mortality, perhaps even wished for her death. 1 She was lucky to be living, but her time as a patient left her deeply in debt. The many medicines and "other necessities" her illness occasioned had not been free, though they were critical in assuring at least her basic survival (minime sustentari). Agnes did not, it seems, have the money to pay for her care herself.Rather, the mariner Ochoa de Bermeo, another Castilian, paid all of her bills while she was sick and recovering. But he did not do so as a gift; he expected to be repaid. And thus we encounter Agnes and Ochoa in the pages of the notary Bernat Contesti's casebook in 1458.Agnes promised to repay all sixty lliures before leaving Mallorca, either to Ochoa directly or to his procurator, whom we learn from the next acta in Contesti's casebook was the hostelera Maria de Valveseda. A sailor on the ship the Santa, Ochoa wisely designated Maria to act in his stead because of his frequent absence from the island. So many details of these brief notarial entries intrigue us. What was the relationship between Agnes and Ochoa? Did they arrive together from Castile? Did they meet on the island of Mallorca and start chatting when they recognized the other's vernacular speech? Were they connected through sex, either a concubinous couple or a sex worker and client? 2 A few details 1 Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca (ARM), notario Bernat Contestí, no. 2523, 45v (1458).2 These were not always distinct categories, as we argue in McDonough and Armstrong-Partida, "Amigas and Amichs," 50, 52-53.