BETWEEN SERVICE TO THE KING AND THE BLACK LEGEND

ÁNGEL DE COSTAFORT (FL. 1362–1366), DOCTOR TO CHARLES II OF NAVARRE

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.31952/amha.20.1.1

At the trial of Jacques de Rue, the chamberlain of King Charles II of Navarre, after he was arrested in France (March 1378), we learn that the doctor Ángel de Costafort was implicated in several of the king of Navarre’s plans to poison people. The credibility of the testimonies given in this trial is questionable due to the use, or not, of torture, a fact about which historians disagree. Besides Costafort’s personal biography, constructed from the scant documentation conserved in the Royal and General Archive of Navarre (Pamplona, Spain), he is linked on the basis of his signature and personal seal to the practice of alchemy.