Knowing better than them: diplomatic judgement at Santa Cecília d’Elins

(Note: this post was all ready to go on Sunday night when I drifted onto Academia.edu for no very good reason and found an exactly relevant article that seriously affected some of what was here. If it looks a bit scrappy now, that is me trying not to do a full rewrite and delay things further… Hopefully it’s not evident though!)
I have, at times, been known to claim that I’m an expert in diplomatic. That’s not diplomacy, or diplomatic history, but an older, I’d eve