WRITING A PAST TO REMEMBER: TEXTS AS MONUMENTS IN MEDIEVAL CASTILE
Holly Sims
A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of
Romance Studies (Spanish) in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Chapel Hill 2019
Approved by: Frank Domínguez
Lucia Binotti Carmen Hsu Rosa Perelmuter
ABSTRACT
Holly Sims: Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile (Under the direction of Frank Domínguez)
This dissertation examines textual and architectural memorials produced by monarchs and nobles in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries in Castile. In response to political instability, elites composed works of prose and poetry to defend their standing and
commemorate their prestige. They aimed these works at the other members of their
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation is a work about memory. In studying how individuals
commemorated themselves and others in their sociopolitical networks, I have been reminded of all the ways in which the members of my own networks have “remembered” me as I have worked on this project. I would like to thank them for their love, encouragement, and
guidance.
First, I am grateful for my parents, Andy and Beth, and sister, Heather, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. They have supported me every step of the way, offering help when I have needed it, cheering me on, and always believing in me. This dissertation would not have been possible without their constant support and love.
I would also like to thank my grandparents, Charles and Jeanette Holland and John and Margie Sims. They instilled in me a love of reading and have encouraged me in every endeavor. I am grateful for their example to our family and to me.
Numerous other family members and friends have rallied around me. I appreciate the support that each one has extended to me and would especially like to thank Carlee Forbes, Anne Harford, Hailey Hedden, Kate Heil, Angela Hinze, Eden and Cole Justad, Caroline Lindley, Lauren Odomirok, Tressa Thudumu, Ashley Whitman, and Sarah Verrill.
I also wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee. Drs. Lucia Binotti, Carmen Hsu, and Rosa Perelmuter provided valuable feedback that helped me improve the original idea for this dissertation. Special thanks goes to Dr. Samuel Sánchez y Sánchez for his support and friendship over these many years.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION………..…………...1
I. Historical Context………..…………...…..2
II. Class Identity and Casas of the Nobility………..…………...…..4
III. Methodology and Chapter Summaries………..……….12
CHAPTER 1: MEMORIES OF ALFONSO X AS EMPEROR IN THE PRIMERA CRÓNICA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA AND THE ROYAL CHAPEL IN SEVILLE…………..………..19
I. The Wise King of the Prologue………..……..21
II. The Cid and the Emperor………....27
III. Alfonso X’s Imperial Status in the Royal Chapel………..……32
CHAPTER 2: THE COMMEMORATION OF VIRTUE IN DON JUAN MANUEL’S LIBRO DE LAS TRES RAZONES, LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA’S MEMORIAS, AND THEIR FUNERARY CHAPELS….………...………..……..…42
I. Self-Justification through Suffering………...…44
II. Divine Assurances of Prosperity………..…...…55
III. Virtue Enshrined in Religious Foundations and Funerary Chapels……..…….…60
CHAPTER 3: CONFLICTING TEXTUAL AND ARCHITECTURAL MEMORIES OF ÁLVARO DE LUNA IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CASTILE……….…71
I. The Commemoration of Luna’s Virtue………..…..……73
II. Noble Responses to Luna’s Rise to Power………..………83
CHAPTER 4: THE CONSOLATION AND
COMMEMORATION OF FAME IN THE MANRIQUE
CLAN’S POETRY AND FUNERARY PRACTICES………..…107
I. The Consolation of the Manrique Clan’s Fame………..………109
II. Defense of the Manrique Clan’s Property and Status………..……….126
III. Commemoration of the Manrique Lineage………..……137
CONCLUSION………..………151
INTRODUCTION
In medieval Castile, memory of an individual depended on two related factors: how well or poorly a person lived up to the ideals of his or her class and how those acts were commemorated, both in writing and through the construction of monuments. These memories can provide an accurate description of an individual, but they can also be suspect, as Fernán Pérez de Guzmán reminds us in Generaciones y semblanzas (1455). Describing texts, this author cautions that “…la buena fama quanto al mundo es el verdadero premio e galardón de los que bien e vertuosamente por ella trabajan, si esta fama se escrive corrupta e mintirosa, en vano e por demás trabajan los maníficos reyes e príncipes…” (66).
Fama refers to “…the public talk that continually adjusts honor and assigns rank or standing …” (Fenster and Smail 3-4).1 Elites quested for fama as an indication of
preeminence within their social class and decried infamy as a threat to their status. For nobles, fama was closely connected to a clan’s origin because its members sought to uphold the virtue of their lineages in accordance with the chivalric ideals of their class. Nobles proclaimed their status—and inscribed their fama—in laudatory works of prose and poetry and magnificent architectural structures.
However, these forms of memory encountered opposition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The elites’ texts often contradict each other. Their writers lived in a
1 The concept of fama derived from classical antiquity and “…meant public opinion, idle talk, rumor, and reputation as well as fame” (Fenster and Smail 2). Fama has traditionally been interpreted as a verbal act, such as the extreme examples of slander and encomium that Pérez de Guzmán describes in Generaciones y
politically unstable world in which individuals often questioned their opponents’ fame and entire clans clashed over competing alliances and jurisdictional rights. Religious foundations, such as monasteries and funerary monuments, enshrined members of a noble clan, but they could also be altered by later generations or destroyed by opponents, as happened to the funerary chapel built by Álvaro de Luna in Toledo Cathedral.
Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile examines why monarchs, nobles, members of a clan, and members of the royal administration created these texts and religious foundations and studies how these forms of memory influenced
succeeding generations. These practices developed within a specific historical context and in response to the importance of a noble’s property to his or her casa, which will be explained in the first two sections of this introduction. The final section will address the methodology used in this dissertation and will describe its chapters.
I. Historical Context
In the fifteenth century, these political struggles increased exponentially. The very same nobles who had benefitted from mercedes enriqueñas beset the Trastámara monarchs with challenges to their authority. During the reign of Juan II, nobles revolted against the king’s favorite, Álvaro de Luna; later, many of the same nobles deposed Enrique IV in effigy during the Farce of Ávila in 1465.
These conflicts highlight the tremendous power of the nobles as a class as a result of its growth in size and strength during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.2 According to Teofilo Ruiz, their numbers varied between a “…high figure of 13 per cent to a lower estimate of 10 per cent of the entire population, the latter being a more probable approximation” (79). These percentages are staggering because the lowest estimate
“…represents the highest percentage of aristocrats in a western European country and reveals the passionate commitment of a large segment of the Spanish population to a noble life” (Ruiz, Spanish 79).3
According to Luis Suárez Fernández, there were fifteen noble houses whose members dominated the courts of the Trastámara monarchs (“The Kingdom” 96).4 These clans rose to
2 Historians have interpreted the political instability of fifteenth-century Castile in light of an ongoing struggle
between the monarch and the nobles. See Luis Suárez Fernández (1972), Julio Valdeón Baruque (1975), Suárez Fernández (1975), William D. Phillips, Jr. (1978), Valdeón Baruque (2001), Manuel Barrios (2001), Valdeón Baruque (2002), Suárez Fernández (2003), and Emilio Mitre Fernández (2007).
3 Despite the high percentage of nobles in medieval Castile compared to other European regions, similar waves
of social and political change affected the nobility as a class across Europe. For more information, see Jonathan Dewald (1996), Isabel Alfonso, Hugh Kennedy, and Julio Escalona (2004), Matthew P. Romaniello and Charles Lipp (2011), Michael Crawford (2014), and Liesbeth Geevers and Mirella Marini (2015). For more information on the Castilian nobility as a class, see Salvador de Moxó (1969), María Concepción Quintanilla Raso (1989), Emilio Cabrera (1995), Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada (1998), Quintanilla Raso (1997), Marie-Claude Gerbet (1997), Víctor M. Gibello Bravo (1999), Quintanilla Raso (2006), Adeline Rucquoi (2006), and Arsenio Dacosta, José Ramón Prieto Lasa, and José Ramón Díaz de Durana (2014).
4 They were the Velasco, Medinaceli, Manrique, Quiñones, Pimentel, Enríquez, Sandoval, Stúñiga, Mendoza,
power by supporting Enrique II in the civil war against Pedro I, and the mercedes enriqueñas formed the basis of their fortunes. In the fifteenth century, they maintained “…an
approximate total of two dozen seigniorial estates” (Suárez Fernández, “The Kingdom” 96). The wealth and status of these clans, especially the Mendoza and Manrique families,
empowered them to rebel against Juan II, Álvaro de Luna, and Enrique IV. Such opposition to the monarch—and his favorite, in the case of Álvaro de Luna—stemmed from these individuals’ perceived threats to the nobles’ status, which they defended according to the values of their class.
II. Class Identity and Casas of the Nobility
The nobles derived their elite status from their social function as bellatores during the Reconquest.5 They maintained their preeminence as a class through their jurisdiction over landholdings bestowed by the monarch in recognition of a knight’s service (Heras y Borrero 11). These royal grants of land, or señoríos, were often linked to titles and generated income from tax exemption (Ruiz, Spanish 79).6 In addition to enriching a knight’s patrimony, a
R. Doubleday (2001), Juan Luis Carriazo Rubio and Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada (2002), and Cristina Jular Pérez-Alfaro (2009).
5 The bellatores were one of three social groups distinguished by their function in the Middle Ages. The function of the bellatores, “…destinada a los usos diversos de la fuerza, estaba reservada a los guerreros, que constituían casi siempre un grupo aristocrático” (Ladero Quesada 15). The other groups—oratores and
laboratores—formed as a result of their respective religious and agricultural functions in society (Ladero Quesada 15).
6 The term señorío refers to a designated territory under the control of a titleholder. In the Middle Ages, four specific types of señoríos were distinguished by the status of the titleholder: realengos belonged to the monarch; abadengos belonged to monasteries and cathedrals; solariegos belonged to nobles who did not hold ecclesiastical office; and concejiles belonged to towns or cities (García de Cortázar 11). This dissertation is concerned primarily with señoríos as they refer to royal grants of land—and its associated privileges—to a noble. A señorío generated income for its titleholder because he or she collected the taxes on the land and the revenue it produced, which would have normally enriched the monarch. These rents included the pedido,
señorío elevated his legal authority within his own territory because property bestowed as a royal grant was theoretically alienated from the monarch (Quintanilla Raso, “El
engrandecimiento” 21-22). Upon the recipient’s death, however, both the title and property were supposed to be returned to the Crown unless the monarch had specifically granted permission for them to form part of a mayorazgo, or entail.7
The mayorazgo was intended to perpetuate the virtue of a lineage in accordance with the nobles’ chivalric ideal as a class of bellatores.8 Individuals who did not belong to this class theoretically did not have the same right to property, which nobles used to express both their elite legal status and virtue as a result of a clan’s illustrious origin. The entailment of señoríos transferred ownership from a celebrated ancestor who founded the mayorazgo to his immediate heirs on the condition that they could not sell or divide the clan’s possessions
Quintanilla Raso (1982), and Isabel Beceiro Pita (1988). For more information on the development and uses of
señoríos in medieval Castile, see Moxó (1964), Juan Carlos Alba López (1994), and Moxó (2000).
7 The practice of entailments was introduced between 1370 and 1390 and became institutionalized under the
Trastámara monarchy (Palencia Herrejón 169). However, precursors of the mayorazgo can be found much earlier, in the thirteenth century. A law describing inheritance in Toledo in 1229 “…especifica unas normas de sucesión que posteriormente serán comunes a toda la nobleza: la preferencia de la primogenitura, la
masculinidad y los descendientes directos y de mayor edad” (Beceiro Pita, “La conciencia” 330-31). Alfonso X’s legal code, the Partidas (1265) also sanctions agnatic primogeniture and outlines the basis of a mayorazgo
(Beceiro Pita, “La conciencia” 330). The first mayorazgo was established in 1291, although the practice did not become institutionalized until the start of the Trastámara dynasty (Beceiro Pita, “La conciencia” 331). In 1390, Juan I overturned a legal clause mandating the return of a noble’s property to the Crown in the event that the noble died without a direct or legitimate heir (Beceiro Pita, “La conciencia” 331). During the fifteenth century, however, the nobles’ increasing power led them to assume “…that a royal grant of a town, or a title, implicitly included the power to found a mayorazgo” (Cooper, “Patterns” 235-36). For more information on the historical development of mayorazgos, see Bartolomé Clavero (1974).
8 Maurice Keen explains the connection between knighthood, nobility, and lineage in his definition of chivalry:
among other descendants.9 Instead, property passed directly from one generation to the next through the titleholder of the mayorazgo. He or she received it as a mandate to ensure the continued prosperity of the kin group (Menéndez Pidal de Navascués 13).
Women were not excluded from either their families’ mayorazgos or the elites’ incentive to enhance their prestige through property ownership (Gaunt 269). An heiress’ inheritance secured her own status and also that of the clan united to her by a marriage alliance. In every spousal union, two lineages benefitted politically and financially through the consolidation of property (Beceiro Pita and Córdoba de la Llave 147).
However, the formation of a mayorazgo had the unintended consequence of denying a livelihood to second sons and, as a result, increased the pressure on noble families to transmit other forms of property to heirs who had no control over entailments. For this reason, noble clans lobbied to maintain control over encomiendas, the properties they defended as commanders in the military orders of Calatrava, Santiago, and Alcántara.10 These landholdings were supposed to revert back to the Order upon the recipient’s death, but family members regularly petitioned for them to remain with the heir of the previous
commander to avoid forfeiting their income and prestige (Solano Ruiz 142).
9 A mayorazgo included both landed territory—namely señoríos—and material assets, such as libraries, which noble clans formed as part of the spread of “vernacular humanism” in the fifteenth century (Lawrance, “Humanism” 222). This movement featured “…the translation and adaptation of classical works for the entertainment and instruction of noble and unprofessional readers” (Lawrance, “Humanism” 222). Of these readers, a few had the financial means to amass private libraries. The collections of the I marqués of Santillana, the III conde of Benavente, and the I conde of Haro are notable for the variety of their contents and the vast number of titles translated into Castilian. For more information on these and other nobles’ libraries, see Ladero Quesada and Quintanilla Raso (1981), Beceiro Pita (1982), Lawrance (1984a), Beceiro Pita and A. Franco Silva (1985), Beceiro Pita (1990a), Vaquero (2003), and Beceiro Pita (2006). For information about vernacular humanism and the spread of lay literacy in fifteenth-century Castile, see Lawrance (1984b), Sara Nalle (1989), and Isabel Beceiro Pita (2006).
10 These properties were governed by members of the Order who acted as comendadores, or commanders, on behalf of the Master of the Order. Within the Order of Santiago, there were two levels of property ownership: the encomienda and the encomienda mayor, which included the administration of several encomiendas within a
Both encomiendas and mayorazgos contributed to a clan’s solar, or landed estate, which allowed titled noble families to amass substantial fortunes.11 However, all of a clan’s property was also used to benefit a lesser group of nobles or commoners associated with them by blood or affiliation, such as hidalgos, escuderos, caballeros de cuantía, caballeros de acostamiento, vasallos del rey, and even servants (MacKay, “The Lesser” 60).12 They benefitted from the wealth of the monarch and great nobles by occupying positions of relative power in their casas, or households.
A noble’s casa had both human and architectural dimensions as a form of shelter. The earliest use of the word casa refers to the “edificio o parte del edificio en que habita un individuo o una familia” (Alonso, Diccionario 640). This definition expanded to include “familia” in the thirteenth century and “hacienda familiar” in the fourteenth century (Alonso, Diccionario 640). By the fifteenth century, these uses of casa coexisted with a genealogical interpretation: “descendencia o linaje que tiene un mismo apellido y viene del mismo origen” (Alonso, Diccionario 640).13
An early lexicographer such as Sebastián de Covarrubias Horozco recognizes these varied definitions and also identifies a casa as the resulting conglomerate of places and
11 The solar of a noble clan was closely tied to the clan’s prestige as a manifestation of its lineage’s virtue. Juan Ramón Palencia Herrejón suggests that a noble clan’s virtue rested on “…cinco fundamentos básicos: el origen ilustre del linaje, la privanza regia, el patrimonio en la ciudad y la tierra, la solidaridad interna y externa del grupo familiar y el sistema de símbolos de poder del mismo” (164). The clan’s solar, in addition to its heraldic arms and naming practices, was a symbol of its virtue in connection to patrimony and power (Palencia Herrejón 165). For more information on symbols of a lineage’s virtue, see Faustino Menéndez Pidal de Navascués (2006).
12 The lesser nobility also included members of the royal administration because “…civil servants in the upper
reaches of the bureaucracy found little difficulty in getting themselves accepted as nobles” (MacKay, “The Lesser” 169).
people. As he explains in his Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611), “Agora en lengua castellana se toma casa por la morada y habitación fabricada con firmeza y
suntuosidad;…y porque las tales son en los propios solares de donde traen origen, vinieron a llamarse los mesmos linajes casas, como la casa de los Mendozas, Manrique, Toledos, Guzmanes, etc.” (Covarrubias 469).
A similar conglomerate, the casa real, also signifies a place—“palacio”—and a group of people: “personas reales y conjunto de sus familias” (“Casa”). This conglomerate took on the additional meaning of cuerpo, of which Covarrubias offers three definitions: “Primera, del cuerpo que se contiene debajo de una especie, como hombre, árbol, piedra. La segunda, que se forma de diversas cosas compuestas y concertadas entre sí, de que materialmente resulta, como la casa, la nave, etc. La tercera, que se compone de partes distantes cada una por sí, que hacen un cuerpo o comunidad, como una república” (648).14
The association between casa and cuerpo as collective units emerged as a textual metaphor for the body politic in the Siete Partidas, the Castilian legal code initiated by Alfonso X. He explains that the king is the head of the nation, which is composed of subjects and others housed within the royal casa. They are like “…los miembros del cuerpo, bien así por el mandamiento que nace del rey, y que es señor cabeza de todos los del reino, se deben mandar, y guiar y haber un acuerdo con él para obedecerle, y amparar y guardar y enderezar el reino de donde él es alma y cabeza, y ellos, los miembros” (Alfonso X, Las Siete 134-35).
This structure affirmed the monarch’s divine and temporal authority over the realm through its metaphoric representation as a human body in medieval political philosophy.15
However, text-based metaphors of cuerpo also referred to an individual body. For example, Jorge Manrique describes his body as a fortress under siege as a result of the arresting power of love at first sight in two lyric poems, “Castilo d’amor” and “Escala d’amor.” Similarly, in Diego de San Pedro’s Cárcel de amor (1492), the protagonist, Leriano, is imprisoned in a castle that is also his own body because his love for the king’s daughter, Laureola, is unrequited. In addition, in Fernando de Rojas’ La Celestina (1499), Melibea’s suicide destroys both her body—which is “fecho pedaços”—and Pleberio’s casa and metaphorically imprisons him “…triste y solo in hac lacrimarum valle” (Rojas 335, 343).
These text-based metaphors indicate the importance of the architectural casas that were constructed by noble clans in medieval Castile. On a clan’s solar, nobles built elaborate structures, such as castles, urban palaces, hospitals, monasteries, and funerary chapels. These structures provided shelter for the members of a noble household, united them to the head of a clan, and proclaimed the magnificence of its lineage.
Magnificence is a philosophical concept and refers to an outward expression of virtue that is innate to members of an elite social class (Alonso Ruiz, “La nobleza” 221). In the works of classical philosophers such as Aristotle and Vitruvius, magnificence was closely tied to architecture because a builder demonstrated virtue through the use of correct proportion and dignified ornamentation (Alonso Ruiz, “La nobleza” 220). In fifteenth-century Castile, Alonso de Cartagena, Diego de Valera, Juan de Guzmán, and Gómez Manrique linked magnificence to largesse (Alonso Ruiz, “La nobleza” 222). Nobles
15 For more information on the medieval body politic and Alfonso X, see Francesco C. Cesareo (1984), Sergio
associated these social values with the virtue of their lineages by building costly, ostentatious monuments.
For example, on the Mendoza clan’s solar near Guadalajara, the I marqués of
Santillana constructed a castle at Real de Manzanares, a hospital at Buitrago, and a pantheon in the church of San Francisco in Guadalajara (Layna Serrano, El Palacio 16). Later,
Santillana’s grandson, the II duque of Infantado, refurbished the castle at Real de Manzanares and also constructed a new urban palace, known as the Palace of Infantado (Layna Serrano, El Palacio 23).16 Similarly, the II conde of Haro and his wife, Mencía de Mendoza, built a funerary chapel—the Constable’s Chapel—and an urban palace—the Casa del Cordón—in Burgos. They chose this location near the Velasco clan’s solar in Medina de Pomar, where the II conde of Haro’s ancestors had endowed a monastery.17
These examples of the Mendoza and Velasco clans’ architectural patronage represent a widespread practice among the Castilian nobles in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.18 This dissertation will focus on one aspect of this practice: the nobles’ construction of religious foundations, such as monasteries and funerary chapels, as well as tombs. These structures were closely associated with the memory of a clan, as numerous scholars have explained.
16 For more information about the Mendoza clan’s architectural patronage in Guadalajara, see María Teresa
Fernández Madrid (1991) and Francisco Layna Serrano (1993, 1997).
17 For more information on the monuments built by the Velasco clan, see Yarza Luaces (2001), Alonso Ruiz
(2003), Felipe Pereda (2005), Alicia Montero Málaga (2012), Antonio Ruiz Tejerina (2012), and Beciero Pita (2014).
18 For example, the Medinaceli family constructed the Casa de Pilatos in Seville; the Alba family constructed
the Palacio de las Dueñas also in Seville; and the Fajardo clan constructed numerous buildings, including a castle in Almería and a funeraey chapel in the Cathedral of Murcia. For additional examples and more
Tombs served a commemorative purpose through their adornment with allegorical or devotional images, emblems of family lineage, and portrait likenesses of the deceased that functioned as “memorial strategies” (Valdez del Alamo and Pendergast 1).19 The members of a clan also used the location of their tombs as a memorial strategy. Nobles routinely elected to be buried as a family unit in a prestigious location, usually near the altar of either a funerary chapel or the main church of a monastery constructed on or near a clan’s solar (Vivanco 147).20
In addition, a clan’s religious foundations united several generations through the spiritual and social benefits of capellanías, or chaplaincies. The foundation of capellanías was “…una práctica muy común entre las familias pudientes y nobiliarias, quienes, a cambio de un legado, obligaban así a una comunidad religiosa a rezar en el aniversario de la
defunción o del enterramiento de su fundador” (Lacarra, “La última” 202). The monetary amount of the donation and the number of capellanías reflected the magnificence of both the monument and its founder’s lineage.
19 For more information and examples, especially of royal tombs, see Henriette s’Jacob (1954), Erwin Panofsky
(1964), Ermelindo Portela and María del Carmen Pallares (1992), Paul Binski (1996), Margarita Ruiz Maldonado (2001), Therese Martin (2006), Kathleen Nolan (2010), Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo (2010), and Marguerite Keane (2013).
20 Members of the same elite clan preferred to be interred in close proximity to each other and to the main altar,
Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile studies the similar purpose behind the elites’ religious foundations and texts: both were forms of memory that were intended to influence standing in a sociopolitical network. The monarch, as the head of the body politic, nominally controlled this network. It functioned as a political casa in which “…el reino o las ciudades se entendían como un conjunto de familias y que el rey, los señores o los principales de las comunidades debían gobernar la república como buenos padres de familia” (Imízcoz Beunza, “Las redes” 88). Whether familial or feudal in nature, bonds of kinship were paramount because they theoretically offered protection based on “the mutual obligations owed by all family members to help and support each other in every area of life” (Althoff 41). However, political instability in medieval Castile threatened the security of the elites’ bonds of kinship and, as a result, jeopardized a clan’s status. This dissertation examines how the Castilian elites defended their positions in their sociopolitical networks by inscribing competing memories of their lineages in prose, poetry, and religious foundations.
III. Methodology and Chapter Summaries
Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile relies on a qualitative approach to studying social networks that originated in the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, and social psychology and recently has been applied to the medieval and Early Modern periods. Within this critical framework, a social network represents the “conexiones entre actores relacionados de un modo u otro a través de
composed of actors linked by one or more shared interests.21 Such interests include but are not limited to economic benefit, commercial transactions, written and oral forms of
communication, personal affect, hierarchies of authority, family connections, and patronage (Sánchez Balmaseda 19-20).
The connections between individuals that this dissertation will examine are those that united the head of a clan to members of his casa, the monarch, and the body politic. The formation—or threat—to those bonds of kinship is the motivation behind the Castilian elites’ composition of prose and poetry and construction of monasteries and funerary chapels.
Scholars have developed two methods of studying social networks. One is a
quantitative approach known as social network analysis, which is used to analyze how actors form subgroups, as well as how these subgroups coalesce into an entire network (Wasserman and Faust 18).22 This quantitative approach models relationships between subgroups in mathematical or graphical terms (Wasserman and Faust 19). The data used to create these
21 François-Xavier Guerra further explains the relationship between individuals and subgroups as actors in a
social network: “Que la unidad elemental de todo análisis social es el individuo, pues sólo él tiene conciencia y sólo él actúa. Pero también que este individuo tiene una capacidad relacional que se despliega en múltiples dimensiones y que lo hace capaz de constituir grupos” (118). The relationships between individual actors do not necessarily amount to the formation of a subgroup, which is an entity that functions as a social actor (Guerra 120).
22 Contemporary social network analysis has developed out of three areas of research, beginning in the 1930s
models can be collected from various media but must always be organized into a data matrix, which “is a table of figures, a pattern of rows and columns” (Scott 38).23
When this type of social network analysis has been applied to the medieval and Early Modern periods, scholars have used data from written sources, such as letters, to reconstruct egocentric networks, which are based on an individual’s relationship to other actors in the same network (Wetherell 128). For example, María Isabel Sánchez Balmaseda (1995) has analyzed networks of patronage among various actors at Felipe II’s court from 1554 to 1559; José María Imízcoz Beunza and Lara Arroyo Ruiz (2011) have used epistolary
correspondence to reconstruct the social networks of two eighteenth-century military officials and government administrators in Navarre; and Isabelle Rosé (2011) has used letters written between 926 and 942 C.E. to chart Odo of Cluny’s social network based on ties of family and spiritual kinship. These scholars have represented their findings graphically through the use of computer-generated data matrices.
The qualitative approach does not require the data mapping of social network analysis.24 Instead, it examines “los vínculos entre los actores sociales, observando los intercambios, colaboración y conflictos entre ellos, para explicar cómo se configuran las facciones, grupos o redes que actúan en el campo social y político, y con qué significados” (Imízcoz Beunza, “Las redes” 77). This qualitative method is the critical approach used in this dissertation to examine how the Castilian elites’ texts and monuments were intended to influence a clan’s standing in a sociopolitical network formed by bonds of kinship.
23 For more information on data mapping and quantitative techniques to analyze social networks, see José Luis
Molina (2001).
24 For this reason, historians have preferred the qualitative approach, as Charles Wetherell explains when he
A few scholars have applied the qualitative approach to social networks in medieval and Early Modern Spain. For example, Ana M. Gómez-Bravo (2013) has studied textual production in manuscript culture to explain how networks of scribes, artisans, merchants, and nobles used writing to establish their social status in fifteenth-century Spain.25 Furthermore, several collections of critical essays edited by José María Imízcoz Beunza (2001); by
Sebastián Molina Puche and Antonio Irigoyen López (2009); by Imízcoz Beunza and Oihane Oliveri Korta (2010); and by Francisco Sánchez-Montes González, Julián J. Lozano Navarro, and Antonio Jiménez Estrella (2016) have identified patronage and family relationships as the basis of aristocratic social networks in Early Modern Spain. These studies complement volumes edited by Juan Hernández Franco (1995) and by Francisco Chacón Jiménez and Hernández Franco (2007) that explain how the historical study of the family in Early Modern Spain also reveals social change.
Most recently, however, scholars have applied the qualitative approach to studying social networks to the historical and cultural legacies of Pedro I in the critical cluster “Redes Petristas: Networks and Memory of Pedro I of Castile” in La corónica 45.2 (2017). Redes Petristas is an ongoing project rooted in Memory Studies and Network Theory that aims to compile an online database of the social actors that have offered conflicting interpretations of the rise of the Trastámara dynasty (Rodríguez Porto and Roselló Martínez 41, 44). The critical cluster brings together eight articles that examine these legacies from the perspectives of historiography, literary studies, visual culture, and gender studies. As a result, it provides an interdisciplinary model for using texts that belong to a variety of genres, as well as
25 For more information on how written works can be used to qualitatively study social networks in the
cultural artifacts such as art and architecture, to qualitatively examine social networks. Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile adapts the Redes Petristas model to study how the Castilian elites’ texts and religious foundations were intended to influence their clans’ status in their sociopolitical networks.
Chapter 1 examines how Alfonso X used textual production and architectural patronage to proclaim his fame as the imperial head of his sociopolitical network. This chapter analyzes the Primera crónica general de España (1270) as a work that was intended to establish the king’s authority by recounting the great deeds of past heroes. One of these heroes is the Cid, whose death inspired the imperial stature of the sculpture that adorned Alfonso X’s tomb in the Royal Chapel that he founded in Seville Cathedral. This chapel demonstrated the prestige that Alfonso X sought during his lifetime and was the first funerary monument of its kind built in Castile. This chapter considers the analogous intended purpose of Alfonso X’s Primera crónica general and Royal Chapel as emblems of the king’s imperial status.
Chapter 2 discusses how members of the nobility and royal administration adapted Alfonso X’s historiographical and architectural models for their own purposes in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Two texts will be considered: don Juan Manuel’s Libro de las armas o de las tres razones (1337) and Leonor López de Córdoba’s Memorias (1412). While separated by three quarters of a century, these texts were both composed in response to injustice committed against the authors’ families. The authors aimed their redemptive
Paul in Córdoba. This chapter considers the similar function of these individuals’ texts and monuments to restore don Juan Manuel and Leonor’s sociopolitical status in connection to their virtue.
Chapter 3 examines the representations of Álvaro de Luna produced by members of the nobility, the royal administration, and his own casa in fifteenth-century Castile. Juan de Mena’s Laberinto de Fortuna (1444) and Gonzalo de Chacón’s Crónica de don Álvaro de Luna (1460) are favorable to Luna. However, the I marqués of Santillana’s “Coplas contra don Álvaro de Luna” (1453) and “Doctrinal de privados” (1453) and Fernán Pérez de
Guzmán’s Generaciones y semblanzas (1455) offer contradictory views based on Luna’s lack of noble lineage and acquisition of extensive landholdings. These authors and Luna belonged to the same sociopolitical network, and each sought to defend his own prestige in response to threats to his status.
To commemorate his sociopolitical ascent at Juan II’s court, Luna commissioned the Chapel of Santiago in Toledo Cathedral, but a group of nobles destroyed it in a revolt against him in 1441. After Luna’s death in 1453, the marriage of his daughter, María de Luna, to Santillana’s grandson enhanced the status of both clans. María’s marriage into the powerful Mendoza family changed the sociopolitical network that had excluded Luna during his lifetime and created an atmosphere in which she could rebuild the Chapel of Santiago to redeem her father’s memory and assert his fame. This chapter considers how the competing textual and architectural memories of Luna reflect changes in his bonds of kinship with the other members of his network.
some of its illustrious members and the consequent forfeiture of their property. Gómez Manrique addressed female family members—his sister, Juana Manrique, and his wife, Juana de Mendoza—in the consolation poems he composed in response to their respective
forfeiture of property and loss of a child. He also composed an elegy, the “Defunsión del noble cavallero Garçía Laso de la Vega” (1458), to defend his family’s interests following the death of a relative, Garcilaso de la Vega, and his family’s forfeiture of the Commandery of Montizón. Similarly, Jorge Manrique wrote the “Coplas por la muerte de su padre” (1476-79) for his family members and others in their shared sociopolitical network after the death of its patriarch, Rodrigo Manrique. This elegy was a reminder of the Manrique clan’s status in light of its possible loss of influence and property in the Order of Santiago. These works were intended to fulfill a similar purpose for the Manrique clan as pantheons that members of this family patronized in Calabazanos, Zafra, and Uclés, yet surpassed the family’s funerary monuments as an emblem of sociopolitical prestige.
These four chapters analyze the fame and infamy of the Castilian monarch and nobles through the memories they created in prose, poetry, and religious foundations. By
CHAPTER 1: MEMORIES OF ALFONSO X AS EMPEROR IN THE PRIMERA CRÓNICA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA AND THE ROYAL CHAPEL IN SEVILLE
When Alfonso X assumed the throne of Castile in 1252, he inherited a vast patrimony that included Portugal, Aragón, Catalonia, the tributary Kingdom of Granada, and the united territories of Castile and León from his father, Fernando III. Alfonso X then set his sights on becoming Holy Roman Emperor. However, his nineteen-year quest, the fecho del Imperio, resulted in defeat26 and the near destruction of Alfonso X’s realm: it bankrupted the royal coffers and contributed to the political unrest that enabled his second son, Sancho, to mount a rebellion.27 Nevertheless, Alfonso X created an image of himself as the source of wisdom and temporal authority in the works he commissioned.
26 The death of the Holy Roman Emperor William II of Holland in 1256 prompted an election, in which Alfonso
X and his rival, Richard of Cornwall, both declared victory (O’Callaghan, The Learned 201). Alfonso X claimed the title Holy Roman Emperor through the lineage of his mother, Beatriz de Suabia, who was descended of the powerful German Hohenstaufen family. However, the fecho del Imperio ultimately failed because Alfonso X never received papal support. In 1273, the German electors chose Rudolph, Count of Hapsburg, as Holy Roman Emperor (O’Callaghan, The Learned 232). When Gregory X acknowledged this candidate’s legitimacy, Alfonso X traveled to Beaucaire to meet with the pope, who immediately rejected the king’s claim (O’Callaghan, The Learned 232). This event, coupled with the unexpected death of Alfonso X’s son and heir, Fernando de la Cerda, in 1274 signaled the end of the fecho del Imperio (O’Callaghan, The Learned 333). For more information, see Carlos Estepa Díaz (1985) and Ana Rodríguez López (2000). 27 In 1257, Alfonso X granted monetary tributes and pensions to the German nobles who had elected him Holy
Roman Emperor (O’Callaghan, “The Cortes” 382). To maintain his international influence during the fecho del Imperio, the king required substantial revenue that exceeded his income. Alfonso X’s constant requests to levy taxes created an unstable political climate and in part motivated his subjects’ support for his second son, Sancho, when he rebelled in 1275. The previous year, while Alfonso X was in Beaucaire, his oldest son and heir, Fernando de la Cerda, was killed while leading a military expedition (O’Callaghan, The Learned 229). Before Alfonso X could return to Castile, Sancho pronounced himself heir apparent, disregarding the
These works were produced at the royal scriptorium, which refers to both the architectural space in which Alfonso X’s scribes carried out his commissions and a cultural institution that promoted scientific inquiry, translation, and composition of prose and poetry in the vernacular (Salvador Martínez 345).28 Numerous scholars have investigated these initiatives as they have contributed to Alfonso X’s epithet: the Wise, or the Learned. Recently, others have analyzed how Alfonso X’s textual production conveyed his imperial aspiration. For example, Daniel Alberto Panateri (2015) has considered the role of the emperor in the Siete Partidas; María Victoria Chico Picaza (2016) has studied how the text and illuminations of the Códice Rico of the Cantigas de Santa María represent Alfonso X’s political and religious authority; and Nicholas Parmley (2017) has suggested that maritime imagery in the Cantigas de Santa María demonstrates the influence of Alfonso X’s empire beyond the Iberian Peninsula.
This chapter examines the representation of Alfonso X as emperor in one of his historical works, the Primera crónica general de España (1270), and the Royal Chapel that he constructed in Seville Cathedral. The Primera crónica general is a record of “los fechos de Espanna” (Alfonso X, Primera I:2).29 These deeds are usually performed by mythological figures, rulers, and heroes of the Reconquest and are organized sequentially in the text to create a sense of identity around the figure of the king.30 In this scheme, the account of the
28 As an architectural space, the scriptorium “…se encontraba donde quiera que estuviese el rey…” (Salvador Martínez 346). However, three prominent locations emerged in Murcia, Toledo, and Seville because these cities often hosted Alfonso X’s court (Salvador Martínez 347-48). For more information on the scriptorium and how texts were produced at Alfonso X’s court, see Diego Catalán (1992), Ana María López Álvarez (1996), Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal (1999), Ana Domínguez Rodríguez (2000), and Laura Fernández Fernández (2013).
29 Numerous scholars have analyzed this text as a paradigm of medieval historiography. For example, see James
Cid’s death contributes to Alfonso X’s preeminence as the head of the body politic and of his casa real. Alfonso X projected the same supremacy through the foundation of the Royal Chapel and the iconography of its tomb sculptures in Seville Cathedral. This chapter analyzes the similar function of this funerary chapel and the Primera crónica general to memorialize the king.
I. The Wise King of the Prologue
Despite Alfonso X’s bid to become Holy Roman Emperor, the Primera crónica general does not overtly address the fecho del Imperio. One explanation is the
incompleteness of the text. It ends before the reign of Alfonso X because scribes had largely stopped working on the Primera crónica general by 1275 in favor of another historical work, the General estoria (1280).31 Nevertheless, the description of Alfonso X as a wise king in the prologue to the Primera crónica general suggests that this text was intended to validate his bid to become emperor. Alfonso X projected his imperial prowess by imparting wisdom to his subjects and upholding the royal authority of his lineage.
The prologue begins by ascribing the origin of writing and textual production to past “sabios” and indirectly comparing them to Alfonso X: “Los sabios antigos, que fueron en los
30 Scholars have also analyzed the political projections of the Primera crónica general. For example, see Charles Fraker (1978), Roberto J. González-Casanovas (1995), Geraldine Coates (2006, 2009), and Liuzzo Scorpo (2011).
31 Scholars disagree on the year in which Alfonso X abandoned the Primera crónica general, although they identify a common motivation: the political repercussions of the failed fecho del Imperio. For example, Charles Fraker suggests that Alfonso X cast the text aside in 1275, which was also “the year Alfonso abandons his claim on the imperial throne” (101). Geraldine Coates identifies the period from 1270 to 1274 as a likely estimate for when Alfonso stopped work on the Primera crónica general, but she also attributes his decision to his failed imperial claim (“Imperial Decline” 79). Fernando Gómez-Redondo also suggests that the chronicles’
tiempos primeros et fallaron los saberes et las otras cosas, touieron que menguarien en sus fechos et en su lealtad si tan bien no lo quisiessen pora los otros que eran en so tiempo…” (Alfonso X, Primera I:3). For this reason, they developed writing as an antidote to “…el desden de non querer los omnes saber las cosas, et la oluidança en que las echan depues que las saben…” (Alfonso X, Primera I:3).
Written texts were a form of memory because they protected the past from oblivion for the benefit of present and future generations. By providing a means through which to share knowledge, a written text also memorialized its creator, such as the “sabios antigos” presented as exemplars (Alfonso X, Primera I:3). Their wisdom stems from both their intellect and magnanimity in sharing knowledge with others through writing.
One group included in the “sabios antigos” is the Greeks and Romans (Alfonso X, Primera I:3). Their contributions are further clarified by the examples in the General estoria. One such example is that of Jupiter, a king of Crete, who was “…el mas sabio, e mas alto e mas poderoso rey que en los gentiles ouo, e del dizen que uinieron los reyes de Roma, e de Troya, e de Greçia e los otros altos principes” (Alfonso X, General I:191). In addition to the glorious lineage that he founded, Jupiter was revered for providing access to the liberal arts in the trivium and quadrivium. Specifically, Jupiter “…emendo los yerros que dizieran e pusieran en estas artes los otros sabios, e los philosophos que fueran antel e otrossi los de su tiempo; et ennadio e cumplio en ellas las cosas quelos otros sabios non pusieran…” (Alfonso X, General I:197).
triuio se dizen los nombres alas cosas, e estas fazen al omne bien razonado, e por las quatro del quadriuuio se muestran las naturas delas cosas, e estas quatro fazen sabio ell omne…” (Alfonso X, General I:194). The trivium consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric and was intended to be studied before the quadrivium, which included arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy (Alfonso X, General I:194). Notwithstanding the value of this educational system, an individual’s increase in knowledge also occurred by following the example of a good ruler, such as Jupiter. By imparting wisdom to his subjects, he united the members of the body politic around his own prestige.
This model of kingship is the same that is recorded in the prologue to the Primera crónica general. The “sabios antigos” behave like Jupiter because they wrote texts to preserve “las artes de las sciencias et los otros saberes” (Alfonso X, Primera I:3). These forms of knowledge encompass more specific disciplines: “el saber dell arte de geometria,” “los curssos de las estrellas et los mouimientos de las planetas,” “las naturas de las yeruas et de las piedras,” “las leys de los sanctuarios et las de los pueblos, et los derechos de las clerezias et los de los legos,” and “las gestas de los principes” (Alfonso X, Primera I:3).
These disciplines reflect some of the genres that Alfonso X cultivated in in the royal scriptorium. For example, from 1252 to 1262, scholars carried out astronomical experiments used to enhance the Tablas alfonsinas, which were translated from the Arabic findings of the astronomer al-Zarqali (Keller 137). In 1276, scribes compiled Los libros del saber de
stones (Keller 141-42). In addition to these works on geometry and astronomy, Alfonso X commissioned a legal code, the Siete Partidas, and a record of “las gestas de los principes” in the Primera crónica general (Alfonso X, Primera I:3).
The implication is that Alfonso X would presumably be a good emperor because, like “sabios antigos” such as Jupiter, he imparts wisdom to his subjects with the dual purpose of educating them and enhancing his image.32 He is described this way in the prologue to the Primera crónica general. Alfonso X is “…fermosura de Espanna et thesoro de la filosofia, ensennanças da a los yspanos; tomen las buenas los buenos, et den las vanas a los vanos” (Alfonso X, Primera I:2). These contributions directly benefit the body politic, as the narrator apostrophizes: “O Espanna, si tomas los dones que te da la sabiduria del rey, respandeçeras, otrosi en fama et fermosura creçeras” (Alfonso X, Primera I:2).
The wisdom that Alfonso X imparts to his subjects stems from the divine blessing that descends from one individual to another in a royal lineage. As Alfonso X’s narrative voice explains, “…Nos don Alfonsso, por la gracia de Dios rey de Castiella, de Toledo, de Leon, de Gallizia, de Seuilla, de Cordoua, de Murcia, de Jahen et dell Algarue, ffijo del muy noble rey don Ffernando et de la reyna donna Beatriz, mandamos ayuntar quantos libros pudimos auer de istorias en que alguna cosa contassen de los fechos dEspanna…” (Primera I:4).
This passage attributes the production of the Primera crónica general directly to Alfonso X, although the extent of his personal involvement is not known.33 However, as this
32 For more information on Alfonso X’s model of kingship, see Cesareo (1984) and Liuzzo Scorpo (2013).
33 Nevertheless, numerous scholars have used the prologues of works attributed to Alfonso X to analyze the
passage also implies, Alfonso X received the divine grace to rule as the son and successor of Fernando III and Beatriz de Suabia. Their lineage—and wisdom—positioned Alfonso X to become king and to impart his own knowledge to his subjects in the Primera crónica general. The main source for this text was Jiménez de Rada’s De rebus Hispaniae (1243), which Alfonso X’s father, Fernando III, authorized as a revision to a previous history, Lucas of Tuy’s Chronicon mundi (1238).34 By continuing this tradition of historical writing,
Alfonso X not only upheld a standard of his royal lineage, but also emphasized its divinely inspired origin as a means to project his imperial power.
The connection between Alfonso X’s ancestry and political authority is further contextualized in the General estoria in the idea of a chosen lineage. This text explains, “Pero es aquí de saber que la Sancta Escriptura, que luego de Adam que fue el primero comienço de todos, cato siempre en los omnes una linea que touo en personas connosçudas e contadas…” (Alfonso X, General I:61). This lineage advances in history “…fastal comienço dela sexta edat, pora auer ende sin toda sennal de pecado a Sancta Maria Uirgen, dond
nasciesse Cristo que saluasse el mundo como lo fizo” (Alfonso X, General I:61).35 While this
on Alfonso X’s prologues and the authorship of his works, see Anthony J. Cárdenas (1985), Rafael Cano Aguilar (1989), González-Casanovas (1994), and H. Salvador Martínez (2016).
34 In the prologue to the Primera crónica general, Alfonso X’s narrative voice acknowledges that “…tomamos de la cronica dell Arçobispo don Rodrigo que fizo por mandado del rey don Ffernando nuestro padre…” (I:4). By using a text connected to his father’s reign as the basis of the Primera crónica general, Alfonso X was “building upon a royal association with literature and scholarship” (Kennedy, “The Sabio-Topos” 185). This association also extends to the previous generation because Berenguela of Castile—the mother of Fernando III and the grandmother of Alfonso X—commissioned the Chronicon mundi (Shadis 123). This text was
separate line encompasses many individuals—especially “personas connosçudas e
contadas”—it ultimately leads to Christ, the supreme ruler and arbiter of history (Alfonso X, General I:61).
The Primera crónica general echoes this same concept of a separate lineage on a national stage by privileging the descent of Castilian monarchs from the Visigoths. The text is intended to “mostrar la nobleza de los godos et como fueron uiniendo de tierra en tierra, uenciendo muchas batallas et conquiriendo muchas tierras, fasta que llegaron a Espanna, et echaron ende a todas las otras yentes, et fueron ellos sennores della…” (Alfonso X, Primera I:4). After the expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate into the Iberian Peninsula in 711,
Christian monarchs continued the myth of a superior line stemming from the Visigoths.36 This royal line not only claimed political supremacy, but also divine blessing, as the text suggests by describing “cuemo la ayunto Dios, et por quales maneras et en qual tiempo, et
35 The “sexta edad” refers to the division of the General estoria into six ages, beginning with the biblical account of creation and progressing each hour to record the history of the world (Alfonso X, General I:61). The
General estoria is an example of universal historiography, which presents history as a narrative of salvation articulated through the concept of translatio imperii, or the transfer of secular power within a divinely inspired framework. This concept was derived by early Christian writers, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Paulus Orosius, who emphasized the progress of God’s activity in history through chronology and biblical typology. For more information on these authors and medieval historiography, see James William Johnson (1962), Arnaldo Momigliano (1966), Dominic Janes (2000), Paolo Delogu (2002), Andy Fear (2005), Jennifer A. Harris (2011), and Gabrielle M. Spiegel (2016). For more information on the General estoria, see Francisco Rico (1984) and Fernández-Ordóñez (1999).
quales reyes ganaron la tierra fasta en el mar Meditarreneo; et que obras fizo cada uno, assi cuemo uinieron unos empos otros fastal nuestro tiempo” (Alfonso X, Primera I:4).
By presenting himself as a continuation of the Visigothic line through the grace of God, Alfonso X positions himself as a successful king and presumably an effective emperor. He demonstrates his ability to unify the members of the body politic around his political authority through his role as compiler of “las gestas de los principes” (Alfonso X, Primera I:3). These “gestas” provide models of behavior that also reflect Alfonso X’s preeminence (Primera I:3). One such model is the Cid, Ruy Díaz de Vivar, whose posthumous
achievements exemplify the imperial status to which Alfonso X aspired.
II. The Cid and the Emperor
The Primera crónica general contains a thorough prose biography of the Cid that casts him as an exemplary national figure.37 It is particularly conscious of the Cid’s place in the lineage of Alfonso X because the Cid’s daughters, Elvira and Sol, had respectively married the infantes of Navarre and Aragón. These marriages allowed subsequent monarchs to claim the Cid as a member of the casa real. For example, the Poema del Cid concludes,
37 The biography of the Cid occupies over 100 chapters of the Primera crónica general and was compiled from numerous sources. As H. Salvador Martínez explains, “Para componer la biografía del Cid los colaboradores alfonsíes no escatimaron recursos, sirviéndose de todos los medios a su alcance: la Historia Roderici de hacia 1110; una historia de Valencia atribuida a Ibn Alqama, los dos grandes historiadores latinos contemporáneos, Lucas de Tuy y Jiménez de Rada, y, por supuesto, el Cantar” (482). The process of compilation used to create the Cid’s biography in the Primera crónica general echoed that of the entire text. The scribes working in the royal scriptorium compiled historical accounts from existing accounts, principally Bishop Lucas of Tuy’s
“Oy los rreyes d’España sos parientes son, / a todos alcança ondra por el que en buen ora naçió” (3724-25).
Alfonso X particularly benefitted from this association by assuming the Cid’s
imperial stature as reflected in the Primera crónica general. Specifically, the accounts of the Cid’s posthumous victory over the Muslim king Búcar and enthronement at the monastery of Saint Peter in Cardeña present the Cid with imperial posture in fulfillment of divine blessing. Through the Cid’s membership in the casa real, his triumphs contribute to the memory of Alfonso X as emperor in the Primera crónica general.
However, the Cid’s relationship with the Castilian monarchs was not always mutually affirming. The Cid was exiled from court in 1081 for allegedly betraying the king.
Nevertheless, the Cid is assured of Heaven’s blessing when an angel appears to him in a dream: “Et pues que fue de noche et se adormecio, ueno a ell en uision como en figura de angel, et dixol assi: ‘Çid, ue aosadas do uas et non temas nada, ca siempre te yra bien mientre que uiuas, et seras rico et abondado et onrrado’” (Alfonso X, Primera II:524).38 The dream “…confirms the fact that the protagonist is still favored by God, even if the king has exiled him” (Cerghedean 136).39
This event foreshadows another revelation of the Cid’s divine favor shortly before his death and final battle against the Muslim king Búcar. One night, “…vn omne le aparesçio tan blanco commo la nieue, et era cano et crespo, et entro por el palaçio, et traye en su mano vnas llaues…” (Alfonso X, Primera I:633). This vision of Saint Peter reassures the Cid,
38 This account is a prose version of an episode that occurs in the Poema del Cid. The archangel Gabriel appears to the Cid after he has been exiled and tells him to “‘¡Cavalgad, Çid, el buen Campeador, / Ca nunqua en tan buen punto cavalgó varón!’” (Poema 407-408). For more information on divine favor in the Poema del Cid, see Carmelo Gariano (1964) and José Terradas (2013).
39 In the Middle Ages, dreams were interpreted as conveying divine blessing. For more information, see Harriet
“‘…as a dexar este mundo et yrte a la vida que non a fin, et esto sera de oy en treynta dias. Pero tanto te quiere Dios fazer merçed, que la tu conpanna desbarate al rey Bucar, et que tu, seyendo muerto, venças esta batalla por onrra del cuerpo tuyo…’” (Alfonso X, Primera II:633).40
Saint Peter’s pronouncement thirty days before the Cid’s death allows him to prepare both his soul for salvation and his body for battle. After confessing his sins and receiving absolution, the Cid “…despidiosse de todas las otras gentes, llorando mucho de los oios, et fuesse pora su alcaçar, et echosse en su cama, et nunca mas ende se lauanto…” (Alfonso X, Primera II:634-35).41 Upon retiring, he refuses to eat or drink, save a tincture of myrrh and gold, although he makes meticulous preparations for the impending battle against Búcar (Alfonso X, Primera II:635). Specifically, the Cid commands his attendants to anoint his body with myrrh and to “…ensellar el mio cauallo Bauieca, et guysaredes el mio cuerpo mucho onrradamiente guarnido, et ponerme hedes en el cauallo; et en manera me guisaredes et me ataredes que me non pueda caer del, et ponermedes la mi espada Tizon en la mano…” (Alfonso X, Primera II:635). In this way, the Cid leads his forces to victory over Búcar’s
40 The Cid also receives notice of his imminent death through a series of dreams, as he explains: “Et desto so
muy çierto, ca bien ha mas de siete noches que visiones me siguen, ca veo mi padre Diego Laynez et a mi fijo Diego Ruyz, et cada vez que los veo, dizenme: ‘mucho auedes morado aqui trendos, et vayamosnos a las asonadas perdurables’” (Alfonso X, Primera II:634). These dreams reinforce the Cid’s divine blessing as indicated by Saint Peter’s promise of salvation, with one noticeable distinction: the Cid was “velando ca non durmiendo” when the saint appeared (Alfonso X, Primera II:634). This statement clarifies that the Cid did not dream the vision of Saint Peter, notwithstanding the evident reassurance of divine favor in this episode.
41 The Cid’s response to his impending demise reflects common practices and attitudes toward death in the
army in fulfillment of Saint Peter’s promise: “…tu, seyendo muerto, venças esta batalla por onrra del cuerpo tuyo…” (Alfonso X, Primera II:633).
The position of the Cid’s body on horseback evokes the traditional posture of a seated equestrian statue, which conveys both military prowess and imperial authority. Even after the battle, the Cid’s body retains its aura of power because his attendants and soldiers
“…lleuaron al cuerpo del Çid en su cauallo assy commo lo sacaron de Valencia, saluo ende que non leuaua ningunas armas, mas yua uestido de muy nobles pannos, de guysa que quantos vinien por el camino cuydauan que biuo yua, sino quando gelo dizian” (Alfonso X, Primera II:639). They also wanted to project the Cid’s authority in death by adorning his casket “con porpola et con pliegos de oro,” similar to the “nobles pannos” that he wore (Alfonso X, Primera II:639).
However, the Cid’s wife, doña Ximena, arranged for his body to first be publicly displayed at the monastery of Saint Peter in Cardeña. She “…dixo que mientra el su rostro et los oios estudiessen tan frescos et tan apuestos, nunca el su cuerpo entraria en ataut…” (Alfonso X, Primera II:639). The Cid’s lifelike features suggest both his foresight in ordering his embalmment42 and his bodily incorruptibility, which was often interpreted as a sign of sainthood (Vauchez 427).43 As a result, when Alfonso VI arrived to “onrrar el Çid en
42 According to the account of the Cid’s death, his body was embalmed as he had requested: “Et desque fue
finado, el obispo don Geronimo et Aluar Fannez et Pero Bermudez et Gil Diaz, su priuado, lauaronle et vngieronle, assy commo el mandara…” (Alfonso X, Primera II:636).
43 As a result, a saint’s corpse emanated a fragrant, rather than putrid, odor (Vauchez 428). The Cid’s
embalmment eliminates the divine origin of his incorruptibility, although this passage contains clear overtones of sainthood. Bodily incorruptibility also appears in another context in the Primera crónica general. When Saint Peter visited the Cid to inform him of his imminent death and victory over Búcar, “…finco el palaçio lleno de vn olor tan sabroso, que non a coraçon en el mundo que lo podiesse asmar…” (Alfonso X, Primera
su sepultura…se marauillo quando vio venir al Cid en su cauallo et tan noblemente vestido…” (Alfonso X, Primera II:640).44
The king’s reaction fulfills the promise of divine favor that the angel made to the Cid upon his exile: “‘…seras rico et abondado et onrrado…’” (Alfonso X, Primera II:524). In addition to honoring his former vassal with his presence, Alfonso VI bestowed “onrras” through religious services, such as “cantar missas et en vigilias et en todos los otros officios que se deuen fazer a omne finado” (Alfonso X, Primera II:640). Alfonso VI also moved the Cid’s body to a place of honor:
…mando fazer un tabernaculo bien obrado de tablas, et mando traher la su siella de marfil que el le uiera en las cortes de Toledo, et mando poner el tabernaculo a man derecha del altar de sant Pedro, et mandola cobrir de vn panno de peso et vn cabeçal. Et desi el rey mismo, por fazer onrra al Çid, llego ayudar a sacar el cuerpo de entre aquellas tablas ol metieran en Valencia.…Et quando esto vio el rey, afincosse que fiziessen lo que auien començado; et uestieron el cuerpo del Çid de unos pannos de porpola muy noble qual la enbiara el grant soldan de Persia, entre las otras muchas et muy nobles cosas quel enbiara; et calçaronle vnas calças de aquella porpola misma, et asentaronlo en su siella que el mandara aguysar; et pusieronle en su mano siniestra la espada Tizon metida en la vayna, et la mano derecha teniela en las cuerdas del manto….(Alfonso X, Primera II:640-41)
The Cid’s seated position as described in this passage is reminiscent of an imperial posture. He holds his sword, just as he did during the battle against Búcar, and his exquisite purple robes echo the clothing he wore upon his return to Valencia.45 These vestments also
44 Alfonso VI’s astonishment is due to the Cid’s lifelike appearance. Notwithstanding the overtones of
hagiography in this account, the Cid’s bodily preservation is eventually explained by the process of embalming: “Et el rey cataua al rostro al Çid, et veyegelo tan fresco et tan liso et los oios tan claros et tan fermosos et tan egualmiente abiertos que non semeiaua sinon biuo, eet faziese mucho marauillado; mas despues quel dixieron en commo beuiera siete dias el balsamo et la mirra et que non comiera otra cosa fasta que muriera, et en commo fuera despues vngido et balsamado, non lo touo por grant marauilla, ca bien oyera dezir que en tierra de Egipto lo fazien assy a los reyes” (Alfonso X, Primera II:640).
45 The similarities between the Cid’s posture on horseback and on the throne also suggest correspondence
convey the Cid’s status because they were originally fit for Alfonso VI as a gift from the sultan of Persia. By extending this gift to the Cid, Alfonso VI elevates the sociopolitical status of his former vassal. The Cid’s royal robes, coupled with his majestic enthronement under a baldachin, project the image of an emperor. The implication is that the Cid’s temporal authority is equal to or even surpasses that of Alfonso VI.
For subsequent monarchs such as Alfonso X, the Cid’s elite position in the casa real serves to enhance the king’s preeminence in the body politic. By claiming to share the Cid’s lineage, Alfonso X also claimed the same divine favor and imperial status in the Primera crónica general. In this way, Alfonso X generated a textual memory of his own imperial power that is analogous in purpose to the funerary chapel he commissioned in Seville Cathedral.
III. Alfonso X’s Imperial Status in the Royal Chapel
In 1252, Alfonso X built the Royal Chapel in Seville Cathedral following the death of his father, Fernando III. Both kings were eventually interred in this pantheon, which was the first of its kind built in a Castilian cathedral. Previous monarchs had consistently elected to be buried in monasteries under royal patronage, and those rulers who had been laid to rest in cathedrals did not commission their own funerary chapels. Alfonso X built the Royal Chapel to demonstrate the prestige of his lineage and incorporated imperial iconography in the tomb sculptures to memorialize himself as both king and emperor. In doing so, he established a
new paradigm of architectural representation that his successors emulated in their own funerary chapels in the cathedrals of Toledo, Córdoba, and Seville.
Alfonso X constructed the Royal Chapel to commemorate his forebears, Fernando III and Beatriz de Suabia. This intent is evident in the donations of property, rents, and taxes that Alfonso X made to the diocese of Seville, particularly its cathedral, which Fernando III dedicated before his death in 1252.46 Two years later, in honor of his predecessor, Alfonso X granted the cathedral chapter of Seville all the stores in close proximity (Laguna Paúl 238). In 1256, Alfonso X made his first donation on the anniversary of his father’s death, when he increased the Church’s rents by 8,300 maravedís (Laguna Paúl 238). Finally, in 1279, Alfonso X donated a fifth of the property confiscated from cavalry raids to the Church and archbishopric in Seville in order to establish sung masses for Fernando III and Beatriz de Suabia on the anniversaries of their deaths (Laguna Paúl 240).
That same year, Alfonso X reinterred their remains in the Royal Chapel. Fernando III had previously been buried in front of the main altar, an honorific location that
commemorated his successful reconquest of Seville (Laguna Paúl 236). In 1248, Fernando III led his forces into the city and consecrated its mosque as a Christian church by building an
46 Upon the dedication of Seville Cathedral, Fernando III made an enormous donation: “el diezmo del
