This paper uses ethnographic and pragmatic concepts to examine what a medieval Catalan chronicle learns about speakers' rights and obligations, their metalinguistic and metapragmatic verbal resource management and the relation between linguistic management and ideologies in Catalan medieval society. It concentrates on three kinds of discourse events: mediated communication, delegated discourse, and a specific type of political oratory codeswitching, i.e. 'quotation cum auctoritate'.