Josep Antoni Aguilar: ''Ramon Muntaner's Narrative Art''

This year we are celebrating 750 years since the birth of Ramon Muntaner. To mark the occasion, at the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, we invited Josep Antoni Aguilar, a doctor in Catalan language and literature from the Catholic University of Valencia “Sant Vicent Màrtir”, which centres its research on Catalan medieval historiography, focusing particularly on the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner. In fact, his account of the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner, which won the “Ramon Aramon i Serra” Award at the 80th St George Awards of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2011), was published in the collection “Philological Library” at the IEC (2015).
 
Ramon Muntaner (1265-1336), warrior and chronicler, who served several royals from the House of Barcelona, was born in Peralada and lived in Valencia. He became an honoured testimony of the affairs of the Crown of Aragon at the time. In his Chronicle, without doubt one of the most distinguished works of European medieval historiography, he narrates the great milestones of Catalan-Aragonese expansion between the 13th and 14th Centuries, such as the conquests of Majorca, Valencia, Sicily and Sardinia, and the Catalan Company’s expedition to Bizanci. The story of each of those battles is portrayed from a markedly providential and moralistic perspective, given that Muntaner always sees the divine hand behind the triumphs of the House of Aragon and presents his enemy’s destruction as a punishment from heaven, in line with the entire book’s central thesis:  God helps the good and humble, and punishes the evil and arrogant.


Streaming at www.artssantamonica.cat

• OrganizedInstitució de les Lletres Catalanes
• In conjunction withArts Santa Mònica