“Reading Medieval Catalan”
Mediterranean Studies Summer Skills Seminar
3 - 6 August 2026 • Remote
The Summer Skills Seminar, “Reading Medieval Catalan” will be held via Zoom from Monday, 3 August to Thursday,6 August 2026 from 10am to noon and 1pm to 3pm MDT.
Course overview
The Crown of Aragon in this period was an extraordinarily vibrant one, one whose interests spread across the Mediterranean as far as Asia Minor. This energy and geographical expanse are reflected in the literary texts of the day: we encounter not just the medieval Catalan-speaking lands, but many of the lands and cultures touched by them in this period. In particular, medieval Catalan literature is framed by a series of idiosyncratic individual authors, whose works reflect the broad Mediterranean engagement of this culture.
Ramon Llull: 13th-century Mallorcan philosopher, mystic, missionizer and author of more than 250 books in Latin, Catalan and Arabic promoting the complex mechanics of his "Art of Finding Truth". He is the founder of Catalan prose writing and his influence on European thought extends well beyond the Middle Ages. Along the way, he writes what could be considered the first European vernacular Bildungsroman, Blaquerna, a sharp political allegory in beast fable form, as well as a collection of 365 elusive prose poems 'in the style of the Sufis.'
The Four Grand Chronicles: Historical works on the 13th and 14th centuries that chart the reigns of two of Catalonia-Aragon's most important kings—Jaume I and Pere III—and the account by Muntaner of the Catalan Grand Company's conquests across the Mediterranean as far as Athens and Asia Minor. The fourth chronicle, by Desclot, draws on legends and epic poetry as well as on keen observation of authentic historical detail.
Anselm Turmeda: a 14th-15th century Mallorcan Franciscan friar who secretly travels to Tunisia and converts to Islam, becoming a translator in the customs office in the port of Tunis. Known henceforth as ‘Abd Allāh al-Tarjumān (Abdullah the Translator), he nevertheless continues to write books on ostensibly Christian topics in Catalan but, late in life, pens a fierce anti-Christian polemic in Arabic.
Frances Eiximenis: Along with Llull, one of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages. Based for much of his career in Valencia, he completed only a small portion of the ambitious projects he proposed, but what remains would occupy at least 8,000 pages of modern printed text. As a moralist, a keen observer and theorist of human society, Eximenis, a Franciscan, fills his works with exempla, snippets of popular speech and song, citations from troubadours, 'citations' made up on the spot by Eiximenis himself, and glimpses of the lives and values of all sectors of the society of his day. His surviving works offer us one of the most thorough and entertaining portraits of any medieval life anywhere.
Vicent Ferrer: A Dominican friar and evangelist extraordinaire. Ferrer attained what today would be considered rockstar status. As he travelled across western Europe, riding a donkey, thousands of people, including troupes of flagellants, attended his sermons, which could last up to six hours. But Ferrer was also engaged at the highest political and ecclesiastical circles and participated in decisions that would change the course of Iberian history.
Bernat Metge: From Barcelona, and an important notary in the Aragonese chancery, he falls from grace when his king Joan I dies suddenly. In an attempt to return to royal favor, he writes his Somni (Dream) in which he encounters Joan in the afterlife and also has a chance to chat with Tiresias and Orpheus while there. His sober and elegant prose, as well as his themes, are often seen as among the first reflexes of Italian humanist culture in the Iberian Peninsula.
Ausias March: A Valencian and among the most profound poets of the European Middle Ages. He moves beyond troubadour language and conventions, or, better, repurposes them to meditate in highly personal mode on love, death and his own relationship to God. His themes and incisive diction will influence poets writing in Castilian in the following century, most notably Garcilaso de la Vega.
Tirant lo Blanc: The sprawling chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanc, written by the well-travelled and ever-irascible Valencian Johanot Martorell (and perhaps completed by Marti Joan de Galba), anthologizes not only the places of the Catalan-Aragonese world of the past two centuries, including the Byzantine and Ottoman East, Sicily, Rhodes, and North Africa. It is a rollicking, and sometimes risqué, novel, which Cervantes will later call 'the best book in the world.'
Isabel de Villena: a Valencian nun related to the royal houses of both Castile and Aragon. Her massive Life of Christ is a work of astonishing vision, originality, erudition and devotion. Her juggling of terrestrial, celestial and infernal timelines, her lively dialogue placed in the mouths of solemn divine figures and the deep affect that informs their story set this apart as one of the most fascinating and surprising works of medieval Catalan literature.
From our reading of these and other texts, students should come away with a solid grounding in the major works of medieval Catalan literature, the language they were written in, and the societies that created them.
Participants said:
• I feel as though my goals were not only met, but that they were exceeded during the duration of this course. Upon completion of the course, it is evident the progress and advancement made in being able to read Catalan.
• The course was very well structured. I highly enjoyed moving across the texts of major Catalan writers and minor ones, as well. There was a good cohesion to the course that made the material flow in a well manner. I adored Prof Dagenais’s ability to elucidate medieval texts/writers in the wake of the modern and contemporary political movements. The course has helped me, tremendously, to prepare for the Catalan texts on my reading lists for the qualifying exams, as well as collect maturely for syllabi.
• John did a great job with pacing and providing us with a variety of texts. I thoroughly enjoyed the course.
• Professor Dagenais is amazing, I love that a lot of the class revolved around a more playful approach to medieval Catalan (not learning rules abstractly, jumping straight in). I also think that on top of improving our medieval Catalan, he helped us improve our ability to read any medieval language (it is a kind of transferring skill, like "listening with an accent," as he said at the beginning of the course). I also think Professor Dagenais was very generous with us
• Prof Dagenais is incredible. He is encouraging, gives clear direction, and provides his students with plenty of resources. His ability to draw upon Spanish and French to help assist his students in working through Catalan sentences is exceptional.
• I think that John provided just the right amount of frontloading before we dove into reading practice
• Prof. Dagenais was very knowledgeable, and he made the coursework and readings fun and approachable. I also very much appreciated his personal attention to the source I am preparing to work with in my own research. His advice and guidance was very helpful.
Faculty
John Dagenais is Professor of Medieval Iberian Literatures and Cultures and of the Study of Religion at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has studied medieval Catalan literature for nearly 50 years. He has published studies on the Catalan literary works of Anselm Turmeda/‘Abd Allāh al-Tarjumān: “Translation as the Sincerest Form of Plagiarism: Translation and Linguistic Repatriation in ‘Abd Allāh al-Tarjumān’s Disputa del ase” (2023) and “The Libre de bons amonestaments by ‘Abd Allāh al-Tarjumān: A Guidebook for Old and New Christians” (2019). Other studies have focused on Ramon Llull's theory of speech as the sixth sense: "affatus" and on his Liber de les bèsties. Additionally, he has investigated Llull's 14th-century Parisian student Thomas le Myésier (2024) and Llull’s 18th-century admirer Junípero Serra (2018 and 2019). His other publications include The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the “Libro de buen amor” (Princeton, 1994), a special issue of the Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies: "Decolonizing the Middle Ages" (2000), "The Postcolonial Laura" in MLQ (2004) and “Medieval Spanish Literature in the Twenty-First Century” for the Cambridge History of Spanish Literature (2004 and 2009). He wrote the chapter on “The Crown of Aragon” for Europe: A Literary History, 1348-1418, edited by David Wallace (Oxford University Press, 2016 and 2021). He recently published the first English translation of Ramon Llull’s Doctrina pueril (Barcino;Támesis, 2019) and is currently at work on a translation of Jaume Roig's 15th-century verse Spill. In 2011, he was awarded the Josep M. Batista i Roca Prize by the Institut de Projecció Exterior de la Cultura Catalana.
Resources
Diccionari català-valencià-balear
Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, Joan Coromines
Nou Glossari General Lul·lià
Please note: sessions will not be recorded; synchronous attendance is required.
Program
Monday, 3 August 2026
10am to noon and 1pm to 3pm
1. Intro to the course: resources and its methodology
2. Our first texts: The life of Ramon Llull and a beast fable
Tuesday, 4 August 2026
10am to noon and 1pm to 3pm
1. The World According to Ramon Llull; Love and mysticism
2. Four Great Chronicles: Jaume I, Desclot, Muntaner, Pere III
Wednesday, 5 August 2026
10am to noon and 1pm to 3pm
1. Anselm Turmeda: Rules to live by; Bernat Metge: A visit to the afterworld
2. Francesc Eiximenis and Vicent Ferrer: Angels, Demons, Women, Wine
Thursday, 6 August 2026
10am to noon and 1pm to 3pm
1. Tirant lo Blanc: Derring-do across Mediterranean lands (and bedrooms)
2. Isabel de Villena, Jordi de Sant Jordi and Ausiàs March: Love, Death and the Birth of Catalan verse
Participants
Derek Benson (Seminar für mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen)
Derek R. Benson is a current doctoral student in the Seminar für mittelalterliche Geschichte at the Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen. His dissertation (submitted though not yet defended) “Neither Lord nor Peasant: Middling Proprietors and Customary Tenure in the Region of Béziers-Agde (Twelfth Century),” challenges the enduring tripartite division of High Medieval society—those who pray, those who fight, and those who work—by the examination of the property records of ordinary landowners. Far from fitting neatly into the widely conceived categories of “lord” or “peasant,” these men and women occupied a middle position which complicates conventional narratives of servility, social mobility, and class formation. By focusing on their social stratum, this project reconsiders the applicability of the “Three Orders” and contributes to ongoing debates over feudalism and social stratification during the High Middle Ages. Currently, he is seeking third-party funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to support his postdoctoral project tentatively titled “Palliative Care, Demography, and Institutional Management at the Leprosarium of Santa Margarida (Barcelona, 1379-1395)” in which he aspires to investigate the lives, conditions, and medical care of Barcelona’s leprous patients during the late fourteenth century.
Publications
· “The ‘Traitor’ of Béziers: Petrus Vairatus, the Murder of Raymond Trencavel, and the Urban Revolt of 1167,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 59 (2025): 153-187 – https://doi.org/10.1515/fmst-2025-0006
· “From the Fruits of Tenant Labour: Proportional Rents and Cistercian Leasing in the Region of Narbonne (Twelfth Century),” in Mutations en Méditerranée 2 (2024): URL – https://www.revue-mem.com/411
Amelia Hyde (Research Associate, The Met Cloisters)
Amelia Roché Hyde is a Research Associate at The Met Cloisters. She supports curators with the research and planning of temporary exhibitions, permanent collections projects, and related publications. She has researched The Cloisters’ tapestry, ivory, and textile collections, as well as the Department’s collecting history. Current and upcoming research projects include mother-of-pearl objects in The Cloisters collection and Iberian textiles.
Amelia holds an MA from The Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA from the College of Charleston. Before coming to The Met, she worked in museum collections in the UK and the American South.
Publications:
“The Heroines of Heroes, ” Perspectives, 2023:
https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/heroines-of-heroes
“Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 2022–2024,” The Met Bulletin, 2024:
https://www.metmuseum.org/met-publications/recent-acquisitions-a-selection-2022-2024
Antoine Selim Joslain (French, Columbia University)
In 2024, I simultaneously completed a licence (BA) in French and in Philosophy at Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, both with Mention Très Bien. I am currently a second-year PhD candidate in French at Columbia University. I study medieval French and Occitan literature, with a focus on aesthetics and ecocriticism. I am also interested in disability studies. I am presently working on questions of spectrality in an Occitan short story composed at the end of the 14th century.
Matthew Melgoza (Romance Studies, Duke University)
My name is Matthew Melgoza, and I am a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University. I specialise in premodern literature and cultural history in French, Spanish, English and Latin, and have recently added Catalan and Occitan. I received a BA in English Literature and French, with two minors in Spanish and Russian Studies, as well as two certificates in Professional French and Medieval and Renaissance Studies. I also hold an MA in French, all from the University of North Texas.
My work in the premodern focuses on gender, sexuality, and disability and the ways in which the former linguistic traditions use language to write about and play with natura and contra naturam. I mostly look at early fiction, but I also work with hagiography, poetry, letters, political treatises, and law. I find the interplay between early literature and contemporary thought to be extremely productive for thinking through the various ways in which early cultures were thinking about engendered and sexed bodies, as well as illness and infirmities. Additionally, I think with psychoanalysis in relation to the premodern and literary narratives.
Jonathan Seyfried (History, University of New Mexico)
Jonathan Seyfried is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at the University of New Mexico. Jonathan’s current dissertation research, in the field of Public History, examines the connection between technological innovation and historical narrative. His areas of research interest include medieval Iberia, the history of gender & sexuality, the impact of emerging technologies on digital humanities, and the history of domestic cats. Since August 2025, Jonathan’s graduate assistantship has been to work as the Studio Manager for UNM’s Amaranth Digital Humanities Studio. Prior to his graduate work, Jonathan taught high school history.