Florins, none

Zero florins for me too, indeed.










Writes Jaume Roig in the fifteenth century:





“Lo seu florí, cert, no em restà, car ell (mon pare) testà al plaer d’ella,
per sa querella, com li plagué. Ella hi volgué un seu notari, i lo vicari,
son confessor, fou marmessor i llegatari: sens inventari, de son cabal,
universal hereva féu; de mi, fill seu, lleixà tudriu, no curadiu car no
calia: cinc sous valia lo meu llegat.”




[My father died and I got no money from him; my mother saw to that.
She insisted that the notary who dealt with the intricacies of my father’s
legacy be somebody of her choosing, and this happened to be her own
confessor too – this executor decided that she had to get the whole bulk
my father’s belongings. As for me, she was to be my “tudriu” [my female
tutor, the female protector of the child,] not the one that manages my
wealth until my majority, for after all I wasn’t worth five farthings.]





When the baroness, through her two grown children [they are in their
sixties now,] gave me the boxes to sort out, I don’t know that they
thought the “thing” was worth two farthings either.



But I’m sure everybody is mistaken; everyone but we, happy few, who
know how excellent Reig was. Was, and is, and always shall... Inshallah,
anyway, as his esteemed Burton always
said.