Medieval Spain

Culture, Conflict, and Coexistence

Studies in Honour of Angus MacKay

Edited by
Roger Collins and Anthony Goodman
Medieval Spain
Medieval Spain
Culture, Conflict, and Coexistence
Studies in Honour of Angus MacKay

Edited by

Roger Collins
and

Anthony Goodman
Editonal matter and selection © Roger Collins and Anthony
Goodman 2002
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Medieval Spain : culture, conflict, and coexistence/edited by Roger Collins and
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Contents

Introduction: Angus MacKay and the History of

Later Medieval Spain vii
Roger Collins

A Bibliography of Angus MacKay’s contributions to

the subject xvii
Anthony Goodman

Notes on the Contributors xxii

1 Continuity and Loss in Medieval Spanish Culture:

the Evidence of MS Silos, Archivo Monástico 4 1
Roger Collins
2 Traitors to the Faith? Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus
and the Maghreb, c. 1100–1300 23
Simon Barton
3 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X the Learned:
a Background Perspective 46
Robert I. Burns
4 Trading with the ‘Other’: Economic Exchanges between
Muslims, Jews, and Christians in Late Medieval Northern Castile 63
Teofilo F. Ruiz
5 Catalina of Lancaster, the Castilian Monarchy and Coexistence 79
Ana Echevarria
6 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca: Disentangling
the Manuscript Tradition 123
N.G. Round
7 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities in
the Mid-Fifteenth Century 148
Brian Tate
8 Peace and War on the Frontier of Granada. Jaén and
the Truce of 1476 160
Manuel González Jiménez
9 Songbooks as Isabelline Propaganda: the Case of Oñate and Egerton 176
Dorothy Severin

v
vi Contents

10 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 183

Ian Macpherson
11 Conversion in Córdoba and Rome: Francisco Delicado’s
La Lozana Andaluza 202
John Edwards
12 The Making of Isabel de Solis 225
José Enrique López de Coca
13 The Conquest of Granada in Nineteenth-Century
English and American Historiography 242
Richard Hitchcock
Introduction: Angus MacKay and the
History of Later Medieval Spain
Roger Collins

Amongst the leading British hispanists of recent decades, Angus Mackay is

exceptional, not so much because he was trained as a historian as in the fact
that he has passed his entire scholarly career in university departments of
History; principally that of the University of Edinburgh. For most readers this
may hardly seem a paradox. Where else, it might be asked, would you expect
to find a historian of Later Medieval Spain, especially one of such eminence?
However, it has been one of the peculiarities of British universities that very
few history departments have felt able to include hispanists in their ranks. In
consequence, a surprisingly large number of the most outstanding British his-
torians of Later Medieval Spain have made academic homes for themselves in
departments of Spanish language and literature or of Hispanic Studies (that is,
including Portuguese). Put another way, this has meant that many of the best
known scholars of Later Medieval Spanish literature in the British Isles are by
training historians, and are as happy to devote themselves to historical as to
literary researches. This, it may be thought, has resulted in a very fruitful
fusion of two disciplines that ought to be closely linked, but that in many
other areas and periods of cultural study are all too often kept artificially sepa-
rated. It could be argued that this has been one of the great strengths of British
medieval hispanism over the past half century or more.
This may seem a round-about way of starting an encomium, but the partic-
ular circumstances described, which have affected the nature of the study of
Later Medieval Spain in British universities, may help to explain something of
the career, writings, and achievement of Angus MacKay. Thus, it should be
added that the reasons why departments of history have not found much
room for medieval hispanists are not the result of prejudice, so much as a
reflection of the limited role that any Spanish dimension, with few excep-
tions, has been allowed to play in most British school and university syllabus-
es. This in turn reflects something of the dead hand of a tradition that,
unthinkingly, regarded southern Britain (excluding Wales), northern France,
the Rhineland, and Italy from Rome northwards as the only parts of medieval
Europe in which significant events occurred in the medieval centuries, or
which had worthwhile contributions to make to the development of
European civilization.
To this may be added another, more pragmatic factor, in the form of the lim-
ited availability of works in English on the history of Spain in this period.

vii
viii Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain

However, it is one of the achievements of Angus MacKay and his generation of

hispanists that this second reason is no longer a valid one. There now exist
more books and articles written in English on Later (and Earlier) Medieval
Spain, as well as English translations of original Latin and Spanish texts, than
there are comparable items to be found that relate to the history of France or
Germany in the same period. One consequence of this is that there are now
really no excuses for Spanish medieval (and modern) history not to take its
appropriate place in the curriculum.
The situation outlined here so briefly, if perhaps a little provocatively, might
have been expected to have resulted in something of a chicken and egg
quandary. If little or no Spanish medieval history was being taught in Britain,
how would anyone become a Spanish medieval historian, and thus write the
books that should make it possible for Spanish medieval history to become
teachable? There must be strong reasons or particular circumstances that
enabled potential historians of Spain to defy the logic of this argument, and
emerge as fully fledged hispanists. So, it is not unreasonable to wonder how
Angus came to be the kind of scholar that he is.
In his particular case, it would at least be fair to suggest that his birth in Peru
in 1939, where his father was then working for the British Council, may have
given him an interest in, and certainly provided a close acquaintance with
Hispanic language and culture, even if not of a medieval kind. In particular,
the passing of several formative years in South America equipped him with a
more than enviable command of the Spanish language, not just academically
but also at the level of the street. To this would be added in the 1960s a thor-
ough submersion in the Spanish of Spain, while he was there carrying out the
research for his doctoral thesis. In subsequent years his unselfconscious
blending of the argot of the Lima back streets of his youth with the high
speech of Castilian polite discourse would provide ‘understandably a source of
great entertainment to his peninsular Spanish friends.’
As will be clear, while his youthful experiences and linguistic opportunities
may have given him a leaning towards matters Hispanic, an undergraduate
course in history in a British university in the early 1960s would not have
done much to strengthen or sustain it. Here, however, Edinburgh, where he
arrived in 1960, was a more than fortunate choice of university, as the influ-
ence of Denys Hay, who was for many years the holder of the chair of medieval
history, proved decisive. It was with his active encouragement that in 1963
Angus went on to undertake a doctoral thesis under his supervision on
Economy and Society in Castile in the Fifteenth Century. As a Renaissance scholar,
Denys Hay’s own research interests were primarily directed towards Italy, and
focused on cultural and intellectual history far more than economic. So his
willingness to direct Angus’s attention towards the relatively little studied
kingdom of Castile, and to support his research on its economic history, repre-
sented academic philanthropy of no mean order; something its beneficiary
warmly acknowledged.
 Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain ix

That this thesis would involve extended periods of work in Spanish state
and ecclesiastical archives was inevitable. Such labours also form a right of
passage that bonds together hispanists of many generations; all of whom have
experienced the many and various eccentricities of Spanish archives and
archivists, especially of the ecclesiastical sort. The exchange of tales of the dif-
ficulties encountered, and how, in most cases, they were sustained or over-
come still provides a favourite topic of conversation when and wherever two
or more medieval hispanists are gathered together. While the ‘horror’ stories
are the most fun, it has to be admitted that there are some Spanish archives
that open for sensible lengths of time, which is to say, for more than an hour a
day, and some archivists indeed exist who welcome rather than repel
researchers. Angus’s published expressions of thanks to the custodians of the
municipal archives of Burgos and Seville and of the cathedral archive of the
former city, as well as the thesis based upon the documents in their care, may
reflect experiences of the latter sort, but there were no doubt many bizarre and
eccentric moments as well.
While no one of a hasty disposition or who is addicted to punctuality would
long survive as a hispanist – the difficulties in tracking down elusive custodi-
ans, the odd hours, and the periodic chaos of the archives and libraries have to
be taken as a source of delight for their sheer Spanishness rather than become
a cause for agitation or rage – the political complexion of the Iberian peninsu-
la in the mid-1960s can hardly have been congenial to Angus. Some foreign
researchers may at the time, for religious or political reasons, have found the
Franco regime positively congenial, while others may have been more inter-
ested in their own work than in the social context in which it was being car-
ried out. It is impossible for Angus to have belonged to the former category
and highly improbable that he fell into the latter.
While it would never have done, not least for the sake of his work and for
that of his growing band of Spanish friends, for Angus to have been expelled
from Spain or refused reentry into the country, he was able to give freer rein to
his own radical sympathies in his research and publications, while at the same
time breaking new ground in his chosen subject. That his initial chronological
preference, to which he has largely remained faithful, was for the fifteenth
century may have originally resulted from a wider interest in that period while
an undergraduate, but it was also the perfect choice for someone not in step
with the very conservative ideology that was not only that of the Franco
regime of 1939 to 1975, but which was also for a much longer period the dom-
inant one in Spanish medieval historiography.
Essentially, in an interpretation that acquired canonical status thanks to the
publications of an academically dominant group of literary and historical
scholars in the early twentieth century, the so-called ‘Generation of 1898’,
Spanish medieval history came to be equated completely with that of Castile,
and the promotion of strong centralizing government became the criterion by
which individuals and whole periods in the Hispanic past had to be judged.
x Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain

Thus, simply put, the unification of much of the Iberian peninsula under the
Castilian crown unquestioningly came to be regarded as ‘a good thing’, and
those monarchs who promoted conquest and expansion were lauded as as
‘good kings’. Those who failed to promote such objectives, or, worse still, lost
Castilian territory or allowed the power of central government to weaken
were not only bad; they were hardly worthy of scholarly study. In such a per-
spective, until redeemed in the joint reign of Fernando II of Aragón
(1479–1516) and Isabel I of Castile (1474–1504), the late fourteenth century
and the first three-quarters of the fifteenth represented an age of scarcely miti-
gated failure and decline, and the Castilian ruling house of the Trastámara
(1369–1516) was popularly regarded as a dynasty of duffers (much like their
contemporaries, the Scottish Stuarts).
Throughout his scholarly career, Angus MacKay has always temperamental-
ly had a strong sympathy for the underdog. Much of his more recent work has
been devoted to the study of the neglected, the marginalized and the under-
privileged in late medieval Castilian society, including not least the
‘Averroistas’, the Spanish Converso prostitutes who tried to making a living for
themselves in early sixteenth-century Rome. Not dissimilar feelings may have
contributed to his choice of period itself. For it was one that had similarly been
largely neglected and misunderstood, and was certainly one that called out for
reevaluation and revision.
In his book of 1977, Later Medieval Spain: from Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500,
to be considered in more detail below, he vindicated the study of the final two
centuries of this period on their own terms, but at the same time he was per-
haps then also rather inclined to emphasize aspects of it that were ancestral to
some of the more important features of Spanish history and society in the suc-
ceeding ‘Golden Age’ of the sixteenth century. This teleological undercurrent
in the book, which has never subsequently resurfaced in his work, may have
been a symptom of a need he felt at the time, but not since, to justify giving so
much weight to a period previously so little regarded. It is indeed one of
Angus’s achievements that he and a handful of other scholars have so effec-
tively put fifteenth-century Castile in particular so firmly ‘on the map’, espe-
cially for an English-speaking readership.
His initial concern was with the functioning of the Castilian monetary
economy, not least in respect of prices and coinage, and the first fruits of this
had appeared in his thesis, accepted for the degree of doctor of philosophy by
the University of Edinburgh in 1970, soon after he himself joined the depart-
ment of history in the same university as a Lecturer. This followed a four year
period as lecturer in history in the still nascent University of Reading.
While his thesis on the fifteenth-century Castilian economy has never been
published in its original form, it and the research upon which it was based pro-
vided the foundations for Angus’s second book, published by the Royal
Historical Society in 1981, on Money, Prices and Politics in Fifteenth-Century
Castile. While modestly disclaiming any formal grounding in economic histo-
 Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain xi

ry, he explained the genesis of the work thus: ‘the importance of the problems
which this book attempts to solve persuaded me to embark on the study of
prices’; a typically clear sighted and level headed remark. A subject is recog-
nized as central to the proper understanding of the period; problems in the
way of making sense of it are identified; then they are eliminated.
As Angus also here commented, most historians of the period recognized
the need for hard economic data but found it difficult to apply it when dealing
with an age such as this in which monetary upheavals and fluctuations in the
value of the coinage were frequent. Quantitative information was by itself of
no use, unless it could be put into a clearly delineated economic context. This
is what Angus in a relatively short compass of just over one hundred pages of
text and nearly seventy of tables, graphs and documents set about doing. In
three austerely authoritative chapters, he dealt firstly with the supplies of pre-
cious metals, secondly with the relationships between price fluctuations, gov-
ernmental debasements of the coinage and the prevalence of counterfeiting
of coins, and thirdly with the political dimensions of the debasements and
devaluations.
That this work was of seminal importance, which put its subject on a much
securer foundation, none would deny, especially when it is seen against the
background of the previous historiography on this period, in which the col-
lection and analysis of economic data had either been conspicuously lacking
or had been controlled by ideological preconceptions. Much of what there
was of this literature he himself judiciously surveyed in a review article in the
Journal of Economic History in 1978.
It has to be admitted that Money, Prices and Politics is a book in which few
concessions are made to the numerically-challenged; not that Angus would
ever have considered that any should have been. Thus, in the introduction
to the book the reader is called upon to accept the validity of the equation P
= XY/Z, in which P was the price of one mark of gold or silver in maravedis
(the contemporary money of account), X was the value of the coin in mar-
avedis, Y the number of coins minted from one mark of metal, and Z ‘the
fineness of the coin relative to the maximum degree of purity of gold or sil-
ver’. Colleagues for whom school level algebra was and has remained a trial
are wise take this on trust.
Although this was Angus’s second book to be published, it has been consid-
ered here first, not least because of its close relationship to his thesis of 1970.
Between completing the latter and producing the published version of 1981,
Angus worked on what has probably been his most influential book, the one
he wrote for Macmillan (now Palgrave Macmillan) entitled Spain in the Late
Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500, which was published in 1977,
and then reprinted in 1978. For an academic work, this was perhaps a remark-
ably rapid republication, even if a major cause was the unfortunate fact that
most copies of the first printing were destroyed in a warehouse fire in Hong
Kong. But from more positive and substantial causes numerous other reprints
xii Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain

have followed, for the good reason that the book remains the best single vol-
ume history of Later Medieval Spain in English.
The published book, produced with exemplary speed and efficiency, proved
that Angus was indeed the ideal choice for its author. As were the others who
wrote books for the Macmillan ‘New Medieval History’ series, he in turn had
been fortunate in his academic editor, Dennis Bethel (who died in 1981); a
very learned man who wrote little himself but who was unfailingly helpful
and wise in the ways he would advise and assist others in clarifying and
expressing their thoughts about a surprisingly wide range of topics and peri-
ods. This was a debt warmly acknowledged in the preface to From Frontier to
Empire.
As part of a series intended not least to survey the history of Europe in pairs
of parallel volumes devoted to earlier and later medieval centuries (Spain
being the only case in which this pious hope translated itself into reality), the
book had to be very wide ranging in its coverage. This meant not just a much
broader chronological span than that covered by Angus’s own previous
research, but also a geographical extension, to take account not least of the
parallel developments in the eastern half of the Iberian peninsula, in the king-
doms of Aragón and Navarre. The temporal coverage achieved in the book was
remarkably well-balanced, especially for a historian intellectually, and per-
haps temperamentally, not very much in sympathy with the earlier medieval
centuries.
Inevitably, for such periods an author has to rely upon the work of other
scholars and on the consensus of generally accepted interpretations. Both can
in retrospect prove to be fragile supports. Some of the received wisdom of a
quarter of a century ago, that seemed unassailable at the time, has not only
been completely overthrown but salt has been sown on the ground upon
which it once stood. Thus, for example, the deeply held conviction of all
Spanish medievalists that ‘the feudal system’ never existed in Castile has
given way in recent years to a positive frenzy of publication and conference-
holding on the entrenched and multifaceted nature of Castilian feudalism.
But who is to say that the wheel may not in time turn full circle? In this partic-
ular case, too, there are a number of contemporary pressures, quite divorced
from the historical realities of twelfth-and thirteenth-century Castile, that
have made the current hunt for its feudalism fashionable, and belief in its exis-
tence academically de rigeur.
While From Frontier to Empire continues to impress by its wide coverage,
powerfully constructed arguments, and arresting literary style, it also provides
clues to its author’s own personal perspectives, and thus to his prejudices and
enthusiasms. Although religion and the Church were amongst the categories
required to be covered by these volumes, they do not loom large in Angus’s
view of what mattered in later medieval Spain, at least not in their own right.
Tostatus Abulensis will not be found in From Frontier to Empire, any more than
will the diocesan organization of Castile. The Archpriest of Hita gets more cov-
 Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain xiii

erage than St. Dominic. The monastic and mendicant orders are included for
their impact on the Spanish economy and for the roles they played in civil
society, and not for any contributions they might have made to clerical learn-
ing or to architecture. The role of religious fanaticism, whipped up by popular
preaching, is seen as secondary to socio-economic factors when the causes of
the progroms against the Jews are examined.
There are equally strong implicit geographical preferences to be detected as
well. That Navarre does not loom large in the book would hardly be a matter of
surprise, even for the Navarrese, but it could not be said that the Corona de
Aragón emerges here as an equal partner to Castile, though there are some fine
pages devoted to it, especially its economic history. It is notable, though, that
Angus’s interest in Aragón rises markedly when the kingdom falls into the
hands of a branch of the Castilian Trastámara dynasty in 1412. The last mem-
ber of the indigenous royal house, Martin ‘el Humano’ (1395–1410), only
appears in the book once, and then just to die and make way for his Castillian
successor, Fernando I ‘el de Antequera’ (1412–16), who is also perhaps the
only royal personage of these centuries for whom Angus has consistently
shown real enthusiasm.
That this is an integral feature of Angus’s approach to Spanish history can be
seen from the fact that same phenomenon may still be detected nearly a quar-
ter of a century after the publication of From Frontier to Empire. In a recent brief
but magisterial survey of the period from 1250 to 1500, that forms a chapter in
a multi-authored history of Spain, Angus managed to avoid making any refer-
ence whatsoever to Aragón in the fourteenth century, but then provided a
most detailed and arresting analysis, extending over three pages, of the signif-
icance of the coronation ceremonies of Fernando ‘el de Antequera’ in 1412.
The latter, to be sure, was a highly successful warrior, patron, intriguer and
power behind his nephew’s throne before his career change of 1412. As a kind
of upper class ‘El Cid’ of the late medieval centuries, Fernando was the most
outstanding and successful example of the type of frontiersman, half cultivat-
ed aristocrat and half thug, that Angus had long recognized as the main
human dynamic in the expansion of Castilian power in this period.
It could be argued that Aragón gets about as much attention in From Frontier
to Empire as it deserves, not least because many of its monarchy’s interests and
entanglements lay outside the Iberian peninsula, but this would be to ignore
the wealth and diversity of the kingdom’s late medieval records. It must be
admitted that there has been and remains a strongly pro-Castilian bias in
British medieval hispanism; one to which Angus has far from been immune. It
is perhaps also a phenomenon that has manifested itself in the contents of the
present volume. In contrast, in the USA there exists a lively and distinguished
tradition of research on Catalunya and Aragón, especially in the tenth to thir-
teenth centuries.
Within this essentially Castilian framework, Angus’s interests have been
broad, but if he has a particular predilection it must be for Andalucia, par excel-
xiv Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain

lence the land of the frontier in this period. The research for his thesis took him
to Seville, and it is the south rather than the north that has by and large
attracted his attention ever since. From 1978 onwards he has contributed to
all of the six international conferences on the history of Andalucia in the
Middle Ages whose acts have so far been published, and many of his closest
personal and scholarly links have been with the leading Andalucian histori-
ans of the period.
It is thus not unfair to suggest that the preparation and publishing of From
Frontier to Empire marked a milestone in Angus’s own scholarly development.
In the years between 1970 and 1977 he published a, for him relatively small,
number of articles, several of which were directed primarily at economic
issues. From 1978 onwards (although no doubt some of these were written in
preceding years) he produced a flood of weighty articles covering an ever
widening range of topics, and based upon an expanding range of evidence.
While still recognizing the central importance in the interpretation of later
medieval Spanish history of economic questions, and the need to answer
them on the basis of properly collected and analysed data, it is not unreason-
able to wonder if having to write this book was not in this way a liberating
experience.
In the period surrounding its publication he produced two articles that
remain amongst the most important of his shorter studies. These are his
‘Popular Movements and Pogroms in Fifteenth Century Castile’, written for
Past and Present, and ‘The Ballad and the Frontier in Late Medieval Spain’,
which appeared in the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. Their impact on the book
itself is marked. In both Angus’s preference for hard evidence, particularly sta-
tistical data, is clear. As he pointed out in another context, too often historians
relied on what was little better than their own intuition. That he wished to see
replaced by soundly based conjecture.
In the article on the frontier ballads he made his first foray into the use of
literary sources. As already mentioned the creative fusing of what would else-
where be regarded as the separate disciplines of history and the study of litera-
ture is a distinctive feature of medieval Hispanism. Not least was it was a
marked feature of the programmes of the annual conferences of the British
Association of Hispanists, to which Angus was introduced by Brian Tate. The
use of contemporary literary sources became and has remained a major com-
ponent of his approach to the history of later medieval Castile. These have
ranged from the later thirteenth century Cantígas of King Alfonso X of Castile
to the early sixteenth century La Lozana andaluza of Francisco Delicado, to
both of which he has dedicated more than one article.
As with his use of economic data, Angus recognized that such sources could
only properly be used when their context, nature and purpose were fully
defined. They were not just an undemanding way of, as he put it, ‘rambling
around inside the minds’ of those who wrote them. Thus, in his study of the
frontier ballads, he concentrated on establishing the parameters of their use-
 Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain xv

fulness as evidence, showing not least that they were the products of an upper-
class literary culture that was far removed from the rather nebulous oral popu-
lar tradition to which they had previously been assigned.
In similar vein, his analysis of statistical data in his early study of the popu-
lar movements led directly to the uncovering of the precise social and eco-
nomic roots of these urban uprisings and their relationship to the attacks on
local Jewish communities. His interest in such episodes, which often provided
unusually good and precise evidence of the underlying tensions in fifteenth-
century Castilian society led in time to his third book, Anatomía de una revuelta
urbana: Alcaraz en 1458, which studied the ‘affray’ that took place in Alcaraz in
1458. Deriving initially from an invitation to participate in a conference on
the medieval history of the province of Albacete, this passed through various
recensions, ranging from a talk at one of the annual meetings of the Historians
of Medieval Spain, of which Angus was a founder member, through an article
in the festschrift for Brian Tate, to its fullest incarnation in the short book in
Spanish of 1985, with its appendix of documents.
These and Angus’s many other publications of the 1980s, together with an
extremely heavy teaching load and a willingness to take on university admin-
istrative duties, saw him progress rapidly up the academic ladder. A senior lec-
turer in 1981, he became a Reader the following year. This latter title, totally
opaque to those outside of British academe, had to be glossed in the jacket
blurb for the Alcaraz volume as más o menos equivalente a la cátedra española, a
definition that may not have made things much clearer! In 1986 Angus suc-
ceeded his own former mentor, Denys Hay, and another distinguished Later
Medievalist, Kenneth Fowler, as Professor of Medieval History; to this was
added in 1990 the headship of the whole Department of History. The adminis-
trative burden of the latter, undertaken in a period of particular difficulty in
the recent economic history of the University of Edinburgh, was heavy, and
Angus was unwilling to allow it to circumscribe his commitments to teaching
and to publication and research, with ultimately serious consequences for his
health. Retirement from his chair in 1993 opened the way towards recovery
and the continuation of his research and publication. He was elected a Fellow
of the British Academy in 1991.
Those who only know Angus MacKay through his writings may have the
essence of his scholarship, but have been denied one of its most startling
expressions, its oral delivery. As a lecturer he has always been noted for his
bravura performances; in particular the way he could deliver a carefully con-
structed and complex talk, with a complete mastery of detail and absolute flu-
ency of speech, and yet without a single note. A speaker of such force and a
scholar with such passionate convictions is bound to be a formidable debater
in private as well as public, and Angus has long been admired, but perhaps also
feared by the more easily bruised, for the frank and robust expression of his
ideas and of his views of other people’s work. The matters embraced by such
exchanges of opinion could be wide ranging, and have been known to extend
xvi Angus MacKay and Later Medieval Spain

to such unexpected topics as the unsuitability for a hispanist of an interest in

cricket.
It would be fairer, though, to end this brief tribute with reference to another
of Angus’s distinguishing characteristics; one that marks him out from many
other scholars, and not just in his own field. This is his positive zest for collab-
oration. A glance through the bibliography given below will show just how
many articles he has co-authored with research pupils, colleagues and fellow
hispanists. He has also jointly edited an important chronicle source, and also
shared editorial responsibility for three collections of articles and an atlas.
Similarly, he has served as co-editor with Rachel Arié for the Medieval and
Iberian Peninsula Texts and Studies series of books, published by Brill, which has
gained new life under their direction.
One of the more recent of the latter volumes, published in 1998, consists of
a unique form of collaboration, in which a selection of Ian Macpherson and of
Angus’s articles are so arranged as to provide the chapters of a wide-ranging
study of Love, Religion and Politics in Fifteenth Century Spain. While the second
of these elements is not one that has played a large role in Angus’s oeuvre, at
least on its own terms, to the study of the other two he has made contributions
of the highest significance. But the same could also be said for what he has
done for the understanding of economics, social relations, gender studies, the
analysis of literary sources, the impact of war, the nature of the frontier, royal
ceremonial, climate, apocalyptic, and the post-modernist understanding of
fifteenth-century Castile; no mean achievement.1

Notes
1 I am most grateful to all those friends, colleagues, and fellow hispanists of Angus
who have shared information about and reminiscences of him, both over the years
and in preparation for this appreciation of him.
A bibliography of the works of Angus
MacKay relating to Medieval Spanish
history and literature
Compiled by Anthony Goodman

A) Books
1 Spain in the Later Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500 (Macmillan:
Basingstoke and London, 1977); numerous reprints. Spanish translation La
España de la Edad Media (Madrid, 1980)
2 Money, Prices and Politics in Fifteenth-Century Castile The Royal Historical
Society (London, 1981)
3 Anatomía de una revuelta urbana: Alcaraz en 1458 Instituto de Estudios
Albacetenses (Albacete, 1985)

B) Edited volumes
1 Cosas sacadas de la Historia del Rey Don Juan el Segundo (BL MS Egerton 1875)
Edited with Dorothy Sherman Severin, Exeter University Press: Exeter
Hispanic Texts vol. XXIX, (Exeter, 1981)
2 Medieval Frontier Studies Edited with Robert Bartlett, Oxford University
Press (Oxford, 1989)
3 The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe Edited with Anthony Goodman,
Longmans (London, 1990)
4 Atlas of Medieval Europe Edited with David Ditchburn, Routledge (London,
1997)

C) Collected studies
1 Society, Economy, and Religion in Late Medieval Castile Variorum (London,
1987)
2 Love, religion and politics in fifteenth-century Spain (chs I, II, III, VII, VIII, IX, X
and XII) A volume formed from articles by Angus MacKay and by Ian
Macpherson, = Medieval Iberian Peninsula Texts and Studies, vol. XIII Brill
(Leiden etc., 1998)

D) Articles
1 ‘Popular Movements and Programs in Fifteenth Century Castile’, Past and
Present, vol. 55 (1972), 33–67.
2 – with Anthony Goodman – ‘A Castilian Report on English Affairs’, English
Historical Review, vol. 88 (1973), 92–9.

xvii
xviii A bibliography of the works of Angus MacKay

3 ‘The Ballad and the Frontier in Late Medieval Spain’, Bulletin of Hispanic
Studies, vol. 53 (1976), 15–33 [reprinted as ch. VII of C1, and as ch. 1 of
C2].
4 ‘Recent Literature on Spanish Economic History’, Economic History Review,
2nd series vol. 31 (1978), 129–45.
5 ‘Documentos para la historia de los financieros castellanos de la Baja Edad
Media: una “información” del 23 de septiembre de 1466’, Historia,
Instituciones, Documentos vol. 5 (1978), 321–7 [reprinted as ch. III of C1].
6 ‘Cultura urbana y oligarcas sevillanos en el siglo XV’, in Actas del I
Congresso de Historia de Andalucía, vol. II: Andalucía Medieval (Córdoba,
1978), 1–13 [an English version, ‘Urban Culture and Sevillian Oligarchs’
forms ch. VI of C1].
7 – with Muhammad Benaboud – ‘The authenticity of Alfonso VI’s letter to
Yusuf ibn Tashufin’, Al-Andalus, vol. 43 (1978), 233–7; reprinted in Arabic
in Al-Thaqafa, vol. 77 (1983).
8 ‘Castilla feudal: la guerra como oficio’, Historia 16, vol. 34 (1979), 45–54.
9 – with Muhammad Benaboud – ‘Alfonso VI of León and Castile, “Al-
Imbratur-dhu-l-Millatayn” ‘, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, vol. 56 (1979),
95–102; Arabic version in Al-Thaqafa, vol. 76 (1982).
10 – with Geraldine McKendrick – ‘Confession in the Cantígas de Santa
María’, Reading Medieval Studies vol. 5 (1979), 71–88 [reprinted as ch. VII of
C1].
11 ‘Las alteraciones monetarias en la Castilla del siglo XV: la moneda de
cuenta y la historia política’, in En la España medieval: estudios dedicados a
Julio González (Madrid, 1980 – recte 1981), 237–48 [reprinted as ch. I of C1].
12 ‘Climate and Popular Unrest in Late Medieval Castile’, in T.M.L. Wigley,
M.J. Ingram, and G. Farmer (eds), Studies in Past Climates and their Impact on
Man (Cambridge University Press, 1981), 356–76 [reprinted as ch. XI of C1].
13 ‘Comercio, mercado interior y la expansión económica del siglo XV’, in
Actas del II Coloquio de Historia Medieval Andaluza: Hacienda y Comercio
(Seville, 1982), 103–23 [reprinted as ch. II of C1].
14 ‘Narrative History and Spanish History’, International History Review, vol. 4
(1982), 421–31 [reprinted as ch. XVII of C1].
15 – with Vikki Hatton – ‘Anti-Semitism in the Cantígas de Santa María’,
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies vol. 60 (1983), 189–99 [reprinted as ch. IX of
C1].
16 ‘Métaux précieux et dévaluations au XVe siècle en Castile’, in Les Espagnes
mediévales: aspects économiques et sociaux. Mélanges offerts à Jean Gautier-
Dalché (Nice, 1983), 315–19.
17 ‘Ciudad y campo en la Europa medieval’, Studia Histórica vol. 2 (1984),
27–33 [reprinted as ch. V of C1].
18 – with W.J. Irvine – ‘Medical Diagnosis and Henry IV of Castile’, Historia
Medieval: Anales de la Universidad de Alicante vol. 3 (1984), 183–90 [reprint-
ed as ch. XV of C1].
 A bibliography of the works of Angus MacKay xix

19 ‘Averroistas y marginadas’, in Actas del III Coloquio de Historia Medieval

Andaluza: La sociedad medieval andaluza – Grupos no privilegiados (Jaén,
1984), 247–61 [reprinted as chapter XII of C1, and an English version as
‘Women on the margins’ is ch. II of C2].
20 – with Muhammad Benaboud – ‘Yet Again Alfonso VI, “The Emperor, Lord
of (the Adherents of) the Two Faiths, the Most Excellent Ruler”. A
Rejoinder to Norman Roth’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, vol. 61 (1984),
165–81.
21 ‘The Hispanic-Converso Problem’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
5th series, vol. 35 (1985), 159–79 [reprinted as ch. XIII of C1].
22 ‘Ritual and Propaganda in Fifteenth Century Castile’, Past and Present vol.
107 (1985), 3–43 [reprinted as ch. XIV of C1, and as ch. III of C2].
23 ‘¿Aculturación o rechazo? La sociedad castellana en el siglo XV’, in
Canarias – America antés del descubrimiento (La Laguna, 1986).
24 ‘A Typical Example of Late Medieval Castilian Anarchy? The Affray of
1458 in Alcaraz’, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honour of Robert
Brian Tate, ed. R. Cardwell and I. Michael (Oxford, 1986), 81–93. [A fuller
Spanish version = A3]
25 ‘The Lesser Nobility in the Kingdom of Castille’, in Michael Jones (ed.),
Gentry and Lesser Nobility in Later Medieval Europe (Gloucester, 1986),
159–80 [reprinted as ch. IV of C1].
26 – with Geraldine McKendrick – ‘The Crowd in Theatre and the Crowd in
History: Fuenteovejuna’, Renaissance Drama, new series vol. 17 (1986),
125–47.
27 ‘Don Fernando de Antequera y la Virgen Santa María’, in Homenaje al
Professor Juan Torres Fontes (Murcia, 1987), vol. 2, 949–57. [English version,
‘Fernando of Antequera and the Virgin Mary’ forms ch. VII of C2]
28 ¿‘Existerion aduanas en la frontera castellana–portuguesa en el siglo XV?’,
in 2 Jornadas Luso-Espanholas (Porto, 1987), 3–21.
29 – with Philip Hersch and Geraldine McKendrick – ‘The Semiology of
Dress in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain’, in Le corps paré:
ornaments et atours (Cahiers du Centre d’Etudes Mediévales de Nice, 1987),
95–113.
30 – with Geraldine McKendrick – ‘La semiología y los ritos de violencia:
sociedad y poder en la Corona de Galicia’, En la España Medieval, vol. 11
(1988), 153–65.
31 ‘Los romances fronterizos como fuente histórica’, in Actas del IV Coloquio
de Historia Medieval Andaluza (Almería, 1988), 273–85.
32 ‘Andalucía y la guerra del fín del mundo’, Actas del V Coloquio de Historia
Medieval Andaluza (Córdoba, 1988), 329–42.
33 ‘Courtly Love and Lust in Loja’, in Alan Deyermond and Ian Macpherson
(eds), The Age of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1516: Literary Studies in
Memory of Keith Whinnom (Liverpool, 1989), 83–94 [reprinted as ch. VIII of
C2].
xx A bibliography of the works of Angus MacKay

34 ‘El amor cortés en la frontera’, in Estudios sobre Málaga y el Reino de Granada

en el V Centenario, ed. J.E. López de Coca (Málaga, 1989), 351–62.
35 ‘The Lord of Hosts’, in Essays on Hispanic Themes in Honour of Edward C.
Riley (Chippenham, 1989), 41–50.
36 ‘The Problems of a Jewish Tax Farmer’, Mikael, vol. 9 (1989).
37 ‘The Virgin’s Vassals’, in God and Man in Medieval Spain: Essays in Honour of
J.R.L. Highfield (Warminster, 1989), 49–58.
38 ‘Religion, Culture and Ideology on the Late Medieval Castilian–Granadan
Frontier’, in B2, 217–43 [reprinted as ch. IX of C2].
39 ‘Hacienda y sociedad en la Castilla bajomedieval’, in Estado, hacienda y
sociedad en la historia de España, ed. B. Bennassar (Valladolid, 1989).
40 – with Geraldine McKendrick – ‘Visionaries and Affective Spirituality dur-
ing the first half of the Sixteenth Century’, in Culture and Control in Counter-
Reformation Spain, ed. A. Cruz and M.E. Perry (California, 1989), 93–104.
41 ‘Mujeres y religiosidad’, in Las Mujeres en el Christianismo medieval, ed. A.
Muñoz Fernández (Madrid, 1989), 489–508.
42 ‘A Pluralist Society: Medieval Spain’, in The Hispanic World: Civilization and
Empire. Europe and the Americas Past and Present, ed. J.H. Elliott (London,
1991), 17–32.
43 ‘Los bandos: aspectos culturales’, in Lucien Clare and Jacques Heers (eds),
Bandos y querellas dinásticas al final de la Edad Media: Actas del Coloquio cele-
brado en la Biblioteca Española de Paris los días 15 y 16 de Mayo de 1987
(Paris, 1991), 15–27.
44 ‘La conflictividad social urbana’, in VI Coloquio Internacional de Historia
Medieval de Andalucia (Málaga, 1991), 509–24.
45 ‘Un Cid Ruy Díaz en el siglo XV: Rodrigo Ponce de León, Marqués de
Cádiz’, in Simposio internacional: El Cid en el Valle del Jalón (Calatayud,
1991), 197–207.
46 ‘The Jews of Spain in the Middle Ages’, in Elie Kedourie (ed.), Spain and the
Jews: the Sephardi Experience, 1492 and After (London, 1992), 33–50.
47 ‘Jewish and Christian Relations in Medieval Spain’, in La Biblia de Alba: an
Illustrated Manuscript Bible, 2 vols ed. J. Schonfield (London and Madrid,
1992), vol. 1, 27–34.
48 ‘The Whores of Babylon’, in Marjorie Reeves (ed.), Prophetic Rome in the
High Renaissance Period: Essays (Oxford, 1992), 223–32 [reprinted as ch. X
of C2].
49 ‘Signs Deciphered – Semiology and Court Display in Late Medieval Spain’,
in Anne Duggan (ed.), Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe (London,
1993), pp. 287–304.
50 ‘Apuntes para le estudio de la mujer en la Edad Media’, in C. del Moral
(ed.), Arabes, Judios y Christians: mujeres en la España medieval (Granada,
1993), 15–33.
51 – with Ian Macpherson – ‘Manteniendo la tela: el erotismo del vocabulario
caballeresco-textil en la época de los Reyes Católicos’, in Actas del Primer
 A bibliography of the works of Angus MacKay xxi

Congresso Anglo-Hispano (Madrid, 1994), vol. 1, 25–36. [An English version

forms ch. XII of C2]
52 ‘Castile and Navarre’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History vol. VII: c.
1415–c.1500, ed. C. Allmand (Cambridge, 1998), 606–26.
53 ‘The Late Middle Ages, 1250–1500’, in Raymond Carr (ed.), Spain A History
(Oxford, 2000), 90–115.
Notes on the Contributors

Simon Barton is Reader in Medieval Spanish History at the University of

Exeter. He has published numerous articles on medieval Spain in books and
scholarly journals and is the author of The Aristocracy in Twelfth-Century León
and Castile (1997), which was awarded the Premio del Rey Prize for 1998 by the
American Historical Society. His most recent work, co-authored with Richard
Fletcher, is The World of El Cid: Chronicles of the Spanish Reconquest (2000). He is
a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Robert I. Burns S.J. has been a senior professor at UCLA since 1976. He holds
doctorates in medieval history (John Hopkins) and modern (Fribourg,
Switzerland). He is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the Hispanic
Society of America, a Guggenheim Fellow, and, in Spain a Fellow of the Institut
d’Estudis Catalans. He holds the Medieval Academy’s gold medal, eight hon-
orary doctorates, including the University of Valencia, and six national book
awards. His honours from Spain include the Cross of St George, the Premi
Catalònia, the Premi Serra d’Or, and the Premi Internacional Ramon Lull. He is
a member of UCLA’s Near Eastern and Medieval–Renaissance Centers, has been
on the board of the Patronato Nacional Misteri d’Elx since 1987, and is director
of the Institute of Medieval Mediterranean Spain in Playa del Rey. His 14 books
include most recently on Spain: Jews in the Notarial Culture (1996), Negotiating
Cultures: Bilingual Surrender Treaties (1999), Las Siete Partidas (5 vols, 2001), and
Transition in Crusader Valencia, 1264–1270 (2002).

Roger Collins is an Honorary Research Fellow in the University of

Edinburgh. He is the author of Early Medieval Spain, 400–1000: Unity in Diversity
(1983; second edn 1995), The Basques (1986), The Arab Conquest of Spain,
710–797 (1989), Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain (1992),
and The Oxford Archaeological Guide to Spain (1998), among other things.

Ana Echevarria studied for the Licenciatura in the Universidad

Complutense in Madrid, before obtaining a PhD in the University of
Edinburgh, where she wrote her thesis, ‘The Perception of Muslims in
Fifteenth Century Spain’, under the supervision of Angus MacKay. This was
published as The Fortress of Faith: the Attitude towards Muslims in Fifteenth
Century Spain (1999). She is currently Assistant Lecturer in the Universidad
Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid and a Visiting Professor at New
York University (Madrid Campus). Recent publications include her biography,
Catalina de Lancaster (1372–1418) (2002).

xxii
 Notes on the Contributors xxiii

John Edwards was Reader in Spanish History at the University of

Birmingham, and is now Research Fellow in Spanish in the University of
Oxford, teaching in the Faculties of Modern History and Modern Languages.
His most recent books are The Spanish Inquisition (1999) and The Spain of the
Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1520 (2000); the latter translated as La España de los
Reyes Católicos, 1474–1520 (2001). He is preparing for publication an English
translation and a study of Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza.

Manuel González Jiménez is Catedrático de Historia Medieval in the

University of Seville and currently Director del Departamento de Historia
Medieval y Ciencias Historiográficas of the same university. He is also the
director of the ‘Cátedra Alfonso X el Sabio’ in El Puerto de Santa María and the
editor of the journals Historia. Instituciones. Documentos and Alcanate: Revista
de Estudios Alfonsíes (the periodical of the ‘Cátedra Alfonso X el Sabio’). He is a
Fellow of the Real Academia Sevillana de Buenos Letras, and a corresponding
Fellow of the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid and of the Real Academia
Alfonso X in Murcia, as well as of the Academia de la Historia de Portugal. He is
the author of numerous publications, dealing primarily with the repopulation
of Andalucía in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and with the reign of
Alfonso X el Sabio. Among his most recent books are Diplomatario Andaluz de
Alfonso X (Seville, 1991), Alfonso X el Sabio (1252–1284). Historia de un reinado
(1993; rev. edn 1999), Andalucia a debate y otros estudios (1994), and an anno-
tated edition of the Crónica de Alfonso X (1999).

Anthony Goodman is Professor Emeritus of Medieval and Renaissance

History in the University of Edinburgh. His principal research involvements
lie in the political and social history of England in the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries, but he also has a particular interest in Anglo-Iberian rela-
tions in the later Middle Ages. Among his publications with a bearing on this
theme is John of Gaunt (1992).

Richard Hitchcock is Professor of Hispano-Arabic Studies in the University

of Exeter. He has had a life-long interest in the history, literature and culture of
Al-Andalus, and his research has dealt in particular with the Mozarabs, the
Kharjas, and the Moriscos. He has also written on Hispano-Arabic historiogra-
phy and the history of travel writing about Spain and Morocco. He is an editor
of the Exeter Hispanic Texts series, for which he himself prepared an edition of
Richard Ford’s letters to Pascual de Gayangos (1974). He has edited (with Alan
Jones) and contributed to Studies on Muwassah and Kharja: Proceedings of the
Exeter International Colloquium (1991), and edited (with Ralph Penny) and
contributed to the Actas del primer congreso anglo-hispano III: Historia (1994).
He is now completing a book on the Mozarabs.
xxiv Notes on the Contributors

Jose Enrique López de Coca Castañer, holder of a doctorate from the

University of Granada, is Catedrático de Historia Medieval in the University of
Málaga, and was formerly Directeur d’études of the EHESS in Paris (1996). His
research has been primarily concerned with the history of the Kingdom of
Granada in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; concentrating on such top-
ics as the frontier between Granada and Castile, the Christian repopulation of
the region, state finance, the Mudejars, and the Moriscos. He is also interested
in the history of maritime trade in the western Mediterranean and in relations
with North Africa in the same period. Among his most recent publications
may be found: ‘Caballeros moriscos’ al servicio de Juan II y Enrique IV, reyes de
Castilla (1996); ‘Morus nigra’ vs ‘Morus alba’ en la sericultura mediterránea
(1997); Granada y la expansión portuguesa en el Magreb Extremo (1998); El reino
nazarí de Granada y los medievalistas españoles (1999); Genoveses en la corte de los
Reyes Católicos: los hermanos Ytalian (2000); La ‘Ratio Fructe regni Granate’;
Datos conocidos y cuestiones por resolver (2001); Historia de Andalucía: Edad Media
(2002).

Ian Macpherson, Professor Emeritus of the University of Durham, is cur-

rently an Honorary Research Fellow of Queen Mary, University of London,
having previously been Professor of Spanish (1980–83) and Chairman of the
Department of Spanish and Italian (1983–93) in the University of Durham. A
Comendador of the Orden de Isabel la Católica and Honorary Fellow of the
Hispanic Society of America and of the Asociación Hispánica de Literatura
Medieval, he is also a past President of the Association of Hispanists of Great
Britain and Ireland (1986–88). Among his publications are Spanish Phonology:
Descriptive and Historical (1975), The Manueline Succession: the Poetry of Don
Juan Manuel II and Dom João Manuel (1979), an edition of Juan Manuel’s Libro
de Estados (with Brian Tate, 1974; rev. edn 1991), The ‘Invenciones y letras’ of the
‘Cancionero General’ (1998), and Love, Religion and Politics in Fifteenth Century
Spain (1998), in collaboration with Angus MacKay. He has also edited Juan
Manuel Studies (1997), and volumes of essays in memory of Keith Whinnom
(with Alan Deyermond, 1989) and in honour of Alan Deyermond (with Ralph
Penny, 1997).

Nicholas Round FBA is Research Professor of Hispanic Studies in the

University of Sheffield. He taught in the Queen’s University of Belfast for ten
years from 1962, and for 22 years was Stevenson Professor of Hispanic Studies
in the University of Glasgow. His publications include The Greatest Man
Uncrowned: a Study of the Fall of Don Alvaro de Luna (1986), a book massively
indebted to Angus MacKay, and an edition of the fifteenth-century Castilian
translation of Plato’s Phaedo. Interests in the history and theory of translation
have also informed a number of his articles on fifteenth-century cultural his-
tory and on the Celestina.
 Notes on the Contributors xxv

Teofilo F. Ruiz is Professor of History in the University of California, Los

Angeles. A student of Joseph R. Strayer, he received his PhD from Princeton in
1974 and taught at Brooklyn College, the CUNY Graduate Center, the
University of Michigan, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
(Paris), and Princeton (as 250th Anniversary Visiting Professor for
Distinguished Teaching), before joining the History Department at UCLA in
1998. He has been a frequent lecturer in the US, Spain, Italy, France, England,
Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Recipient of fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the American Council of
Learned Societies, in 1994–95, he was selected as one of four Outstanding
Teachers of the Year in the United States by the Carnegie Foundation. He has
published six books and over 40 articles in national and international scholar-
ly journals, plus hundreds of reviews and smaller articles. His Crisis and
Continuity: Land and Town in Late Medieval Castile (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1994) was awarded the Premio del Rey prize by the
American Historical Association as the best book in Spanish history before
1580 within a two-year period, 1994–95. His latest book, Spanish Society,
1400–1600 was published in 2001. Another book, From Heaven to Earth: the
Reordering of Late Medieval Castilian Society, is forthcoming.

Dorothy Sherman Severin has been the Gilmour Professor of Spanish at

the University of Liverpool since 1982, when she became the first woman to
hold a chair of Spanish in Great Britain. From 1989 to 1992 she was the first
woman to hold the post of Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Liverpool.
She has recently founded Women in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American
Studies (WISPS). A specialist in the literature of the reign of Ferdinand and
Isabel, she is internationally known for her monographs and editions of the
Spanish classic, Celestina, as well as for her editions of and work on the
Spanish songbooks of the fifteenth century.

Robert Brian Tate FBA is Emeritus Professor in the University of

Nottingham, where he held the Chair of Spanish from 1958 to 1983. He has
been a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Cornell, SUNY at Buffalo and the
Universities of Texas and of Virginia, and is a Corresponding Fellow of the
Institut d’Estudis Catalans and of the Real Academia de Buenas Letras de
Barcelona, and of the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid. He has edited
the Generaciones y semblanzas of Fernán Pérez de Guzmán (1963), (with Ian
Macpherson) Don Juan Manuel’s Libro de los estados (1974; rev. edn 1991), the
Claros Varones de Castilla of Fernando del Pulgar (1971; rev. edn 1985), the
Epistolario of Alonso de Palencia (1983), and (with Jeremy Lawrance) the same
author’s Gesta Hispaniensia ex annalibus suorum dierum collecta (2 vols 1997).
Among his other publications are Ensayos sobre la historiografia peninsular del
xxvi Notes on the Contributors

siglo XV (1970), El Cardenal Joan Margarit i Pau, Bisbe de Girona: vida i obra
(1976), and Pilgrimages to St. James of Compostela from the British Isles during the
Middle Ages (1990), as well as many articles.
1
Continuity and Loss in Medieval
Spanish Culture: the Evidence of MS
Silos, Archivo Monástico 4
Roger Collins

While the theme of Convivencia is normally conceived of in terms of the relation-

ships between the different ethnic and cultural communities that co-existed in
the Iberian peninsula for much of the Middle Ages, it would not be inappropriate
also to consider it in the light of how far each community could tolerate the exis-
tence of variety within itself. In particular, to what extent, if at all, could alterna-
tive forms of Christianity coexist within the same society? This question relates
not least to the survival of long-established indigenous traditions of religious
thought and practice in Spain, stretching back to Late Antiquity, whose continu-
ance was threatened in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries, and whose ensu-
ing elimination has rightly been seen as marking the most significant rupture in
the development of medieval Spanish Christian culture.1 Such a theme, con-
cerning itself with the conflicts over and the eventual demise of the so-called
Visigothic or Mozarabic script, art, liturgy, and intellectual tradition, can hardly
be treated as a whole here. However, an approach through one particular codex
may at least serve to illustrate both long term continuities and their demise.
In the year 1052 a copy of a manuscript was made by a priest called
Bartholomew for an abbot, Domingo, with the costs being covered by ‘Sancho
Garceiz de Montealbo’ and his wife Bizinnina.2 This couple were probably the
lords of Montalbo en Cameros, on the slopes of the Cerro Palomero, on the
southern edge of the Rioja, near Logroño. An estate that may once have been
theirs, and which by then had come into the possession of the abbey of Albelda,
features in a charter of around 1100, but Sancho and Bizinnina themselves make
their only appearance in recorded history as the patrons of the copying of this
manuscript; something for which they should be remembered with gratitude, as
without them a unique version of an important work would have been lost.3
The text that Bartholomew copied was that of a Liber Ordinum of the
Visigothic or Mozarabic liturgy.4 This is a form of service book, containing
prayers, antiphons, and benedictions in their correct liturgical order,
sometimes accompanied by the rubrics or stage directions necessary for the

1
2 Medieval Spain

performance of the rituals for which the texts had been composed. Such a
book did not concern itself with the regular rites of the liturgical year, that is to
say the daily masses of the sanctoral and temporal, which would have been
found in a Sacramentary. Nor did it contain the texts used in the monastic
daily offices, which appeared in the Books of Hours. Instead, it provided what
was needed for the performance of all kinds of additional or exceptional ser-
vices, ranging from prayers for someone setting out on a journey to the waxing
of a first beard, or from a mass in time of public calamity to a votive mass for a
catechumen suffering from diabolical possession.
Only three Libri Ordinum of the Mozarabic rite have survived, together
with minute fragments of two others.5 But they are of two kinds. A charter
of the Galician monastery of Sobrado, dating to 955, can be cited as the clear-
est statement of the distinction between them.6 In this document bishop
Sisnando of Compostela gave the monastery . . . hordinos duos, unum episco-
palem et alterum minorem. The latter contained only those services for which
priestly rather than episcopal status was sufficient. The only known example
of such a book is MS 3 in the archivo monástico of Santo Domingo de Silos.7 As
might be expected, it is far more limited in its range of contents than the two
surviving episcopal Libri Ordinum. One of these is a manuscript from San
Millán de la Cogolla, now in the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid,
where it is MS Aemilianensis 56, and the other is MS Silos, archivo monástico
4.8 This latter, which contains a scribal colophon upon which the forgoing
account of its scribe and patrons derives, has long been identified as the man-
uscript written by Bartholomew in 1052.
The abbot and priest Domingo, for whom this scribe prepared his manu-
script, ruled over the monastery of San Prudencio de Laturce, located near the
Peñas de Clavijo, about five miles north of Montalbo.9 The monastery was
of uncertain, but probably early tenth-century foundation, and it claimed
to house the body of the late fourth/early fifth-century Christian poet
Prudentius.10 As the latter is now thought to have lived in Calahorra, only
some twenty or so miles to the east, this is not entirely improbable, and it was
a claim to some local distinction. Even so, the presence of this important relic
had not permitted the monastery to flourish, and its earliest extant docu-
ment, dated to 950, records the transfer of its somewhat meagre properties,
and the submission made by its abbot and his six surviving monks to the far
more flourishing monastic community of Albelda, its near neighbour to the
west.11 However, the Albeldan community does not seem to have evinced
much interest in San Prudencio, and in 1058 it was given by Albelda to the
Navarrese nobles Jimeno and Sancho Fortuñez, in return for another
monastery that they owned.12 San Prudencio was subsequently only saved
from extinction by being refounded in 1162 as a house of Cistercian monks
from Morimond, on a new site in the valley of the Jubera.13
So, it may have been just six years prior to the change of ownership in
1058, that abbot Domingo received the manuscript written by the priest
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 3

Bartholomew. This scribe was probably not himself a monk of San Prudencio.
The latter has left no evidence of ever possessing a scriptorium, and the word-
ing of the scribal colophon makes it more likely that Bartholomew was work-
ing for an abbot other than his own.14 It has long been assumed that his place
of writing was the neighbouring monastery of Albelda, then San Prudencio’s
superior and itself the site of a major scriptorium, which, even if it has not left
many other traces of itself, was capable of producing one of the most substan-
tial and significant of early medieval Spanish manuscripts, in the form of the
Codex Vigilano of 976.15
The attribution of Bartholomew’s manuscript to Albelda has recently been
challenged on art historical grounds.16 Based on these, an alternative home
has been suggested for the manuscript in the monastery of San Millán de la
Cogolla, about twenty miles further west. These stylistic arguments are power-
ful and persuasive, and they have been accepted without reservation in the
most recent study of the scriptorium and manuscripts of Silos.17 However, it
also has to be stated that there exist overwhelmingly strong textual arguments
in favour of an Albeldan origin for Bartholomew’s manuscript. The resolution
of this conflict will emerge presently, but first it is necessary to give some indi-
cation of why the Albeldan case is such a strong one. One of the sections of the
Liber Ordinum in MS Silos, archivo monástico 4 contains the text of a canon of
the seventh Council of Toledo of 653.18 This opens with a reference back to
the decrees of an earlier council, here said to be an unspecified Toledan synod:
statuta toletani concilii. However, the ruling that is cited actually comes from
the decrees of the Council of Valencia of 549, and virtually all manuscripts of
the Visigothic conciliar collections offer the correct reading: statuta vallentani
concilii.19 The only significant exception is the Codex Vigilano of 976, written
in Albelda, which has exactly the same wording as that to be found in
Bartholomew’s manuscript. Even the Codex Aemilianensis, written in San
Millán in 992 or 994 and otherwise a direct copy of the Codex Vigilano, does
not follow its exemplar here, and silently corrects toletani to vallentani. That
the Codex Vigilano and Bartholomew’s manuscript uniquely share this erro-
neous reading would seem to argue persuasively for an Albeldan origin for the
latter.
This, however, is not to dispute the art historical arguments that favour a
probable San Millán origin for MS Silos, archivo monástico 4. This is no para-
dox: contrary to what has always been believed, Bartholomew’s manuscript
and Silos MS, archivo monástico 4 are not one and the same thing. The latter is
a copy of the former, and not the original. Such a suspicion can only be rein-
forced by the evidence of the crucial scribal colophon. This is placed not, as
might be expected, at the end of the manuscript, but thirteen folios before its
conclusion in its present state.20 In MS Silos, archivo monástico 4 the material
following the colophon is written in the same hand and with the same pen as
that immediately preceding it. There was thus no apparent hiatus between the
writing of the colophon and that of the texts that follow it. The colophon
4 Medieval Spain

itself, very unusually, extends over two pages. It starts on folio 331 verso and is
carried on to folio 332 recto.21 What may be regarded as a far more normal
practice may be seen in the case of the other Silos manuscript of a Liber
Ordinum, MS archivo monástico 3, in which the scribe’s colophon, dating this
manuscript to the year 1039, is squeezed, in much smaller script, into the
space left between the end of his text and the bottom of the page.22 Although
this was a recto, he was not even allowed to let it extend onto the verso.
Stylistically as well as physically the colophon we are concerned with,
unlike that in Silos MS, a.m. 3, is also unusually wordy in its requests for the
prayers of future readers of the codex. Marking as it appears to, the conclusion
of the writing of Bartholomew’s manuscript, it is thus first of all surprising that
this colophon would have been allowed to flow on to a new page. Secondly,
despite its clearly terminal and substantial character, the additional texts that
follow the colophon in MS Silos, archivo monástico 4 show no indications of
scribal change or even delay. In other words, this could even be a second gen-
eration copy of Bartholomew’s original. The latter would have ended with the
colophon, in which the scribe was able to wax verbose because of the amount
of space left on his final page. A small corpus of other liturgical texts was sub-
sequently added either to the original manuscript or to a copy of it, and it was
this extended version that was in turn copied, probably at San Millán, to pro-
duce what we have today as MS Silos, archivo monástico 4.23
Although involving the undermining of one of the relatively few seemingly
fixed points in the unsteady firmament of Visigothic palaeography, an appar-
ently securely dated codex, this revision of the status of this manuscript may
have a bearing on two further lines of enquiry. These are the questions of how
this manuscript came to Silos, and the status and significance of the texts that
it contains. For the first of these, an origin or location of Bartholomew’s manu-
script in San Prudencio de Laturce is something of a problem. Until the year
1076 Silos and San Prudencio belonged to two different and mutually antag-
onistic kingdoms. There are no recorded contacts between the two monaster-
ies, and no obvious contexts for them, either in the period leading up to the
holding of the Council of Burgos in 1080 and the formal condemnation in the
course of it of the use of the Mozarabic liturgy, or thereafter.24 With San Millán
de la Cogolla, on the other hand, close relations can be shown to have existed.
For one thing, Silos’s most famous abbot, Santo Domingo (c. 1041?–1073), is
said in his near contemporary Vita to have been prior of San Millán before his
enforced migration into Castille.25
More significant in the present context is the fact that San Millán has been
shown to be a source of books for Silos. Once again the arguments are art his-
torical, as the present state of the study of Visigothic palaeography does not
permit of the assigning of manuscripts to identifiable monastic scriptoria on
the basis of script alone. Although this has been disputed, Silos may have only
had a functioning scriptorium of its own in the later eleventh and early
twelfth centuries.26 In other periods it had to depend on the products of other
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 5

neighbouring monasteries for all or most of its manuscripts. It has been sug-
gested that only 21 per cent of manuscripts now associated with Silos were
actually written there, and its debts to its neighbours have been calculated as
follows: Valeránica wrote 17 per cent of Silos’s manuscripts, Cardeña 25 per
cent, San Millán 8 per cent, while another 29 per cent came from unidentified
scriptoria.27 Amongst the group of manuscripts that Silos may have commis-
sioned or bought from San Millán must be included MS archivo monástico 4.
When it arrived in Silos can not be easily determined, though the chances
are that this occurred at a relatively early stage. In the thirteenth century a list
of books was added to a copy of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville that had
been written at Silos in 1072 by the priest Ericonus. This is normally taken to
represent a catalogue of the books then in the Silos library. Amongst roughly
one hundred and fifty items there appears, as number 18, a single ‘Liber
Ordinum’.28 As there are now two pre-thirteenth-century Libri Ordinum still
preserved amongst the Silos books, it is not possible to assert with confidence
that the one referred to here is MS 4. However, a marginal note in a twelfth-
century hand on folio 181v contains the opening words of a liturgical
response said to have been composed for the feast of Santo Domingo, the for-
mer abbot of Silos.29 That this note was added to the manuscript anywhere
other than Silos would seem improbable, and it is thus reasonable to assume
that the codex belonged to the monastery in the twelfth century, and may
very well be the one in the library list.30
The realization that, while the extant copy may have been written in San
Millán, Bartholomew’s original manuscript was a product of Albelda, could
imply that a particularly important book has thus been preserved. While the
papal assault on the survival of the Mozarabic liturgy was gathering strength
in the middle decades of the eleventh century, moves were made to head it off
and to justify the continued use of the old Spanish rite. Amongst the defensive
measures taken is an episode recorded in an eleventh-century note added to
the Codex Aemilianensis, in which it was reported that four manuscripts con-
taining service books of the Mozarabic liturgy were taken by three Navarrese
bishops to Pope Alexander II (1061–73) who, having examined them, to-
gether with the abbot of Monte Cassino, accepted their perfect orthodoxy and
sanctioned their continued employment.31
It has been a matter of scholarly debate as to whether or not these events
ever occurred, as spurious claims to papal approval were used unsuccessfully
to deflect the final assault on the Mozarabic liturgy in the time of Gregory
VII.32 However, the reality or otherwise of the episode matters less for present
purposes than the fact that this text in the Codex Aemilianensis indicates that
for the defenders of the traditional liturgy in Navarre, particularly significant
examples of four different types of Mozarabic service books were being pre-
served in three different monastic centres in the kingdom. The books in ques-
tion were a Liber Orationum and an antiphonary, both from Irache, a
sacramentary from Santa Gema, and a Liber Ordinum from Albelda.
6 Medieval Spain

This was not just a token representation, in that one monastery, Irache, was
credited with providing two of the four manuscripts, and the houses con-
cerned were of very different standing. Santa Gema was otherwise of little
note, while so major a monastery as San Millán was not represented. It seems
more reasonable to suppose that the three houses concerned were known to
possess particularly authoritative or old examples of the service books in ques-
tion. Of the manuscripts of Santa Gema, which was given to the bishop of
Pamplona in 1063, nothing is known.33 The much more famous Irache was
extensively patronized by King Sancho IV ‘el de Peñalen’, and swallowed up
several smaller monasteries in the 1060s and 1070s, and with them no doubt
the books they possessed.34 But again no traces of these have survived. Only in
the case of the Liber Ordinum of Albelda do we have, in MS Silos 4, a possible
copy of a copy of the famous book that ought to have convinced Pope
Alexander II that the Spanish liturgy was both ancient and orthodox.
The book itself confirms the impression that it was a rather special copy of
the Liber Ordinum. As previously mentioned, only one other copy of the epis-
copal version of this service book has survived, in the form of a San Millán
manuscript, now Real Academia de la Historia Aemilianensis 56, which has
been assigned a tenth-century date and an origin in the scriptorium of San
Millán.35 It is easy by comparing the two to reveal what is common to both
and what exclusive to each.36 The outcome of such an exercise is illuminating.
Simply put, there are numerous similarities, both in the texts of the various
services and in their ordering in the manuscripts. In a few cases the earlier San
Millán codex can provide complete texts for services now missing from the
Silos manuscript, but which the latter’s table of contents indicate it once con-
tained.37 There are also some individual prayers and antiphons and about half
a dozen whole services that are to be found in the San Millán book, but were
clearly never present in its Silos equivalent. In general, though, it could be said
that about ninety-odd per cent of the contents of the earlier manuscript are to
be found in the later, and generally, though not entirely, in the same order.
On the other hand, the Silos manuscript contains ordines for several services
of which there are no traces in the San Millán version. These include virtually
all of the texts that have made the former famous, such as the liturgy for a king
setting out to war and for his return from campaign.38 The liturgical items that
have been preserved in the Silos Liber Ordinum but not in that from San Millán
may reasonably be assumed to be ones that were of little or no practical use to
a bishop in the eleventh-century kingdoms of Navarre or Castile. It is certain-
ly easy enough to show that the Silos codex had retained texts for some com-
pletely archaic services, while few if any of those to be found in the San Millán
manuscript could be thought to fall into such a category.
Thus, for example, amongst the wealth of archaic items retained in the Silos
manuscript, but missing from its San Millán equivalent, are such texts as a
service for the reconciliation of repentant Donatists, members of a peculiarly
North African schismatic sect that much troubled St. Augustine (d. 430)
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 7

amongst others.39 This is not something ever known to have been a problem
faced by the Spanish Church, least of all in the eleventh century. It is just con-
ceivable that fugitive Donatists appeared in Spain as a result of the migration
of clerics from North Africa that took place in the mid-sixth century, but none
have ever been recorded. It is thus possible that the archetype of this section of
the book was a lost African liturgical libellus of fourth to sixth-century date.
Also included in the Silos Liber Ordinum, and not in that from San Millán, is a
service for the reception of converts from Arianism, a process not known to
have been required after the year 590.40
In a study of the ordination rites of the Mozarabic liturgy, attention has
recently been drawn to the divergences between the different clerical grades
catered for in Silos MS a.m. 4 (and here also in the Vic pontifical) and those to
be found recorded in all other relevant texts of Visigothic origin; notably
Isidore of Seville’s De Ecclesiasticis Officiis and Etymologiae, and the probably
late seventh-century Pseudo-Isidoran Epistola and Leudefredum.41 Some of the
grades recorded in the Silos manuscript, such as those of archpriest and primi-
clericus, were specific only to major episcopal churches and the clergy who
served them, and were omitted from the more general descriptions of the cler-
ical orders provided by Isidore. While the office of archpriest survived, albeit
in a modified form, that of primiclericus (or primiclerus) may not have outlived
the seventh century. Possibly the last reference to the holder of such a position
comes in the Iudicium of Julian of Toledo’s Historia Wambae, written in the
670s or 680s.42
On the basis of such examples, it has long been felt that some, or indeed
much, of the contents of MS Silos a.m. 4 derives directly from the great age of
liturical composition in the Visigothic period proper. Indeed, in 1904 the first
editor of its text, Dom Marius Férotin, himself a monk of Silos, postulated a
fifth-century origin for the compilation.43 More recent studies of the initial
stages of the development of the liturgy in the West generally would suggest
that such a date would be too early.44 This, it is worth noting, is not the only
instance of such an over-optimistic views of the antiquity of a Mozarabic litur-
gical compilation. One case in particular needs to be mentioned here, because
of its perceived relationship to MS Silos 4.
It has long been thought, and all too assuredly claimed that the famous
antiphonal, preserved in León cathedral library as MS 8, is a copy of a lost
exemplar that was written in the diocese of Beja in the first year of the reign of
Wamba (672–80), in other words in 672.45 The basis for an origin in Beja
derives from a reference in the liturgical calendar, with which the manuscript
opens, to a Teuderedus episcopus. A bishop of such name is known from concil-
iar subscriptions to have held the see of Pax Iulia (the later Beja) in the 640s.
The dating clause that refers to Wamba’s first regnal year features in a collec-
tion of computistic texts located in the manuscript between the calendar and
the antiphonal proper.46 However, palaeographic and codicological analysis
reveal that neither the calendar nor these other items originally formed an
8 Medieval Spain

integral part of the manuscript of the Antiphonal, and thus their chronologic-
al and geographical indicators have no bearing whatsoever on the origins of
the latter. León Cathedral MS 8 is therefore not a copy of a lost seventh-
century manuscript. Indeed, a comparative study of the growth of the use of
this particular type of liturgical book in the Western Church in general would
have shown that no such fully developed an antiphonary, with completely
integrated sanctoral and temporal, could have existed at so early a date.47
Faced with such an example, it would be unwise to assume that Silos MS 4
derives directly from a lost Visigothic exemplar.
But that some of its contents do have a seventh-century origin can easily be
demonstrated. To a far greater degree than the much-reduced San Millán manu-
script of the Liber Ordinum, MS Silos a.m. 4 has preserved not only liturgical
texts but also in many cases the rubrics, effectively the stage directions, for a
remarkable series of rituals. Amongst the best known of these are the cere-
monies to be performed when a king sets out for war, and for when he returns.
The rubrics for the latter have not been preserved, but those for the former
accompany the prayers, benedictions and antiphons of the service.48 From
this alone we know that the kings for whom these services were intended
received in the course of the ceremony ‘the golden cross in which is contained
the wood of the blessed cross’ (that is, this was regarded as a relic of the cross of
the Crucifixion, as supposedly rediscovered in Jerusalem by the emperor
Constantine’s mother around 330).49 This in turn the king solemnly present-
ed to a priest, who then bore it before the monarch throughout the course of
the ensuing campaign. It may be assumed that the lost rubrics of the ritual for
the royal return dealt with the way that this precious relic was again taken
back into the safe keeping of the church in which it was housed in times of
peace.
A few other elements of what may be called the liturgy of kingship have sur-
vived in a handful of extant Mozarabic service books. In almost all cases these
come from the ceremonies of royal initiation (though not including unction)
or of the celebration of the king’s birthday.50 The presumption must be strong
that these survivals in other service books, including lectionaries, reflect con-
tinuing usage. Other ceremonies of Visigothic origin that were no longer of
practical value, were purged from the books in the course of their being copied
and recopied. In other words, the Asturian, Leonese, Castilian, and Navarrese
kings of those centuries still had their reigns inaugurated by ceremonies that
may have originated in the preceding Visigothic period, but had given up
most of the other, elaborate ceremonies that their Visigothic predecessors had
once enjoyed. That such continuities were indeed practised may be seen, for
example, from the very similar accounts of the ways in which the Visigothic
king Wamba in 680 and the Castilian monarch Fernando I in 1065 adopted
the penitential state when it appeared that their last hours were on them.51
If there were long term ceremonial survivals and also complete disappear-
ances, so too could modifications be made to traditional words and actions in
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 9

order to adapt them to altered circumstances or tastes. So, it must be asked if

the ceremonies of the initiation of a royal campaign, preserved uniquely in
MS Silos a.m. 4, were of genuinely Visigothic origin, and to what extent they
might have been changed or developed in the succeeding centuries. The most
recent editor of the manuscript has, for example, suggested that the rubrics
were added in the period of the Asturian or Leonese kingdoms, whose first
king, Pelayo, was later said to have had a wooden cross with him at the battle
of Covadonga (c. 718).52 This precious relic was encased in gold by Alfonso III
(866–910). A photograph taken while it was in dismantled state in 1942
revealed that a square space in the centre of the cross provided room for a reli-
quary, possibly containing another supposed fragment of the True Cross.53
A marginal note in the mid-tenth-century León Antiphonal, discussed above,
seems to argue knowledge at that time of at least one of the antiphons other-
wise only found in the royal campaign liturgy of MS Silos a.m. 4, and the
accompanying reference ad pugnam gives it the appropriate martial context.54
However, it is quite clear that the ceremonies for which the ordo quando rex
cum exercitu ad prelium egreditur in MS Silos a.m. 4 was composed took place in
Toledo, in the seventh century, and probably only there and in that period. In
the opening oratio, following the king’s arrival, his censing, prostration before
the altar and arising, the celebrating bishop refers to the monarch as ‘. . . going
out from this present church of thy Apostles Peter and Paul with angel
guardians . . . ’55 There never was a church dedicated jointly to saints Peter and
Paul in Oviedo nor in León, nor in Burgos, nor for that matter in the Navarrese
capitals of Pamplona and Nájera. The only such dedication recorded in early
medieval Spanish sources is that of the church in Toledo, also known as the
Praetoriensis, in which the 8th (653), 12th (681), 13th (683), 15th (688), and
16th (693) Councils of Toledo were held.56 It is perhaps worth noting that
most of these coincided with the pontificate of Julian of Toledo (680–90), who
was the most important liturgical author and compiler of the Visigothic
church, and was also responsible for centering the liturgical procedures of
Visigothic kingship, above all the rite of unction, exclusively upon the city of
Toledo.57
This was a text, then, that was written for use in only one church in the city
of Toledo. It is hard to credit that if the accompanying rubrics were not com-
posed until the tenth century, the text of the oratio itself would have been
allowed to retain so specific and so anachronistic a reference to a church and a
city that passed into Muslim hands in 711, and did not return to Christian rule
until 1085; five years after the formal condemnation and abandonment of
the old Mozarabic liturgy. There are, in fact, no grounds for doubting that the
rubrics, like the text, belong to the seventh century.
This is not the only such example that can be given, although it is the best
known. In the benediction used in the ordination of an archpriest, the bishop
refers to the newly elected office holder as he ‘whom we wish under us to rule
over the priests in this church of Holy Jerusalem . . . ’58 The archpriest was the
10 Medieval Spain

head of the cathedral clergy, and his office would develop into that of the
medieval Dean. In this text the specific episcopal church of Sancta Ierusalem or
Holy Jerusalem is mentioned. There is no such dedication recorded in
Visigothic Toledo, but churches of Holy Jerusalem certainly existed in both
Seville and Mérida. They were the cathedral churches of the two cities.59 Both
subsequently came to be known as Santa María, which was also the dedication
of one of the three principal churches of Toledo. It is thus quite feasible to sug-
gest that the episcopal church of Santa María in Toledo was also, like its coun-
terparts in Mérida and Seville, once known as Holy Jerusalem.
The Calendar, the most substantial of its kind to have survived, that pre-
faces the Liber Ordinum in MS Silos a.m. 4 also supports a Toledan origin for
some of the latter’s contents.60 The obits that it contains of Ildefonsus,
Quiricus, Julian, and Felix thus include all of the bishops of Toledo from 657
to c. 700, other than the deposed Sisbert (690–92/3).61 A reference to the burial
of a bishop Floresind is also significant, in that the only bishop known of this
name was Felix’s predecessor in Seville, and whose commemoration he may
have brought to Toledo when he was translated to the urbs regia in 693.62 The
implications of the references to bishops in this calendar would seem to be
that it was first formed in Toledo, probably after the death of Felix c. 700 but
before that of his successor, Gunderic, who died before 711.
Subsequent phases in its elaboration are suggested by the inclusion of cer-
tain saints. Amongst others here commemorated are Saints Nunila and
Alodia, and Saint Pelagius. The two former were the only non-Cordoban vic-
tims of the mid-ninth-century Martyr Movement, being executed by the
Muslims in Huesca.63 Their relics were subsequently venerated in the royal
Navarrese monastery of Leire. Pelagius was a Leonese youth, apparently
executed for resisting the homosexual advances of ‘Abd al-Rahman III while
a hostage in Córdoba in the early 920s. His cult was greatly encouraged
by King Sancho the Fat of León and his sister Elvira in the 960s; at which
time his relics were translated from Córdoba to León to be housed in a new
infantado.64
The absence of any mention of the relatively numerous monks and clerics
who died in Córdoba in the 840s and 850s in the course of the Martyr
Movement might suggest that the Calendar in MS Silos a.m. 4 did not derive
from a southern exemplar. The presence in it of Saints Nunila and Alodia is
likely to represent the most recent, Navarrese phase of its history, but its inclu-
sion of Pelagius could represent a preceding Leonese one. To be certain of this,
though, would require a preliminary study of the evidence for the wider dis-
semination of the cult of St. Pelagius in Navarre by the time this manuscript
was written; something not yet undertaken. Potentially, though, a transmis-
sion of some of the clearly Toledan texts that are unique to our Silos manu-
script via León is quite reasonable. It has already been mentioned that the
only other evidence for the Visigothic royal campaign liturgy is a marginal
note in the mid-tenth-century León antiphonal.
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 11

Although more recent in date of writing than the San Millán copy, the Silos
manuscript of the Liber Ordinum provides better evidence of the way that the
work itself took shape. While all such indications have been removed from
the Aemilianensis, our manuscript reveals clearly that it is made up of compo-
nents from three separate sources, of unequal age and size. Surprisingly, this
has not previously been noticed or commented upon. The division between
the first and second of these sources may be seen clearly in the list of contents
on folios 6 to 7 verso of the manuscript.65 This firstly gives the titles and num-
bers of seventy-eight different rituals, and then, inserting the heading Item
Alium Ordinem, lists another forty-eight items, but numbering them again
from one onwards. In other words, two separate texts seem to have been
copied consecutively, without the distinction between them being eliminat-
ed. The individual items of the contents support such a view, in that the sev-
enty-eight items of the first section are almost all benedictions, exorcisms and
special Ordines, while the forty-eight pieces in the second section are predom-
inantly mass texts that are not part of the regular temporal and sanctoral. It is
also notable that hardly any rubrics survive in this second part of the book. It
should also be recognized that all of the items that have definite or probable
Toledan and Visigothic associations come from the first section alone.
The third section consists of the handful of texts located in the manu-
script after the scribal colophon. Several of these have retained substantial
rubrics. This latter feature suggests they have come from a different source
than the mass texts of the second section. They probably derive from
another, lost, Liber Ordinum and constitute items previously missing from
the Silos book or its immediate exemplar. To these, three more mass texts
were added subsequently, probably in Silos, and at some point not long
after the writing of the rest of the book.66 These may come from yet
another, a fourth, source.
It thus seems that at least three, and quite possibly four, different sources
contributed to the text of our manuscript. The two principal ones are already
to be found in the tenth-century San Millán Liber Ordinum, but in that codex
the division between them had been eliminated. The Silos manuscript, there-
fore, while younger in date of writing is more archaic in its contents, and
retains evidence of earlier phases in the development of Mozarabic liturgical
compilations. The distinction between the two types of book that make up the
major components of the text of this manuscript may thus be a clue to the
forms taken by earlier types of service book. In other words, the kind of service
book known as the Liber Ordinum, as we now have it in our three extant
manuscripts and two fragments, could be essentially a creation of the
Leonese–Navarrese church of the tenth century. This is certainly true of
the Antiphonary. Earlier, Visigothic, books may have been much smaller and
more specialized in their contents than these later complications. This is also
the conclusion which a parallel study of the development of the Roman litu-
rgy in these centuries would lead one to expect.67
12 Medieval Spain

While this manuscript, in some of its texts though not as an object in its
own right, leads its reader back from the eleventh-century Navarrese Rioja to
tenth-century Leon, and thence to the last years of the Visigothic kingdom in
Spain, it also had a future, albeit a more limited one, in the period after the for-
mal condemnation of the Mozarabic or Visigothic liturgy at the council of
Burgos in 1080. In this sense it marks a small bridge across what has otherwise
tended to be seen as a great divide.
After 1080, as a recent study of the monastery’s liturgical manuscripts now
in the British Library has shown, Silos conformed to papal and royal dictates,
and comprehensively adopted the Roman rites.68 This is not surprising.
Domingo’s successor as abbot, Fortunio (1073–after 1100) was an assiduous
cultivator of such leaders of the reform movement that sought to purge the
Leonese–Castilian church of its un-Roman ways as archbishop Bernard of
Toledo and the papal legate, Cardinal Richard of Marseille.69 Thus, Mass books
written in Silos after 1080 were exclusively of the Roman rite.70 Manuscripts
containing the Visigothic or Mozarabic liturgy were, however, not destroyed
or erased, but were preserved. Their character as non-Roman, and thus no
longer licit, liturgical texts was noted in the thirteenth-century book cata-
logue by the application of the adjective Toletanus or ‘Toledan’.71 This may
have referred both back to the origin of this liturgy in the Visigothic kingdom
of Toledo and/or to its continuing but highly circumscribed survival in six
parishes in the city of Toledo.72
Amongst the ‘Toledan’ manuscripts recorded in the thirteenth-century
Silos book list are several that can be identified with still extant codices in the
British Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale.73 The Liber Ordinum of the
thirteenth-century library list, for whose identification as MS Silos archivo
monástico 4 reasons have been given above, is the only one of the Mozarabic
liturgical manuscripts not to be qualified as Toletanus. While this may just be
an oversight, there are reasons for suspecting that it was not. The Roman
Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries used sacramentaries, pontificals
(for bishops), antiphonals and hymnaries. It no longer had a close equivalent
for the old Spanish Liber Ordinum. It may be, therefore, that the status of an
example of the latter could seem at least ambiguous, when not formally con-
demned by name and not replaced by a direct Roman equivalent. Whether or
not this explains why MS Silos a.m. 4 was not qualified as Toletanus in the
library catalogue, it is quite clear that it did continue to be used as a working
liturgical manuscript for some time after the condemnation of the Mozarabic
rite in 1080.
The evidence for this comes in the form of a number of marginal notes in
twelfth or early thirteenth-century hands that were added to various pages
of the codex, and from a series of changes and additions to the musical notation
that accompanied several of the ordines and masses. This notation origi-
nally took the form of neums of the Visigothic or Mozarabic type, which are to
be seen in a number of the service books of that rite, above all in the León
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 13

antiphonal.74 On several folios of MS Silos a.m. 4 neums in the imported

‘Aquitanian’ style of musical notation were added in the margins, suggesting
that the book was still being used liturgically, but needed to have its music
brought up to date.75 In the case of the San Millán manuscript of the Liber
Ordinum, numerous Mozarabic neums were actually erased and Aquitanian
ones were written over them; again implying continued employment of the
book.76 The introduction into Castile of this very different way of writing
neums was another feature of the reform of liturgy and of the Spanish church
under French and papal influence in the late eleventh century.
The view that this was a book that continued to be employed after 1080 is
reinforced by the evidence of some of the scribal notes added to it. These are
primarily those in the late Caroline minuscule script that established itself as
the scribal norm in León–Castile and Navarre, albeit with variable degrees of
rapidity, in the decades following 1080. In the case of Silos, while hints of the
old Visigothic script survived for longer in individuals’ handwriting, the last
manuscript to be written in it was the copy of Beatus’s Commentary on the
Apocalypse, that was completed by 1119 at the latest.77
Amongst the notes and additions in Caroline minuscule to be found in MS
Silos a.m. 4 is a list of names of men, given with their patronymics, accompan-
ied by a parallel list of the names of their spouses. As this appears on folio
333v, alongside the text of the Ordo ad benedicendos eos qui nobiter nubunt, it
has reasonably been accepted that this was a list of such recently married lay
folk, who were to receive the benediction that the Ordo contains.78 Likewise,
on folio 5v an exorcism has been written into the margin, and on folio 338v,
adjacent to the text of the Missa de Hostibus, there may be found a unique Ordo
for the cure of the diabolically possessed.79 These too were added to the manu-
script in a twelfth or early thirteenth-century hand. While a few other shorter
notes may be ambiguous, these three more substantial additions, together
with the changes to the musical notation, indicate that this manuscript was
still serving as a working service book, at least for certain purposes, for a cen-
tury or more after it should have ceased to be used.
The handful of late medieval and sixteenth-century notes give no such
impression, and it is likely that the the difficulty of reading the Visigothic
script, if no other reason, would have rendered the manuscript effectively
unemployable in or possibly by the mid-thirteenth century.80 So, it was
around this time, rather than in 1080, that a line of fracture was finally
reached, and the accumulation of living tradition that MS Silos a.m. 4 repre-
sented ended with it becoming no more than an object of veneration, lacking
in practical or ideological value.81 The manuscript thereafter remained with
the other early codices, being transferred to a special ‘Camara Sancta’ next to
the church (and there featuring in the late eighteenth-century library list),
until the time of the dispersal of Silos’s books following the secularisation of
1835. Whether detached then or because of a previous separation, it did not
accompany the bulk of the monastery’s manuscript collection into exile and
14 Medieval Spain

eventual sale, but remained concealed with a handful of other codices in the
small town that had grown up around the monastery of Silos since the thir-
teenth century.82 Following the re-foundation of the abbey in 1880 for a
group of French monks of the congregation of Solesmes, the codex was
returned to the monastery by the then town pharmacist, either in 1884 or
1886, and is thus one of the few Silos manuscripts still to be found in the
monastic archive.83
In 1848, while this codex was still in hiding, presumably in the Silos town
pharmacy, an event occurred that could link this manuscript, or one of the
texts that it contains, to its origins in an unusually direct and material way. In
that year and at an uncertain location, later said to be near Guarrazar, to the
south-east of Toledo, a treasure was uncovered, apparently by some peasants
working the land.84 Several of the items found were secretly sold via a network
of Toledan jewellers and metalworkers to a Frenchman and removed from
Spain, without the discovery or its precise location being publicly revealed. It
is feared that some of the other finds not thus sold may well have ended up
being transformed into Toledan artesanía. The first public announcement of
the discovery came when the now restored objects that had been smuggled
out of Spain went on show in Paris in 1849. Very remarkable they proved to be.
There was one large and several small hanging crowns, all intended for litur-
gical use, in the way that some of the rubrics of MS Silos 4 clearly indicate.85
Pendant letters around the lower rim of the large crown show that this was the
gift of the Visigothic king Reccesuinth (649–72), while some of the smaller
ones were engraved with the names of abbots and bishops.86
As might be expected, the revelation of this treasure in Paris caused a furore
in Madrid, and attempts were made to track down the Spanish perpetrators of
what was seen as a national scandal. While a coherent and credible story of the
processes of the discovery of the treasure and its dispersal (and possible partial
destruction) never emerged, a small number of other items from the hoard did
then make their way into the hands of the Spanish government. Amongst
these was another large crown, this time recording the name of King Suinthila
(621–31).87 This was stolen from the armoury of the Oriente Palace in Madrid
in 1921, and has never been seen since. While no more items came to light
thereafter, the episode clearly continued to rankle. In 1940, in a process
almost as murky as that of the original flight and discovery of the treasure, the
bulk of it was returned to Spain, following the Nazi occupation of Paris, with
only a handful of the smaller pieces being left for display in the Musée de
Cluny.88 The repossessed Spanish part of the collection was subsequently put
on show in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid, where it may now be
seen.
While the two large crowns indicate the gradual formation of the treasure,
across a period extending from at least the 620s to the 670s, its deposition has
long and rightly been associated with the Arab conquest of the kingdom and of
the city of Toledo in or soon after 711. Whether the hoard did come out of the
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 15

ground in some rural location or was found closer to home in the city itself, its
nature and composition makes it clear that it came originally from a very sig-
nificant ecclesiastical site, that enjoyed major royal patronage. Such a place
may be at the root of the legend preserved in some later Arab accounts of the
conquest that on their deaths the Visigothic kings gave their crowns to be hung
up in one special location in the city.89 This was likely to be one of the three
principal churches of Visigothic Toledo: Santa Leocadia, Santa María, or the
‘Praetorian Church’ of Saints Peter and Paul. While there were several crowns
of varying size, there also emerged from the treasure, and now to be seen in
Madrid, two sections of the arms of a gold and bejewelled processional cross.90
That this was the kind of cross born before the king on his campaigns seems
likely from the rubrics of the ceremony contained in MS Silos a.m. 4, and that
the wooden core of such a cross could contain space for a yet more precious
wooden enclosure has been demonstrated by the study of both the famous
but much smaller crosses that have survived from the Asturian kingdom, that
of Alfonso III and the earlier one made for Alfonso II.91 That the two sections
of the covering of the Visigothic processional cross from the Guarrazar treas-
ure really are all that remains of the crucem aureum in qua lignum beate crucis
inclusum est of the rubrics of MS Silos a.m. 4, and which was given to successive
Visigothic kings as they set out for war can not be proved, but it is a strong
probability.
MS Silos a.m. 4 can thus help in the interpretation of a significant archaeo-
logical find. This, of course, is far from its sole or primary importance. It also
provides eloquent testimony to the formative phases of the creation of the dis-
tinctive Spanish Mozarabic liturgy in the late Visigothic period. In itself it
shows how the liturgical traditions then forged were expanded and devel-
oped, up to the time in the mid-eleventh century when their survival was
challenged. It may well be the only extant copy of a book that was used, ulti-
mately unsuccessfully to resist that threat. Finally, it also shows how in vari-
ous small ways the suppression of the Mozarabic liturgy in 1080 was not quite
as complete as those who promoted it may have hoped. However, the very
restricted nature and short chronological extent of its continued use probably
only reinforces the sense that the late eleventh century marked a real caesura
in the religious and intellectual culture of Castile and Navarre. There was to be
no convivencia for alternative forms of Christianity, however deeply rooted
and long-established the indigenous version may have been.

Appendix

A note on Visigothic palaeography and the dating of manuscripts

In an article published in 1965, Professor Anscari Mundó argued that a group of liturgical
manuscripts in the library of Toledo cathedral should all be redated by between two to
16 Medieval Spain

four centuries, on the basis of his analysis of their script.92 These revised datings have
generally been accepted without demur, possibly because the number of manuscripts
involved was small and they were all liturgical, and thus of supposedly minor interest.
However, this is to overlook entirely the logical consequences of Mundó’s argument,
which has opened up a black hole in the very heart of Visigothic palaeography; one that
threatens to swallow up most of the the material of what has never been a very stable
galaxy. By redating to the twelfth, thirteenth or even fourteenth centuries, manuscripts
that other, equally highly esteemed palaeographers had previously dated to the ninth or
tenth centuries, Mundo’s work throws serious doubt on the validity of the criteria which
those other scholars had employed.93 As most of the far more numerous non-liturgical
manuscripts in Visigothic script have also been dated on the basis of those very same cri-
teria, it has to be admitted that the study of Visigothic palaeography itself now rests on
very insecure foundations indeed. Many published judgments as to the dates and pro-
venances, both regional and local, of manuscripts in Visigothic script are thus in eviden-
tial terms little better than guesswork.94 The study of these manuscripts does not at the
moment rest upon a secure foundation. However, that this is even a problem that needs
urgently to be addressed has yet to be recognized.95

Notes
1 See Rose Walker, Views of Transition: Liturgy and Illumination in Medieval Spain
(London, 1998), pp. 222–3, for a view of the traumatic effects on the Spanish Church
of these processes.
2 The scribal colophon upon which this date depends is not fully legible. The most recent
editor reads the date as era TLXL. The second L in LXL, which is an unusual but not
unique version of the Roman numerals for 90, is disputed. If the obscured digit was not
an L, it may have been a V, giving a Spanish era date of 1065, which is AD 1027. Walter
Muir Whitehill and Justo Pérez de Urbel, Los Manuscritos del Real Monasterio de Santo
Domingo de Silos (Madrid, 1930), pp. 19–23, prefer to doubt the presence of a final digit
and propose an era date of 1060, or AD 1022. There is no way to resolve this problem.
3 A. Ubieto Arteta (ed.), Cartulario de Albelda (Zaragoza, 1981), doc. 68, p. 92.
4 On this type of liturgical book see Eric Palazzo, A History of Liturgical Books, trans. M.
Beaumont (Collegeville, Minnesota, 1998), pp. 221–8.
5 The manuscripts will be discussed below, but for the two fragments see José Janini,
‘Dos fragmentos del Liber Ordinum’, in Homenaje a Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel OSB 2 vols
(Abadia de Silos, 1976), vol. 1, pp. 227–31. They are too small to know which class of
Liber Ordinum they come from.
6 Pilar Loscertales de G. de Valdeavellano (ed.), Tumbos del monasterio de Sobrado de los
Monjes 2 vols (Madrid, 1976), vol. 1, doc. 2, p. 24.
7 José Janini (ed.), Liber Ordinum sacerdotal (Cod. Silos Arch. monástico, 3) = Studia
Silensia vol. VII (Abadia de Silos, 1981); on this and other Silos liturgical MSS see
Marius Férotin, Le Liber Mozarabicus Sacramentorum et les manuscripts mozarabes
(Paris, 1912), pp. 767–892, and for MSS 3 and 4 in particular: pp. 795–802.
8 José Janini (ed.), Liber Ordinum episcopal (Abadia de Silos, 1991) edits both the Silos
and the San Millán manuscripts. See also Marius Férotin (ed.), Le Liber Ordinum en
usage dans l’église wisigothique et mozarabe d’Espagne du cinquième au onzième siècle
(Paris, 1904), which takes most of its text from MS Silos 4, but provides a synoptic
edition of all the main MSS. See Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, Libros y librerías en la Rioja
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 17

altomedieval (Logroño, 1979), pp. 76–9; Agustín Millares Carlo, Corpus de códices
visigóticos rev edn. 2 vols (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1999), vol. 1, item 298, pp.
180–1, with a colour plate of fol. 168v in vol. II, p. 265, and Elisa Ruiz García, Real
Academia de la Historia: Catálogo de la Sección de Códices (Madrid, 1997), pp. 315–17,
with plate on p. 313.
9 Antonio Linage Conde, Los orígines del monacato benedictino en la península ibérica 3
vols (León, 1973), vol. III: Monasticon hispanicum, item 749, pp. 223–4.
10 ‘ . . . domini Prudentii vasilicam ubi quiescit corpus eius venerabile . . . ’ doc. 19 of
Cartulario de Albelda, ed. Ubieto, p. 29.
11 Cartulario de Albelda, ed. Ubieto, doc. 19, pp. 28–30.
12 Cartulario de Albelda, ed. Ubieto, docs 41 and 42, pp. 60–2.
13 The refoundation was carried out by Pedro and Diego Jiménez, and the new site is
described as being ad juberam fluvium, inter juberam et lanuculam; see also Ildefonso
Rodríguez R. de Lama, Colección diplomática medieval de la Rioja vol. III: documentos
1168–1225 (Logroño, 1979), documents 303, 366, and 415; pp. 81–2, 146–7, and
193.
14 Janini (ed.), Liber Ordinum episcopal, p. 318.
15 Soledad de Silva y Verastegui, Iconografía del Siglo X en el Reino de Pamplona-Nájera
(Pamplona, 1984), pp. 43–53 on the scriptorium; pp. 128–36 on the Codex
Vigilano.
16 Ann Boylan, Manuscript Illumination at Santo Domingo de Silos (Xth to XIIth Centuries)
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1990, pp. 228–30.
17 Miguel C. Vivancos Gómez, Glosas y notas marginales de los manuscritos visigóticos del
monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silos (Abadia de Silos, 1996), p. 386.
18 MS Silos a.m. 4 fol. 101v; ed. Janini, p. 141.
19 Canon iii of the Seventh Council of Toledo; see Gonzalo Martínez Díez and Felix
Rodríguez (eds), La Colección canónica hispana vol. V: concilios hispánicos, segunda
parte (Madrid, 1992), pp. 349–50 and critical apparatus. The correct reference is to
canon 4 of the Council of Valencia: Martínez Díez and Rodríguez (eds), Colección
canónica hispana vol. IV. i (Madrid, 1984), pp. 318–19.
20 As the final text now to be seen is truncated at the bottom of the last folio, number
344v, the original manuscript contained at least one more bifolium.
21 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, p. 318.
22 For a photograph of the colophon in MS 3 see the one given in Janini’s edition (note
5 above), facing p. 202. Anscari Mundó, whose opinion is quoted in ibid. p. 14,
wishes to ignore this colophon too, and favours a date in the late eleventh or early
twelfth century for the script of this manuscript. This does not seem justified in the
light of the argument here being advanced.
23 The question of how a manuscript written in Albelda for San Prudencio came to be
copied directly or otherwise in San Millán can not be answered; though it is pos-
sible that the original codex never made it to the clearly declining monastery at
Laturce.
24 On the Council of Burgos and the events leading up to it, see Bernard F. Reilly, The
Kingdom of León-Castilla under king Alfonso VI (1065–1109) (Princeton, 1988), pp.
93–115, and Joseph F. O’Callaghan, ‘The Integration of Christian Spain into
Europe: the Role of Alfonso VI of León-Castile’, in Bernard F. Reilly (ed.), Santiago,
Saint-Denis and Saint Peter: The Reception of the Roman Liturgy in León-Castile in 1080
(New York, 1985), pp. 101–20.
25 Grimaldus’s Vita may be found in V. Valcarcel, La ‘Vita Dominici Silensis’ de
Grimaldo. Estudio, edición crítica y traducción (Logroño, 1982); see Book l.v,
p. 206.
18 Medieval Spain

26 Boylan, Manuscript Illumination, pp. 183–9. This is disputed by Vivancos Gómez,

Glosas y notas marginales, pp. 63–4, but no evidence or arguments are advanced by
him. Amongst the manuscripts that by one view were copied for Silos in San Millán
or by the other were close Silos copies of San Millán exemplars are MSS Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale n.a.l. 1296 and London, British Library add. 30853.
27 Vivancos Gómez, Glosas y notas marginales, p. 63 and n. 13.
28 M. Férotin, Histoire de l’abbaye de Silos (Paris, 1897), p. 263. The manuscript is Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale n.a.l. 2169; on which see François Avril, Manuscrits enlu-
minés de la Bibliothèque Nationale: Manuscrits de la Péninsule lbérique (Paris, 1982), pp.
18–20. The list is headed: estos son los libros de la capiscola (= ‘head of the school’ –
the cantor).
29 This text is only known from a now lost manuscript via the report of it in Sebastián
de Vergara, Vida y milagros de el thaumaturgo español, Moyses segundo, redemptor de
cautivos, abogado de los felices partos, Santo Domingo Manso (Madrid, 1736), p. 460.
See also Janini, Liber Ordinum episcopal, p. 21.
30 Silos may have acquired another Liber Ordinum in the later eleventh century, as one
features in a charter dated to the year 1067, that was written into one of the
monastery’s codices, which records the promise of a gift of seven liturgical manu-
scripts. See Marius Férotin (ed.), Recueil des chartes de l’Abbaye de Silos (Paris, 1897),
item 17, pp. 17–18. As the gift had already been delayed by a generation, and yet a
further postponement was envisaged, the books may never have actually come to
the monastery. Chronologically, the approximate date of the first offer of the dona-
tion, which must be earlier than c. 1040, means that the Liber Ordinum referred to in
the charter can not be the present MS Silos, a.m. 4.
31 Biblioteca del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, MS d. l. 1, fols 395–396v.
32 Reilly, Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, p. 96, note 12.
33 José Goñi Gaztambide (ed.), Catálogo del archivo catedral de Pamplona vol. 1:
829–1500 (Pamplona, 1965), document 18, p. 5.
34 See J.M. Lacarra (ed.), Colección diplomática de Irache vol. 1: 958–1222 (Zaragoza,
1965), especially docs 11–56.
35 Díaz y Díaz, Libros y librerías, pp. 198–9 for this manuscript. The tentative sugges-
tion made in note 34 on p. 198 that the scribe might be identified with an abbot
Domingo of the monastery of Santa Colomba, found in a San Millán charter of 992,
should be resisted.
36 In Janini (ed.), Liber Ordinum episcopal, pp. 335–95, only texts of the San Millán Liber
Ordinum not found in the Silos MS are edited in full.
37 For the table of contents on ff. 6–8v of MS Silos 4 see Janini (ed.) Liber Ordinum epis-
copal, pp. 63–7.
38 ibid. items xlviii and xlviiii, pp. 146–9; the first ordo is translated in J.N. Hillgarth,
Christianity and Paganism, 350–750: the Conversion of Western Europe 2nd edn
(Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 93–5.
39 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, item xxxviiii, pp. 124–5; for Donatism see
W.H.C. Frend, The Donatist Church 2nd edn (Oxford, 1971).
40 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, item xxxvii: oratio ad reconciliandum eum qui in
eresi arriana babtizatus fuerit, pp. 122–3. Although several Roman and Romano-
Frankish sacramentaries kept texts relating to the reception of Arians well into the
ninth century, these are far briefer and less specific than the service in the Silos MS.
For the disappearance of the Spanish Arians see Roger Collins, ‘¿Dónde estaban los
arrianos en el año 589?’, in El Concilio III de Toledo: XIV Centenario, 589–1989
(Toledo, 1991), pp. 211–22.
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 19

41 Roger Reynolds, ‘The Ordination Rite in Medieval Spain: Hispanic, Roman and
Hybrid’, in Reilly (ed.), Santiago, Saint-Denis and Saint Peter, pp. 131–56; see also
idem, ‘The “Isidorian” Epistula ad Leudefredum: its Origins, Early Manuscript
Tradition and Editions’, in Edward James (ed.), Visigothic Spain: New Approaches
(Oxford, 1980), pp. 251–72.
42 See H. Leclercq, ‘L’archprêtre’, Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. I,
pt. ii (Paris, 1907), pp. 2761–3; also B. Forshaw, ‘Archpriest’, New Catholic
Encyclopedia vol. I. (New York, 1967), pp. 772–3; for Gultricianem primiclerium see
Julian of Toledo’s Iudicium in Tyrannorum Perfidia Promulgatum, attached to his
Historia Wambae, ed. Wilhelm Levison. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores
Rerum Merovingicarum vol. V, p. 532, and note 6. For the most recent view on the
date of this see Yolanda García López, ‘La Cronología de la Historia Wambae’,
Anuario de Estudios Medievales vol. 23 (1993), pp. 121–39.
43 Marius Férotin, Le Liber Ordinum en usage dans l’église wisigothique et mozarabe
d’Espagne (Paris, 1904), p. xxi.
44 E. Foley, ‘The Libri ordinarii: an Introduction’, Ephemerides liturgicae vol. 102, pp.
129–37, and E. Palazzo, ‘Les ordinaires liturgiques comme sources pour l’historien
du Moyen Age: A propos d’ouvrages récents’, Revue Mabillon vol. 64 (1992), pp.
233–40.
45 M.C. Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos en la monarquía leonesa (León, 1983), pp. 308–9,
with full references in note 27. For the most recent reiteration of this erroneous
belief see the caption to the plate in Roger Collins, ‘Visigothic Spain 409–711’, in
Raymond Carr (ed.), Spain A History (Oxford, 2000), pp. 39–62, on p. 56.
46 For bishop Teuderedus see Luis A. García Moreno, Prosopografía del reino visigodo de
Toledo (Salamanca, 1974), no. 507, p. 184; for the computistical texts now attached
to the beginning of the manuscript see Juan Gómez Pallares, ‘Los textos latinos de
cómputo de los mss. Paris, Bibl. Nat nal 2169 y León, Bibl de la Catedral, N. 8: una
edición’, Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia vols 61/2 (1988/9), pp. 373–410.
47 For antiphonaries see A. Chavasse, ‘Les plus anciens types du lectionnaire et de
l‘antiphonaire de la messe’, Revue bénédictine, vol. 62 (1952), pp. 3–94, and H.
Möller, ‘Research on the Antiphonar: Problems and Perspectives’, Journal of the
Plainsong and Medieval Music Society vol. 10 (1987), pp. 1–14.
48 See note 35 above.
49 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, no. 279, p. 147.
50 For example the antiphons for the officium in ordinatione sive in natalicio regis in the
León antiphonal: Louis Brou and José Vives (eds), Antifonario visigótico mozarabe de
la Catedral de León (Barcelona–Madrid, 1959), pp. 450–3; also the readings for the
royal ordination in Justo Pérez de Urbel and Atilano González y Ruiz-Zorrilla, Liber
Commicus 2 vols (Madrid, 1955), vol. II, pp. 535–7.
51 See Charles J. Bishko, ‘The liturgical context of Fernando l’s last days’, in Miscelánea
en memoria de Dom Mario Férotin (Madrid–Barcelona, 1966), pp. 47–59. Wamba’s
taking on of the penitential state when expecting to die in 680 (but recovering and
being debarred by his irreversible status as penitent from resuming the throne) is
known from discussions at the Twelfth Council of Toledo of 681; see J. Vives (ed.),
Concilios visigóticos e hispano-romanos (Barcelona–Madrid, 1963), pp. 386–9.
52 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, pp. 45–6.
53 This photograph is reproduced in Joaquín Manzanares Rodrigo, Las Joyas de la
Camara Sancta (Oviedo, 1972), plate xvi, p. 54.
54 MS León, Archivo de la Catedral n. 8, fol. 273.
55 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, item 277, p. 146.
20 Medieval Spain

56 Vives, Concilios, pp. 260, 380, 411, 449, and 482.

57 For Julian’s liturgical activities see the eulogy on him by his successor, bishop Felix:
Patrologia Latina vol. 96, col. 446; on the special role envisaged by Julian for Toledo
in the ceremonies of royal initiation see Roger Collins, ‘Julian of Toledo and the
Education of Kings in Late Seventh-Century Spain’, in idem, Law, Culture and
Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain (Aldershot, 1992), item III.
58 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, item 101, p. 97. In other such ordines, e.g. that for
the ordaining of a priest (text xvii, p. 96), the name of the church is omitted.
59 Vives, Concilios, p. 325 (Council of Mérida of the year 666); for discussion of the
identification of the Visigothic cathedral in Seville see John W. Williams, ‘León: the
Iconography of the Capital’ in Thomas N. Bisson (ed.), Cultures of Power: Lordship,
Status and Process in Twelfth Century Europe (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 231–58, at pp.
242–3 and n. 45.
60 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, pp. 32–41. Janini followed J. Vives and A.
Fabrega, ‘Calendarios hispánicos anteriores al siglo XII’, Hispania Sacra vol. 2
(1949), p. 341, in believing that the first quire of the manuscript, containing the
calendar, was not an integral part of the codex and may even have been of earlier,
tenth-century date, but both of these suppositions are firmly denied in Díaz y Díaz,
Libros y librerías, p. 78.
61 These obits appear on X Kal. Feb, XVII Kal. Feb, XVIIII Kal. Feb, and VII Kal. Aug
respectively; see García Moreno, Prosopografía, nos. 249, 250, 251, and 253. Sisbert
is no. 252.
62 The depositio Floresindi episcopi appears under III Non. Apr. See García Moreno,
Prosopografía no. 184.
63 See José Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de los obispos de Pamplona, vol. 1: S. IV–XIII
(Pamplona, 1979), pp. 76–7.
64 Justiniano Rodríguez Fernández, Sancho I y Ordoño IV, reyes de León (León, 1987), pp.
112–14; see also Roger Collins, ‘Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent in Tenth-
Century León and Navarre’, in John Carmi Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship (New
York, 1993), pp. 79–92.
65 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, p. 65.
66 The original scribe wrote all of the book up to and including line 1 on fo. 342. The
blank space left on this folio, together with two subsequent folios, were subse-
quently used, probably at Silos, for these final extensions, which were made by two
different hands; the division between them comes on fol. 343v between lines 2 and
3. See Vivancos, Glosas y notas marginales, p. 384.
67 E. Palazzo, ‘Le rôle des libelli dans la pratique liturgique du haut Moyen Age:
Histoire et typologie’, Revue Mabillon vol. 62 (1990), pp. 9–36.
68 Rose Walker, Views of Transition, especially pp. 208–24.
69 See Miguel C. Vivancos, ‘El Monasterio de Silos y su Scriptorium’, in the catalogue El
Scriptorium silense y los orígenes de la lengua castellana (Burgos, 1995), especially pp.
xvi–xix; Férotin, Histoire de l’abbaye de Silos, pp. 71–83 for Domingo’s two successors
as abbot.
70 Walker, Views of Transition, pp. 120–34 and 179–207 on these MSS.
71 For the Toletani in the 13th-c list see Férotin, Histoire, pp. 262–4.
72 Ramón Gonzalvez, ‘The Persistence of the Mozarabic Liturgy in Toledo after A.D.
1080’, in Reilly, Santiago, Saint-Denis and Saint Peter, pp. 157–85.
73 Amongst those that may be thus identified are London, British Library add. mss.
30844, 30845, 30846, 30847, and 30851.
74 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, pp. 22.
 MS Silos Archivo Monástico 4 21

75 Vivancos, Glosas y notas marginales, p. 386

76 Liber Ordinum episcopal, ed. Janini, pp. 27–8.
77 Vivancos in El Scriptorium silense, pp. xxxi–xxxii, and in general Agustín Millares
Carlo, Tratado de paleografía española 3rd edn 3 vols (Madrid, 1983), vol. I, pp.
139–44.
78 The list of names has never been edited, as it is too faded to be able to be recorded
fully.
79 The exorcism is edited in Janini (ed.), Liber Ordinum episcopal, p. 32 n. 1, and the rit-
ual is edited in Férotin (ed.), Liber Ordinum, p. 441, n. 1. Vivancos, Glosas y notas
marginales, p. 486 suggests these additions should be dated to the 12th century,
rather than the 13th, as proposed by the two editors. If acepted, this would mean
there were no such additions made to the MS after the 12th century.
80 The 16th century and other notes are listed in Janini (ed.), Liber Ordinum episcopal,
p. 21.
81 For the far more abrupt change in the use of Mass books see Walker, Views of
Transition, pp. 209–10, and for the more subtle effects of the reception of Roman
breviaries eadem, ibid. pp. 210–21.
82 Vivancos in El Scriptorium de Silos, pp. xx–xxiv, and idem, Glosas y notas marginales,
pp. 46–51.
83 Boylan Manuscript Illumination, p. 228 makes it 1886, while Vivancos, Glosas y notas
marginales p. 387, gives the date as 1884.
84 F. de Lasteyrie, Description du trésor de Guarrazar (Paris, 1860) for the fullest account;
also A. de Longpérier, ‘Couronnes de Guarrazar’, in Bulletin de la Société impériale des
Antiquaires de France, vol. III (1859).
85 Férotin, Liber Ordinum, p. 165 and n. 2, and p. 216.
86 Jacques Fontaine, L’art préroman hispanique (La-Pierre-qui-Vire, 1973), pp. 242–9.
87 For the only photograph of the lost crown see Helmut Schlunk, ‘Arte visigodo. Arte
asturiano’, in Ars Hispaniae vol. 2 (Madrid, 1947), p. 312, fig. 328.
88 Jean-Pierre Caillet, L’antiquité classique, le haut moyen âge et Byzance au Musée de
Cluny (Paris, 1985), items 153–61, pp. 218–27.
89 al-Maqqari, trans. Pascual de Gayangos, A History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in
Spain 2 vols (London, 1840), vol. I, book IV, ch. III, pp. 282–3, who here cites the
authority of an unnamed earlier Arab historian for this tale. This could derive from
the ninth-century collection of traditions made by Ibn Habib: ‘Abd al-Malik b.
Habib, Kitab al-Ta ri j (La Historia), ed. Jorge Aguadé (Madrid, 1991), p. 141. On the
legends of the conquest of Toledo see R. Basset, ‘La maison fermée de Tolède’,
Bulletin de la société géographique d’Oran (1899), pp. 42–58.
90 For a colour photograph of one of the arms of the cross see Fontaine, L’art préroman
hispanique, plate facing p. 239.
91 Manzanares Rodríguez, Joyas de la Camara Sancta plate IV, p. 42 for a 1942 photo-
graph of the wooden core of the ‘Cruz de los Angeles’ of Alfonso II (791–842).
92 Anscari M. Mundó, ‘La datación de los códices litúrgicos toledanos’, Hispania Sacra
18 (1965), pp. 1–25.
93 Thus, in the supposedly authoritative survey of MSS in this script, A. Millares Carló,
Corpus de Códices Visigóticos 2 vols (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1999), several
Toledan liturgical codices are given alternative datings that differ by as much four
centuries; a totally absurd state of affairs.
94 The earlier attempt of E.A. Lowe to establish objective criteria for the dating of
Visigothic manuscripts, in his Studia Palaeographica. A Contribution to the History of
Early Latin Minuscule and to the Dating of Visigothic Manuscripts in the Sitzungsberichte
22 Medieval Spain

der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil u. hist. Klasse, Jahrgang
1910, 12 (Munich, 1910) proved equally ill-grounded.
95 Not surprisingly, the late Professor Bernhard Bischoff in his posthumous catalogue
of ninth-century manuscripts, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten
Jahrhunderts, vol. I (Wiesbaden, 1998), added the sub-title mit Ausnahme der wisigo-
tischen!
2
Traitors to the Faith? Christian
Mercenaries in al-Andalus and the
Maghreb, c.1100–1300
Simon Barton

On 16 July 1212, at Las Navas de Tolosa on the southern slopes of the Sierra
Morena, a Christian army under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile and his
allies Pedro II of Aragón and Sancho VII of Navarre inflicted a crushing defeat
upon the Muslim forces commanded by the Almohad caliph Muhammad al-
Nasir. In the aftermath of the battle, large numbers of Muslims were slain
(100 000 or maybe more, according to Alfonso VIII’s own boastful reckoning),
yet others taken prisoner, and untold quantities of booty captured.1 Later gener-
ations were to view the triumph as the defining moment in the centuries-long
struggle for hegemony in the peninsula between Christian and Muslim, prefig-
uring as it did the reconquest of most of what remained of al-Andalus (Muslim
Spain) by the Christian rulers between 1225 and 1250.2 Contemporaries were
scarcely less aware of its significance. News of the spectacular victory spread rap-
idly throughout Europe.3 Alfonso VIII himself sent a lengthy report of the battle
to Pope Innocent III, who had the letter read out before a large gathering of cler-
gy and laity in Rome.4 As the bishop of Cremona later put it, Spain, and more
especially Castile, had saved not just herself, but Rome too, and Europe as a
whole.5 Alfonso VIII’s much-vaunted claim, echoed on his coins and charters,
to be the ‘defender of Christendom’ had been triumphantly vindicated.6
To contemporaries, the victory on the field of Las Navas was far more than
simply a glorious feat of arms. In his letter to Innocent III, Alfonso VIII
expressed happiness and thanksgiving at the outcome, yet confessed to a
sense of regret that ‘so few in such a vast army went to Christ as martyrs’.7 The
belief that those who were killed in the struggle against Islam were martyrs to
the Christian faith was not, of course, a novel proposition. During the course
of the twelfth century, influenced by successive papal pronouncements,
which had gradually begun to equate the Iberian campaigns against Islam
with the eastern crusading theatre, by the views of Spanish bishops who
had either attended papal councils or were well-informed about their
deliberations, by the ideological impulses that were carried into Spain by

23
24 Medieval Spain

French magnates who had fought on the First Crusade, and doubtless by the
enthusiasm of Spanish nobles who had themselves taken part in armed pil-
grimages to the Holy Land, members of the lay nobility had begun to be per-
suaded that military activity had a spiritual and penitential value if it were
directed against pagan peoples and was thus a praiseworthy way to gain the
grace of God.8 Thus, Archbishop Diego of Santiago de Compostela had sum-
moned a crusade at the legatine council he presided over in that city in
January 1125 with this passionate call to arms:

Just as those soldiers of Christ and faithful sons of the church opened up
the road to Jerusalem by much toil and bloodshed, so we should become
soldiers of Christ and after defeating His enemies, the evil Saracens, let us
with His grace beat a shorter and much less difficult path through the
regions of Spain to the same Sepulchre of the Lord.9

In this way, the military expeditions that had been launched against Majorca
(1114), Zaragoza (1118), Lisbon and Almería (1147), and Tortosa and Jaén
(1148), among others, had all probably received papal endorsement.10 During
the second half of the twelfth century, moreover, when dynastic in-fighting
between the rival Christian kingdoms had sometimes taken precedence over
the struggle with Islam, to the extent that Castile had itself been subjected to
invasion by an ‘impious alliance’ of Leonese, Navarrese, and Almohad forces
in 1196, it had been the papacy that had played a leading role in bringing an
end to the internecine strife and in galvanizing support for the anti-Almohad
coalition that would ultimately wage the successful campaign of Las Navas.11
By 1212, not only was the concept of crusade apparently firmly engrained
into the consciousness of clergy and laity alike, but the Iberian peninsula itself
was widely regarded both in Rome and elsewhere in the Latin West as a crusad-
ing theatre on a par with the Holy Land.
The crusading euphoria generated by the victory at Las Navas appears to
have quickly evaporated, however. In 1213, as drought, famine and disease
ravaged the peninsula, it was as much as the Castilians could do to maintain
their hunger-stricken frontier garrisons, let alone press home their military
advantage.12 That, and the death of several of the chief political players in the
region – Pedro II of Aragon and the Almohad caliph al-Nasir I in 1213, and
Alfonso VIII of Castile the following year – ushered in a period of political
instability in Christian and Muslim territories alike, and encouraged the
Castilians and the Almohads to agree a hasty truce. Not only were the condi-
tions for a renewed Iberian crusade against Islam evidently far from propi-
tious, but the papacy itself was eager to secure support for a new expedition to
the Holy Land, to the extent that on 19 April 1213 Innocent III went so far to
declare the Iberian crusade to be at an end.13
The following year, on 23 January 1214, the pope dispatched a further mis-
sive, in which he instructed the clergy throughout Spain to excommunicate
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 25

any Christians who helped the Saracens in war against other Christians.14 The
pope’s letter was couched only in the most general terms, but the same theme
was shortly taken up and developed further by Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez of
Toledo. Rodrigo’s letter is undated, but is likely to have been drawn up some
time before before 1218, since the archbishop does not style himself papal
legate, and he alludes to the victory God had granted over His enemies ‘in the
war just passed ... in our land and especially for our cause’, presumably a refer-
ence to the battle of Las Navas.15 Addressing himself in particular to ‘all the
knights of the whole of the kingdom of the king of Castile’, the archbishop’s
message was blunt:

Since, as we have been informed, some of you on your own, others with lords
and friends, abandoning their people and native land, have allied themselves
with the Saracens, in order, if possible, to attack and defeat the Christian peo-
ple with them, we beseech and warn you all in the Lord to desist from this
aim, at such a dangerous time, and not to ally yourselves with that perverse
people; rather, as athletes of Christ and defenders of His name and the
Catholic faith, set yourselves like a wall for the house of Israel, for the laws of
the country, and for the people and the country, ready to die, if necessary.16

The archbishop then goes on to allude to the circumstances that might have
prompted the defection of these nobles:

If by chance the king has wronged one of you in some way, so that one
might deservedly have complaint about him, he should present his com-
plaint at court before us and, trusting in the Lord and expecting the discre-
tion and generosity of the King, we will see that justice is done to him,
according to the custom of the court.17

If, however, any knight should still dare to join forces with the Saracens for the
harm and disgrace of the Christian faith, warned the archbishop, he would
suffer immediate excommunication. It is possible that the archbishop’s letter
was delivered to Castilian knights resident in al-Andalus and Morocco by a
friar of the Order of St. John, Master Gonzalo García, whom the archbishop
generously rewarded for his faithful service on 2 May and 14 June 1218.18
What had prompted this extraordinary correspondence? Is it credible that
barely 18 months after the famous crusading victory at Las Navas Castilian
warriors were taking advantage of the lull in hostilities to cross the frontier
with al-Andalus in order to ally themselves with their sworn enemies, the
Almohads? More to the point, was there anyone in particular among the
unnamed knights of Castile whom the archbishop might have had in mind?
One thing is clear: the movement of Christian arms-bearers across the
frontier into Muslim territory and their recruitment as mercenaries was by
no means a new development. The Umayyad emir of Cordoba al-Hakam
26 Medieval Spain

I (796–822) may have been the first Muslim ruler to have recruited Christians
into his army.19 In the tenth century, when the Umayyad caliphate became a
watchword for military might, economic prosperity, and cultural splendour,
not only did some of the powerful Christian marcher lords maintain close
diplomatic contacts with al-Andalus, but there were a significant number who
actively supported the caliphate on its frequent expeditions against the
Christian north, and were well rewarded in return.20 When the caliphate sub-
sequently collapsed and disintegrated between 1009 and 1031, the feuding
Taifa successor-states that filled the political vacuum looked increasingly to
the Christian states of northern Spain to provide them with the military mus-
cle they needed in their regular territorial squabbles with their neighbours.
While the Christian rulers were glad to exploit the Taifa kings, offering their
military ‘protection’ in return for substantial payments of gold, silver, and
other valuables, some of the nobles of the Christian realms also profited by
seeking employment in al-Andalus as mercenaries. The most famous of these
men was the Castilian nobleman Rodrigo Díaz, better known as El Cid, who
served as a mercenary in the army of the Taifa state of Zaragoza between 1081
and 1086, before going on to carve out an independent principality for him-
self in Valencia in 1094.21 What is more, cross-border movement of this kind
was not the exclusive preserve of the aristocratic élite. One need only consider
Sancho I of León, ousted by his own subjects because he was reputedly too
obese even to mount a horse, who travelled to Córdoba in 958 in the hope that
the caliph’s physicians would help him to shed the excess pounds, and also
obtained military backing to enable him to reclaim his throne the following
year; or Alfonso VI, who after having been deposed from the Leonese throne
by his sibling Sancho II of Castile in 1072, ‘driven by necessity to keep barbar-
ian company’, took refuge in Muslim Toledo.22
Between 1086 and 1250 al-Andalus was to undergo a further series of seis-
mic shocks. As the Berber Almoravid and Almohad empires in the peninsula
and the Maghreb rose and fell in succession, there was an intensification of
the military struggle between Christian and Muslim, which appears, on the
face of it, to have led to a certain reduction in cross-border contacts.23 The cre-
ation, from the 1080s onwards, of a militarized frontier zone to the south of
the Duero, in which responsibility for defence came to lie primarily with the
caballeros of the town militias and later, from the second half of the twelfth
century, with the local military Orders of Calatrava, Santiago and Alcántara,
rather than with an entrenched group of independent-minded Christian
marcher lords, may have served to discourage intimate cross-border dealings
of the kind that had prevailed in the tenth century.24 Likewise, the diffusion of
the ideology of crusade, not only encouraged a more expansionary mood on
the Christian side, and provided arms-bearers with spiritual as well as
material incentives to take the fight to Islam, but may also have made
Christian–Muslim alliances of the type that had proliferated in the tenth or
eleventh centuries far less palatable than hitherto. Be that as it may, the pas-
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 27

sage of soldiers from Christian Iberia across the frontier into Muslim-held ter-
ritory continued throughout the twelfth century and beyond.
The creation of a Christian mercenary force based in the Maghreb was
reportedly the initiative of the Almoravid emir ‘Ali b. Yusuf. According to the
author of the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, writing c.1150, the Christian sol-
diers who were recruited to this force were prisoners of war, who had been cap-
tured in the peninsula and later transported across the Straits of Gibraltar to
Morocco. The chronicler makes specific mention of the Christians who were
captured by ‘Ali b. Yusuf during his abortive expedition against Toledo in
1109, by the emir’s son Tashufin b. ‘Ali during his campaigns in the peninsula
in 1130 and 1138, and by the commander of the Almoravid fleet, Muhammad
b. Maymun, in the course of his periodic raids on the Christian coastline.25
According to the Chronica, these Christian prisoners soon came to play a lead-
ing role in the Almoravid army:

At that time God granted His grace to the prisoners who were in the royal
court of their lord, King ‘Ali, and moved His heart toward them in order to
favour the Christians. ‘Ali regarded them above all of the men of his own
eastern people, for he made some of them chamberlains of his private
apartments, and others captains of one thousand soldiers, five hundred
soldiers and one hundred soldiers, who stood at the forefront of the army
of his kingdom. He furnished them with gold and silver, cities and strong-
ly-fortified castles, with which they could have reinforcement in order to
make war on the Muzmutos [Almohads] and the king of the Assyrians,
called Abdelnomen [‘Abd al-Mu’min], who attacked his territories without
interruption.26

The chronicler identifies two of these Christian soldiers by name: the

Castilian Tello Fernández, who was sent to Cordoba and thence to North
Africa after the castle of Aceca near Toledo was stormed by the Almoravids in
1130;27 and Reverter, viscount of Barcelona and lord of La Guardia de
Montserrat, who arrived in the Maghreb c.1132 and came to lead the
Almoravid army with distinction until his death, probably in May or June of
1144:28

The king placed him [Reverter] in charge of the captive Christian knights
and the barbarians so that he would be the commander in all his wars, for
he had never been defeated in battle. And for this reason, throughout all
the days of King ‘Ali’s life, all the king’s wars were conducted by him and
through his counsel.29

Despite the insistence of the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris that the Christians
who served in the Almoravid militias were prisoners of war, it is none the less
likely that as time passed a good many of the Christian soldiers who enlisted
28 Medieval Spain

in the militias of the Maghreb did so of their own free will. It has even been
speculated that Reverter, ‘the leader of the captive Christian people’, as he is
dubbed by the Chronica, took up residence in the Maghreb not because he was
captured in battle, but because his waning political fortunes in his native
Catalonia had encouraged him to seek his fortune elsewhere.30
By the 1140s, notwithstanding the increasing military importance of the
Christian militias, the Almoravid empire had begun to unravel and its author-
ity was being challenged, not only by the Almohads in North Africa, but by
dissident elements in al-Andalus too.31 As Almoravid power in the Maghreb
rapidly crumbled between 1145 and 1147, the triumphant Almohad caliph
‘Abd al-Mu’min began a drive to purge the conquered territories of Almoravid
supporters and unbelievers. The fall of the Almoravid capital, Marrakesh, to
‘Abd al-Mu’min on 24 March 1147 is said to have been followed by a large-
scale massacre of the citizens.32 Faced with the stark choice of conversion to
Islam or repatriation, many thousands of Christian knights and foot-soldiers
are reported to have returned to Toledo at this time.33
None the less, ‘Abd al-Mu’min’s successors on the caliphal throne, Abu
Ya’qub Yusuf and Ya’qub al-Mansur, appear to have had far fewer scruples
about recruiting Christian mercenaries into their armies. During the final
quarter of the twelfth century we hear of several Christian nobles entering the
service of the Almohads. In the west of the peninsula, the Portuguese warlord
Geraldo Sempavor, who won fame and fortune by leading a series of daring
campaigns against the Muslims in the area between Cáceres and Badajoz
between 1165 and 1169, made his way to Seville some time after 1172 to
pledge loyalty to the Almohad caliph Abu Ya’qub, and was subsequently
awarded a fiefdom in the Sus in the western Atlas. Geraldo later tried to return
to Portugal, but his plans were discovered and he and his companions were
killed and beheaded, perhaps in 1173.34 A contemporary of Geraldo’s was
Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, whose deeds in the service of Fernando II of
León in 1169 enabled him to secure a sizeable lordship for himself based
around Trujillo; but that did not stop him from joining forces with the
Almohads and leading an attack against Leonese-held Ciudad Rodrigo in
1174.35 Fernando’s son, Pedro Fernández, who defected to the Almohad side
in 1194, won notoriety by fighting in the Almohad army that routed Alfonso
VIII of Castile in battle at Alarcos the following year, and by engineering the
alliance between Alfonso IX of León and the Almohad caliph Ya’qub al-
Mansur shortly afterwards, as a result of which he was excommunicated by
Pope Celestine III on 31 October 1196.36 Although Pedro was later able to
return to the Leonese and Castilian courts, he finally sought asylum in the
Maghreb some time after September 1213, ‘pursued like a capital enemy’ by
his former lord Alfonso VIII, as one chronicler put it, where he died on 18
August 1214.37 For his part, the hapless Sancho VII el Fuerte of Navarre, fearful
of the hostile intentions of his neighbours Castile and Aragón, not only
entered into an alliance with the Almohad caliph Ya’qub al-Mansur in 1196
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 29

and earned a papal rebuke from Pope Celestine III for his pains late the follow-
ing year, but also, in 1198, faced by the imminent partition of his kingdom
travelled in person to al-Andalus and then, perhaps, to the Maghreb in search
of military aid.38
Despite the warning letters of Pope Innocent III and Archbishop Rodrigo of
Toledo, and the best efforts of the latter to rekindle the flame of crusade in
1217/18, the passage of Christian arms-bearers into al-Andalus and the
Maghreb appears to have quickened in the years after the battle of Las
Navas.39 The death of the Almohad caliph Yusuf al-Mustansir in 1224 was fol-
lowed by a bitter and protracted struggle for the succession, which would ultim-
ately lead to the disintegration of the Almohad empire both in the Maghreb
and al-Andalus.40 At the same time, Almohad supremacy in the Maghreb was
beginning to come under attack from a number of rival groups: the Hafsids,
who managed to establish themselves as independent rulers in Tunisia during
the course of the 1230s; the Ziyanids, who seized power in Tlemcen at about
the same time; and the Marinids, who by 1269 would displace the Almohads
as the chief power in Morocco altogether. In these circumstances of protracted
dynastic strife and political upheaval it was hardly surprising that the compet-
ing factions should have sought to enhance their military capability by
recruiting Christian mercenaries into their warbands. ‘In the subsequent
decline of their empire’, al-Makkari would observe later, ‘they came at length
not only to hire the enemy’s troops, but to surrender to the Christian kings the
fortresses of the Moslems, that they might secure their aid against each
other’.41 Just as the would-be caliph al-’Adil and his rival ‘Abd Allah al-Bayyasi
in 1224–25 recruited contingents of Christian mercenaries into their armies,
so al-’Adil’s brother, al-Ma’mun, who had proclaimed himself caliph in Seville
in the winter of 1227, crossed from al-Andalus to Marrakesh with a contingent
of some 500 Christian knights the following year in an attempt to consolidate
his power on the throne and displace his rivals.42
Some of these Christian exiles are known to us by name. There were mag-
nates of the highest rank and power: the Portuguese infante Pedro Fernandes,
who travelled to Morocco some time before 1219;43 the Castilian Count
Fernando Núñez de Lara, who sought political asylum at the Almohad court
after he went into exile in 1219 and ended his days near Marrakesh shortly
afterwards;44 and his brother Count Gonzalo Núñez, who crossed into
Muslim territory in 1221, was briefly reconciled to Fernando III of Castile
three years later, and died in exile at Baena near Córdoba in 1225.45 Pedro
Fernández’s son Alvar Pérez de Castro was recruited into the army of al-
Bayyasi and helped repulse Fernando III of Castile’s attack on Jaén in 1225.46
Another Christian knight who found employment as a mercenary in al-
Andalus was Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato who, after he was banished by
Fernando III for unspecified misconduct (malfetrías) some time before 1236,
joined the military entourage of Muhammad b. Hud of Ecija, who held sway
over much of al-Andalus.47 Muslim sources refer to some of the other
30 Medieval Spain

Christian soldiers who served in the Almohad army in the Maghreb, although
their names are frequently corrupted and their background remains mysteri-
ous: men like Far Qasil, who was among the military leaders who swore an
oath of allegiance on the accession of the Almohad caliph al-Rashid in 1232;
Shadid, who served both Almohads and Marinids as alcaide of Fez and who in
1249 joined a conspiracy to overthrow the Marinid emir Abu Yahya; and the
alcaide Lope, who arrived in the Maghreb in 1261 to serve in the militia of the
Almohad ruler al-Murtada, to name but three.48
The eagerness of Muslim rulers, both in al-Andalus and the Maghreb, to
recruit Christian soldiers into their armies speaks volumes for the military repu-
tation of the latter. Christian knights, who were highly regarded for their discip-
line, skill and courage on the battlefield, frequently formed the mainstay of the
personal bodyguard of the emirs or caliphs of the Maghreb; others appear to
have been employed as tax collectors.49 For Ibn Khaldun, writing towards the
end of the fourteenth century, the military advantages offered by the ‘advance
in closed formation’ technique favoured by non-Muslim armies were clear-cut:

Fighting in closed formation is more steady and fierce than fighting with
the technique of attack and withdrawal. That is because in fighting in
closed formation, the lines are orderly and evenly arranged, like arrows or
like rows of worshippers at prayer. People advance in closed lines against
the enemy. This makes for greater steadiness in assault and for better use of
the proper tactics. It frightens the enemy more. A closed formation is like a
long wall or a well-built castle which no one could hope to move . . . Because
of [this fact], the Maghribî rulers have come to employ groups of European
Christians in their army, and they are the only ones to have done that, for
their compatriots know only the technique of attack and withdrawal. The
position of the ruler is strengthened by establishing a line formation in
support of the fighting men ahead of it. The men in such a line formation
must be people who are used to hold firm in closed formation. If not, they
will run away like the men who use the technique of attack and withdraw-
al, and, when they run away, the ruler and the army will be routed.
Therefore, the rulers of the Maghrib had to use soldiers from a nation used
to hold firm in closed formation. That nation was the European Christians.
The Maghribî rulers do that despite the fact that it means utilizing the aid
of unbelievers. They do not think much of it, because the necessity [of
using such men] exists, as we have shown. They fear that their own line for-
mation might run away, and [they know that] the European Christians
know only how to hold firm, because it is their custom to fight in closed
formation. They are, therefore, more suitable for the purpose than others.
However, the Maghribî rulers employ [such European Christians] only in
wars against Arab and Berber nations, in order to force them into submis-
sion. They do not use them for the holy war, because they are afraid that
they might take sides against the Muslims.50
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 31

Of course, for all their military expertise, the Christian militias were not
invulnerable to defeat; and their loyalty was sometimes suspect.51 But Ibn
Khaldun’s high opinion of the military expertise of the Christian mercenaries
appears to have been widely shared.52 As Bishop Lucas of Tuy was later wryly
to observe, presumably in reference to Pedro Fernández’s rôle in Alfonso VIII’s
harrowing defeat at the battle of Alarcos in 1195, the Christians – or Goths as
Lucas calls them – almost never suffered defeat at the hands of the Muslims,
unless the latter had the advice and support of exiled Christians.53
As Ibn Khaldun indicates, the Maghrebi rulers, be they Almoravids, Almohads,
or indeed Marinids, did not ordinarily deploy Christian mercenaries in the
military expeditions they periodically launched against the kingdoms of
Christian Spain. A notable exception appears to have been Alfonso Pérez de
Guzmán, whose deeds as a mercenary in Morocco were later to be the object of
much literary embroidering.54 In 1282, Guzmán was reportedly among the
contingent of Christians which accompanied the Marinid emir Abu Yusuf to
the peninsula in support of Alfonso X, who had been deposed by his son the
infante Sancho earlier that year.55 And just as we have seen that Christians
based in al-Andalus might be required to take part in campaigns against their
fellow Christians in the north, so it was also not unheard of for rival Christian
militias in the Maghreb to cross swords. When Abu Yusuf led an expedition
against Yagmurasen of Tlemcen in 1271/2, both armies contained Christian
mercenaries in their ranks.56 The illuminations which accompany the
account in the thirteenth-century Cantigas de Santa María of the ‘splendid
miracle’ which occurred when the Christians in the service of the Almohads
defeated the Marinids near Marrakesh quite clearly indicate the presence of
Christian mercenaries on both sides.57 Other Christian nobles served in the
Almohad caliphal household, or were employed by their Muslim lords as go-
betweens in their diplomatic negotiations with Christian powers. Among the
envoys that were sent to Spain in 1278 by the Marinid emir Abu Yusuf in an
attempt to persuade the Christians to lift the siege of Algeciras, for example,
was Garci Martínez de Gallegos.58
How were these mercenaries recruited? More often than not, we are given
the impression that the initiative came from the Christians themselves.
When Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, lord of Trujillo, became estranged from
Fernando II of León, probably in 1174, he first sent word of his planned defec-
tion to the Almohad governor in Seville. Having sought and secured permis-
sion from the Almohad ruler in Marrakesh, the governor then allowed
Fernando, his relations and other supporters to journey to Seville, where in
return for numerous gifts they undertook to ally themselves to the Muslim
cause.59 In the same manner, when Geraldo Sempavor decided to cross the
frontier in 1172/3, he and his companions headed first for Seville, where they
sought permission to join the Almohads; later, reportedly because of Almohad
fears that he was still in contact with his erstwhile lord Afonso I of Portugal,
Geraldo and his followers were obliged to cross to Morocco, where he was
32 Medieval Spain

awarded a fief at Sus in the western Atlas.60 Occasionally, would-be exiles

might even issue a wider appeal for recruits before crossing the frontier. In the
summer of 1220, Sancho Fernández, the half-brother of Alfonso IX of León,
went to Toledo and announced his intention to go to Morocco to take up serv-
ice in the army of the Almohad caliph and attracted a large number of
Christians and Jews – over 40 000 if the author of the Anales Toledanos
Segundos is to be believed – to his banner with the promise that they would all
be richly rewarded if they followed him to Seville. In the event, Sancho and his
followers got only as far as the deserted castle of Cañamero near Cáceres,
which they used as a base to raid both Christian and Muslim territory alike.
But any hopes the infante may have harboured that he might establish him-
self as an independent frontier lord were dashed when he was killed by a bear;
shortly afterwards, on 25 August, the castle was stormed by the Muslim gov-
ernor of nearby Badajoz and Sancho’s followers were captured and beheaded.61
Other potential exiles appear to have engaged in correspondence with their
prospective employers in the Maghreb, as they weighed up the options open to
them. That much is clear from the extraordinary cache of letters, originally
written in Arabic, which were intercepted by an official of Alfonso X of Castile
(1252–84) in August 1272, translated into Castilian, and subsequently pre-
served in the pages of the fourteenth-century Crónica de Alfonso X.62 The letters
in question were addressed by the Marinid emir Abu Yusuf and his son ‘Abd al-
Wahid to a number of disaffected Castilian magnates, offering them military
assistance if they rebelled against Alfonso X. Moreover, Abu Yusuf invited
Nuño González de Lara to send his son Juan Núñez, or one of his other sons, to
Morocco with the promise that he would appoint him ‘king over the
Christians and lord of his armies’.63 Elsewhere, it is revealed that another of
the magnates, Simón Ruiz de Cameros, had entered into correspondence
with the emir shortly before the latter conquered Marrakesh in 1269, and
that Esteban Fernández de Castro had also received an invitation to cross to
Morocco. For his part, Gil Gómez de Roa is reported to have sent letters offering
his services to the emir and had been promised by the latter that if he wished to
serve in Granada, Algeciras or even across the Straits he would increase his
stipend (soldada) twenty times over.64 In the event, the disaffected nobles and
their followers, over 1200 men in all, crossed into Granada in December 1272
and concluded a treaty with its ruler Ibn al-Ahmar, making a solemn submis-
sion of vassalage and promising collaboration against Alfonso X and against
‘everybody, both Christians and Moors, in war and in peace’.65 It was a mark of
the esteem with which the nobles were regarded in Granada that on the death
of Ibn al-Ahmar in January 1273 they acted as pallbearers at his funeral and
helped his son Muhammad II to secure the throne. But the exiled magnates
soon reopened negotiations with Alfonso and the following December they
were readmitted to royal favour and returned to their estates.66
Encouragement for disaffected nobles to seek asylum in Muslim territory
might even come from the royal court itself. When Alvar Pérez de Castro
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 33

rebelled against Fernando III of Castile–León in 1233, we are told by a normal-

ly reliable source (probably Bishop Juan of Osma) that the king’s mother
Queen Berenguela and his wife Queen Beatriz took counsel with various ‘pru-
dent men’ and ‘commanded Alvar Pérez to leave . . . the kingdom and go to the
land of the Saracens, and live there or some other place’, until he and his fol-
lowers might regain the king’s favour.67 Accordingly, at the begining of Lent of
the following year, while Fernando III was in Valladolid, the king allowed
Alvar Pérez to set out for al-Andalus, whereupon queens Berenguela and
Beatriz, forseeing the harm that would befall the frontier if Alvar Pérez were
allowed to resume his alliance with Ibn Hud, acted promptly so that the noble
was restored to royal favour and recovered his lands and castles.68
Other Christian mercenaries were recruited by the rulers of the Maghreb as
a result of political agreements carried out at the highest level. The Christian
knights who accompanied the self-proclaimed Almohad caliph al-Ma’mun to
Morocco in 1229 were reportedly dispatched with the express agreement of
Fernando III of Castile. No text of any treaty drawn up between Fernando and
al-Ma’mun has survived, but if Ibn Abi Zar’, author of the Rawd al-Qirta s, is to
be believed, Fernando drove a hard bargain: al-Ma’mun was to surrender ten
castles on the frontier between al-Andalus and Castile; the Christians already
dwelling in Marrakesh were to be allowed to build a church in the city and
even to ring its bells; apostates to Islam were to be delivered to the Christian
authorities for trial, while Muslims who converted to Christianity were to
enjoy immunity from prosecution.69 In the east of the peninsula, meanwhile,
Jaume I of Aragon entered into a similar agreement with the Hafsid kingdom
of Tunisia, probably some time during the course of the 1250s.70 The organiza-
tion of this Catalan militia, contingents of which were based not only in Tunis
itself, but in Bône (Annaba), and perhaps also in Bougie (Bejaia) and
Constantine, is reasonably well known to us. While knights each received a
monthly stipend of between 45 and 90 silver besants, their alcayt, or leader,
Guillem de Moncada received between 2000 and 3000 besants. It was the
responsibility of the alcayt to distribute these wages among the members of
the Christian militia and to send a share to the king of Aragon himself. Even if
the Catalan militia numbered only 100 men, Jaume I stood to earn the tidy
sum of 20 000 silver besants per annum. Although the presence of Castilian
mercenaries in Tunisia is also recorded, it remained a predominantly Catalan
operation, just as Morocco became the principal destination for Castilian sol-
diers of fortune.71 As Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq has rightly observed, for
the Aragonese crown, as well as for the Christian mercenaries themselves, the
eastern Maghreb was a veritable gold mine.72
The number of Christians who found employment as mercenaries in al-
Andalus or the Maghreb during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies was evidently far from insignificant. In addition to the 500 knights that
al-Ma’mun took with him to Morocco in 1229, we are told that Geraldo
Sempavor was accompanied to his fiefdom in the Sus by a contingent of 350
34 Medieval Spain

soldiers;73 Alvar Pérez de Castro reportedly helped defend Jaén against

Christian attack in 1225 with the support of 160 knights;74 Ibn Hud had near-
ly 200 Christian mercenaries in his service when he tried to thwart Fernando
III’s offensive against Cordoba in 1236;75 Shadid, the Christian alcaide of Fez,
who in 1249 joined a plot to oust the Marinid emir Abu Yahya, had some 200
knights under his command;76 while Alonso Pérez de Guzmán is reputed to
have established a force of 1600 Christian horsemen when he entered Marinid
service.77 In short, what evidence we have suggests that by the late thirteenth
century there could have been as many as several thousand Christian mercen-
aries dwelling in the Muslim territories of al- Andalus and the Maghreb, widely
dispersed, as Pope Honorius III observed, ‘among many diverse remote
places’.78

The period between c.1100 and 1300 in the Iberian peninsula is littered with
examples of nobles who chose, or were forced, to go into exile to seek alter-
native sources of patronage and power; or who even joined in outright armed
rebellion against their sovereign.79 What should have become clear from this
brief and episodic survey of Christian–Muslim relations during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, is that as far as the nobles of the Christian realms of
Iberia were concerned, Muslim al-Andalus and, indeed, the Maghreb, were
potentially fertile sources of wealth and power like any other. True, the motiv-
ation of those Christians who crossed the frontier may have differed widely.
Some, we have seen, were out-and-out exiles, members of what Robert Bartlett
has dubbed the ‘political out-group’, who had either been ostracized from
court, deprived of the benefits of royal patronage, and banished from the
kingdom; or else who had voluntarily left the court in search of alternative
sources of patronage.80 Pedro Fernández de Castro elected to travel to
Morocco late in 1213 because the peace terms that had been agreed between
León and Castile earlier that year had led to his exclusion from both courts.81
Similarly, Fernando and Gonzalo Núñez de Lara sought asylum in the
Maghreb and al-Andalus respectively precisely because a pact to exclude them
from the Castilian and Leonese courts, agreed between Fernando III and his
father Alfonso IX at Toro on 26 August 1218 and probably renewed subse-
quently, had left them with precious little room for manoeuvre.82 And
Gonzalo Núñez de Lara crossed into al-Andalus in 1221 after he had reported-
ly instigated a rebellion against the Castilian crown by his kinsman Gonzalo
Pérez Manrique.83 There were yet others, like the aristocratic rebels who
entered into correspondence with the rulers of Granada and Morocco in 1272,
who sought Muslim military assistance in order to bolster their positions of
power vis à vis the monarchy, or even to help them overthrow the established
order. In most cases, however, it may simply have been the prospect of mater-
ial wealth that prompted noblemen to cross the frontier with Islam. Geraldo
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 35

Sempavor, for one, is said to have sought asylum with the Almohads because
after the loss of his frontier possessions near Cáceres, ‘impoverished and bereft
of all assistance’, he had very little choice.84 The Infante Sancho Fernández of
León is said to have attracted large numbers of would-be mercenaries to his
banner in Toledo in 1220 by promising great riches to all those who accompan-
ied him to Seville.85
Were similar blandishments offered to the anonymous knights of Castile,
who within only months of the victory at Las Navas had apparently begun to
cross the frontier into al-Andalus? Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo makes only
vague allusions to the grievances that some of these nobles may have har-
boured at court, but it is tempting to conclude that money lay at the root of
their disaffection. The crusade of 1212 had proved a crippling burden for the
Castilian treasury and might have fizzled out altogether had the clergy of the
kingdom not come to the rescue by promising half of their annual income to
the crown.86 The following year, Alfonso VIII had had to pay out further sub-
stantial sums of money to the nobles who took part in the campaign against
Alfonso IX of León.87 It is far from inconceivable that a year after Las Navas,
with the royal coffers hugely depleted, and with famine and disease causing
rural incomes to plummet, and forcing the king to curtail potentially lucrative
military operations on the southern frontier, that some among the Castilian
nobility were beginning to feel the financial pinch. In such straitened circum-
stances, the road to Seville or Marrakesh might have seemed alluring indeed.88
In this respect, Pedro Fernández de Castro may have offered a role model for
impecunious Castilian knights to follow. The time Pedro had spent in
Almohad service had clearly left him a wealthy man, so much so that in June
1213 a member of the Leonese chancery could refer to him as ‘a rich man in all
Spain’.89 The fact that some time before 1206, while in Seville, Pedro was able
to pay out on behalf of King Pedro II of Aragon the not inconsiderable sums
of 24 267 maravedís and 30 000 mazmodines to some merchants from
Montpellier and Narbonne, and a further 10 000 solidi to one Pedro Sesé, says
much for the cash reserves at his disposal.90 It may not be too far-fetched to
speculate that in the weeks and months after his exclusion from the Leonese
and Castilian courts late in 1213 Pedro Fernández had sought recruits among
the nobility of his native Castile before he travelled in exile to Morocco.
Furthermore, Innocent III’s bull of 19 April 1213, which had abruptly termin-
ated the crusade in Iberia, may have encouraged the exodus: freed from their
crusading vows, some Castilian nobles may have had far fewer qualms about
seeking asylum and employment as mercenaries in the lands of Islam.
Sixty years on, Alfonso X of Castile was to regard the Castilian nobles who
elected to cross the frontier with al-Andalus with ill-disguised disdain. Writing
to his son the infante Fernando in 1273, the king acidly observed that at least
those men of rank who had formerly served the Almohads in al- Andalus and
the Maghreb, like Fernando Rodríguez de Castro and his sons Pedro and
Diego, the infante Pedro of Portugal, and Sancho VII of Navarre, were of ‘better
36 Medieval Spain

fortune and better judgement’ than the rebels who in Alfonso’s own day had
taken up with the king of Granada.91 The Siete Partidas, the voluminous legal
compendium, which was compiled at King Alfonso’s behest between 1256
and 1265, had these stern words to say on the subject of those who sought asy-
lum in al-Andalus or the Maghreb:

When a nobleman leaves his country of his own accord, and the king does
not banish him, and he goes to the land of the Moors, his vassals should
not follow him. This is the rule because he commits treason in two ways;
first, he commits it against God, because he goes to the assistance of the
enemies of the faith; second, he commits it against his natural lord, by
making war against him and ravaging his country, and his vassals are guilty
of the same treason if they accompany him in order to assist him.92

It is striking, however, that the vast majority of the chroniclers and notaries
who recorded such cross-border movements studiously abstained from pass-
ing any comment or judgement at all. The author of the Chronica Adefonsi
Imperatoris records with one breath the crusading activity of Count Rodrigo
González in the Holy Land after his exile from Castile in 1137, and with
another the count’s subsequent decision to seek asylum in Muslim Valencia.93
Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez of Toledo passed no judgement on Count
Fernando Núñez’s decision to take up residence at the Almohad court in 1219,
but was keen to point out that on his deathbed in Marrakesh the count was
received into the Order of Saint John and that his body, along with those of
others who had died there, was taken back to Castile for burial at the
Hospitallers’ house of Puente Itero.94 For its part, the Crónica de Alfonso X
faithfully reproduces the correspondence that took place between the
Castilian magnates and the Marinid emir, as well as the treaty they subse-
quently agreed with Ibn al-Ahmar of Granada in 1272, but portrays their
actions purely in political terms; there is no suggestion that these exiles were
in any way betraying their kingdom or their faith.95
Far from indulging in blanket condemnation of those who had crossed the
frontier with Islam, the chief concern of the papal authorities in the thir-
teenth century appears to have been to ensure that all Christians dwelling in
al-Andalus and the Maghreb were able to practise their religion without let or
hindrance, and that none were tempted to stray from the fold. Already, on 4
June 1192, Pope Celestine III had instructed Archbishop Martín of Toledo to
dispatch a suitable priest competent in Latin and Arabic to Marrakesh, Seville
and other Muslim cities with the task of comforting those who were firm of
faith and of correcting those customs that were regarded as wicked and injuri-
ous to the Catholic faith.96 On 5 September 1219 Honorius III wrote to the
Almohad caliph Yusuf al-Mustansir asking him to allow Christians in his
kingdom the freedom to practise their own religion; in 1223 the same pope
absolved those Christians in Morocco who, at banquets held by the Almohad
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 37

ruler to celebrate their victories in battle, had been obliged to eat meat on
Fridays or during Lent; and two years after that Honorius dispatched the first
Dominican friars to Morocco with the task of preaching to the Muslims, com-
forting the Christians who were firm of faith and, perhaps most importantly
of all, persuading those who had apostasized to return to the Christian fold.97
In a letter Honorius addressed to Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo on 20
February 1226 the pope’s fears are manifest: ‘In Miramamolin’s kingdom
there are many Christian captives who through fear of torture and death have
apostatized, and many other faint-hearts in the faith who are tottering head-
long towards the edge of an abyss’.98 In other words, as James Muldoon has
observed, ‘there was ambivalence in papal interest in North Africa, the desire
to bring the Spanish crusades across the Straits of Gibraltar being counterbal-
anced by a desire to insure the safety of those Christians who lived there’.99
This policy was exemplified by Pope Innocent IV, who on 31 October 1246
wrote to the Almohad sovereign al-Murtada reminding him of the many vic-
tories that Christian mercenaries had won on the caliph’s behalf and request-
ing that they be granted a number of fortified sites on the coast; if the caliph
refused to meet his demands, the pope warned, he would command the sol-
diers to return to their homelands and would prevent others from joining
Almohad service thereafter.100 At the same time, the pope demonstrated his
concern for the welfare of the Christian mercenaries by taking under the pro-
tection of the Holy See the property of all those who had travelled with their
families to Morocco.101 Although Innocent IV’s successors on the papal
throne would continue to encourage attempts to mount a Spanish crusade to
Africa, their concern for the well-being of their flock in the Maghreb was
unstinting. Indeed, far from denouncing the Christian mercenaries who had
taken up service in Morocco, Tunis, and Tlemcen, Nicholas IV assured them in
February 1290 that they were missionaries in their own right who by their
‘good example could lead their Muslim neighbours to the true faith’.102
Historians still debate the extent to which Christian territorial expansion in
the Iberian peninsula was driven by ideological concepts such as Reconquest
or Crusade, or by more prosaic impulses, summed up by Richard Fletcher as
‘demographic pressure, climatic change, developing military technology, the
needs of an emergent aristocratic elite, the appetites of sheep and cattle’.103
However, there is widespread agreement that in Christian Iberia the existence
of the unstable frontier with Islam meant that for many people military activ-
ity represented rather more than an occasional opportunity or obligation.
This, we are frequently reminded, was ‘a society organized for war’, an
expanding frontier society imbued with a militant code of conduct where,
from the twelfth century at least, the brunt of the fighting with Islam was
borne not by the Iberian rulers and their warrior élites, but by the caballeros of
the frontier towns, and by the members of the Military Orders. That model
still stands, for the most part, yet the small sample of evidence presented here
suggests that for much of the Reconquest period the movement of members of
38 Medieval Spain

the Christian nobility into Muslim-held territory occurred with far greater fre-
quency than has often been supposed, and that the militarized frontier
between the Christian realms and Muslim al-Andalus, far from consistently
being ‘the arena for confrontation between two opposing civilisations’, was in
fact ‘an ambiguous and problematical frontier’.104 One receives the impres-
sion that in Reconquest Iberia the militarized frontier with Islam was far less of
a barrier to Christian arms-bearers than appears to have been the case in the
crusading realms of the Near East.
The striking ‘permeability’ of the Iberian frontier would remain a constant
feature throughout the Late Middle Ages. As Angus MacKay’s own magisterial
work on the Late Medieval Castilian–Granadan frontier has demonstrated, in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries cross-border collaboration and accul-
turation in the south of the peninsula were such that ‘at times it would almost
seem as if the frontier had in some ways ceased to exist’.105 Of course, neither
al-Andalus nor the Maghreb were necessarily the first or logical port of call for
influential Christians in extremis. For some, given the religious, cultural and
linguistic difficulties involved, it was clearly a last resort. In 1261 the Infante
Enrique may only have travelled to Tunis once he had been refused asylum in
Aragon; and the magnates who rebelled against Alfonso X in 1272 unsuccess-
fully sought refuge in Navarre before finally crossing the frontier into
Granada.106 But when all was said and done, the search for wealth, status and
power, the chief motors of aristocratic behaviour down the ages, was always
likely to take precedence over religious or ideological considerations. If cir-
cumstances demanded it, the society organized for war was always ready to
compromise its principles.

Notes
1 On the background to Las Navas de Tolosa and for an analysis of the battle itself, see
A. Huici Miranda, Las grandes batallas de la Reconquista durante las invasiones africanas
(Madrid, 1956), pp. 217–327; J. González, El Reino de Castilla en la época de Alfonso
VIII, 3 vols (Madrid, 1960), henceforth GRC, I, pp. 981–1062.
2 See, for example, the ‘Chronicon de Cardeña’, ed. E. Flórez, España Sagrada 23
(1767), 370–80, at pp. 378–9. Muslim authors shared the view that Las Navas marked
the beginning of the end for the Almohad empire in the Iberian peninsula: see, for
example, Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib fi ijtisar ajbar muluk al-
Andalus wa-l-Maghrib, trans. A. Huici Miranda, in Colección de crónicas árabes de la
Reconquista 2 vols (Tetuán, 1953), II, p. 269; Ibn Abi Zar’, Rawd al-Qi rta s, trans. A.
Huici Miranda, 2 vols (Valencia, 1964), II, p. 467; al-Makkari, The History of the
Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. P. de Gayangos, 2 vols (London, 1843), II,
p. 323.
3 D.W. Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (London, 1978), p. 128.
4 GRC, III, no. 897; D. Mansilla (ed.), La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III
(965–1216), (Rome, 1965), no. 488.
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 39

5 P. Linehan, History and the historians of medieval Spain (Oxford, 1993), p. 295.
6 Linehan, History and the historians, pp. 292–5.
7 ‘O quanta letitia! O quot gratiarum actiones! nisi de hoc dolendum sit: quod tam
pauci martyres de tanto exercitu ad Christum martyrio peruenerunt’: GRC, III, no.
897. The view that the Christian fallen were martyrs was echoed by Rodrigo
Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo, in his De rebus Hispanie sive Historia Gothica,
ed. J. Fernández Valverde, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 72
(Turnhout, 1987), henceforth DRH, p. 275.
8 On the introduction of the ideology of crusade into the peninsula, see J. Goñi
Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de la Cruzada en España (Vitoria, 1958); R. A. Fletcher,
‘Reconquest and crusade in Spain, c.1050–1150’, Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, 5th series, 37 (1987), 31–47; M. Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the
First Crusade: the Limousin and Gascony, c.970–c.1130 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 96–114; S.
Barton, ‘From Tyrants to Soldiers of Christ: the nobility of twelfth-century León-
Castile and the struggle against Islam’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 44 (2000),
28–48.
9 ‘Quemadmodum milites Christi, fideles Sancte Ecclesie filii iter Iherosolimitanum
multo labore et multi sanguinis effusione aperuerunt, ita et nos Christi milites effi-
ciamur et, eius hostibus debellatis pessimis Sarracenis, iter, quod per Hispanie
partes breuius et multo minus laboriosum est, ad idem Domini sepulchrum ipsius
subueniente gratia aperiamus’, Historia Compostellana, ed. E. Falque Rey, Corpus
Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 70 (Turnhout, 1988), p. 379.
10 Goñi Gaztambide, Historia, pp. 63–95; G. Constable, ‘The Second Crusade as seen
by contemporaries’, Traditio 9 (1953), 266–76, at pp. 226–35, 257–60; J. Phillips,
‘Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the Low Countries, and the Lisbon Letter of the Second
Crusade’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 48 (1997), 485–97; S. Barton, ‘A Forgotten
Crusade: Alfonso VII of León-Castile and the Campaign for Jaén (1148)’, Historical
Research 73 (2000), 312–20.
11 Goñi Gaztambide, Historia, pp. 95–116.
12 GRC, I, pp. 1067–72; cf. J. Gorosterratzu, Don Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada: gran estadista,
escritor y prelado (Pamplona, 1925), pp. 124–38.
13 Goñi Gaztambide, Historia, p. 132 n. 72.
14 Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Códices, 996B, fol. 44ra-b; F. Hernández, Los
cartularios de Toledo: catálogo documental (Madrid, 1985), no. 652.
15 ‘Cum uniuersi Christiane fidei professores domino Deo laudem et gloriam dare
teneamur, eo quod in bello preterito plebem suam dignatus est uisitare et ei dare
uictoriam de inimicis nominis Christiani; nos tamen precipue quem de hoc regno
sumus ei cantare debemus, et glorificare ac laudare nomen eius in secula bene-
dictum, eo quod in terra nostra dederit uictoriam et specialiter causa nostri’:
Toledo, Archivo de la Catedral, A.6.1.22; copy in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS
13,022, fol. 92r-v; published by A. López, ‘Los obispos de Marruecos desde el siglo
XIII’, in Archivo Ibero-Americano 14 (1920), 397–502, at p. 497; trans. Gorosterratzu,
Don Rodrigo Jiménez, pp. 241–2, who dates the letter to 1222–23.
16 ‘Quia igitur prout nobis relatum est alii ex uobis per se alii cum dominis et amicis
relicta gente sua et patria se confederare Sarracenis attemptant, ut cum eis si
potuerint populum impugnent et oppugnent Christianum universitatem uestram,
rogamus in Domino et monemus quatinus in tanto necessitatis articulo ab hoc
proposito desistatis, et illa nephanda genti non presumatis adherere, imo sicut
atlethe Christi et sui nominis et fidei Catholice deffensores, uos murum pro
40 Medieval Spain

domo Domini Israel opponatis, pro patriis legibus et gente et patria si necesse fuerit
morituri’.
17 ‘Si forte dominus rex aduersus aliquem uestrum deliquit in aliquo unde merito de
eo debeat conqueri, proponat querimoniam suam in curia, et nos prout in Domino
confidimus, et de discretione et benignitate domini regis speramus, secundum con-
suetudinem curie faciemus sibi iustitiam exhiberi’.
18 J. González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, 3 vols (Cordoba, 1980–86), I, p. 288;
Hernández, Cartularios de Toledo, nos. 373–4. Master Gonzalo García has been
described as ‘an individual of proven trust . . . the key figure – indeed, the only figure
– of papal diplomacy in Spain’: P. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the
Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), p. 18. In October 1219 Gonzalo was sent to
Morocco, this time to deliver a letter from Pope Honorius III to the Almohad caliph
Yusuf al-Mustansir; while in Marrakesh Gonzalo also attended to Count Fernando
Núñez de Lara on his death-bed and received him into the Order of St. John: La docu-
mentación pontificia de Honorio III (1216–1227), ed. D. Mansilla (Rome, 1965), no.
243; DRH, p. 290.
19 E. Lévi-Provençal, Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane, 3 vols (Paris, 1952–53), III,
pp. 71–2.
20 See, for example, J. M. Ruiz Asencio, ‘Rebeliones leonesas contra Vermudo II’,
Archivos Leoneses 23 (1969), 215–41.
21 The best guide to what Angus MacKay memorably dubbed the Christian ‘protec-
tion racket’ is J. M. Lacarra, ‘Aspectos económicos de la sumisión de los reinos de
taifas (1010–1102)’, in Homenaje a Jaime Vicens Vives, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1965), I,
255–77 (rpr. in J. M. Lacarra, Colonización, parias, repoblación y otros estudios
(Zaragoza, 1981), 41–76. On the career of Rodrigo Díaz, see R. Fletcher, The Quest for
El Cid (London, 1989).
22 On Sancho ‘the Fat’, see Historia Silense, eds J. Pérez de Urbel and A. González Ruiz-
Zorrilla (Madrid, 1959), p. 170; on the exile of Alfonso VI, see Historia Silense, p. 120,
trans. S. Barton and R. Fletcher, The World of El Cid: Chronicles of the Spanish
Reconquest (Manchester, 2000), p. 31.
23 For an introduction to the Almoravid and Almohad empire in Iberia, see H.
Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: a Political History of al-Andalus (London, 1996),
pp. 154–272.
24 For a good introduction to these matters, see M. González Jiménez, ‘Frontier and
Settlement in the Kingdom of Castile (1085–1350)’, in R. Bartlett and A. MacKay
eds, Medieval Frontier Societies (Oxford, 1989), 49–74.
25 Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, ed. A. Maya Sánchez, in Chronica Hispana saeculi XII,
Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 71 (Turnhout, 1990), henceforth CAI,
ii.§8–9, 14, 45. Not all the captives carried off to North Africa were arms-bearers.
Some, as the Chronica makes clear, were Mozarabs, that is Christians living under
Muslim rule in al-Andalus: CAI, ii.§45. It has also been speculated that some of
those recruited to the Almoravid army were drawn from Christian communities
who had lived in the Maghreb for generations: M. L. de Mas Latrie, Traités de paix et
de commerce et documents divers concernant les relations des Chrétiens avec les Arabes de
l’Afrique Septentrionale au Moyen Age (Paris, 1860), p. 148.
26 ‘Tempore autem illo dedit Deus gratiam captiuis, qui erant in curia regali regis Ali
domini sui, et uersum est cor eius ut benefaceret Christianis, et dilexit eos super
omnes homines orientalis gentis sue, nam quosdam fecit cubicularios secreti sui,
quosdam uero millenarios et quingenarios et centenarios [centuriones], qui preer-
ant militie regni sui. Constituit autem illis aurum et argentum, ciuitates et castella
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 41

munitissima, cum quibus possent habere supplementum ad facienda prelia contra

Muzmutos et regem Asiriorum nomine Abdelnomen, qui expugnabat partes eius
sine intermissione’: CAI, ii.§10; trans. Barton and Fletcher, The World of El Cid,
p. 208. This fanciful description of the military hierarchy of the Almoravid army
appears to have been inspired by Exodus xviii.21; Deuteronomy i.15.
27 Tello Fernández hailed from the district of Saldaña, to the north of Carrión. In 1116
he held the castle of Torremormojón, about 20 kilometres east of Palencia:
Diplomatario de la reina Urraca de Castilla y León (1109–1126), ed. C. Monterde Albiac
(Zaragoza, 1996), no. 88.
28 Reverter was the son of Gelabert Udalard of the viscomital house of Barcelona
which, having emerged as a leading family among the Catalan aristocracy in the
late tenth century, suffered a precipitous decline in its fortunes during the twelfth:
see S. B. Bensch, Barcelona and its Rulers 1096–1291 (Cambridge, 1995), pp.128–35.
There are some brief notes on Reverter’s career in I. Frank, ‘Reverter, vicomte de
Barcelone (vers 1130–1145)’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona
26 (1954–56), 195–204; S. Sobrequés Vidal, Els Barons de Catalunya (Barcelona,
1957), pp. 31–2; A. Huici Miranda, Historia política del imperio Almohade, 2 vols
(Tetuán, 1956–57), I, pp. 117–20, 123–6, 128–9, 131–2.
29 ‘Hunc preposuit rex captiuis Christicolis militibus ac barbaris ut esset dux omnium
bellorum suorum, quia nunquam in bello uictus fuerat. Et ideo per manus illius
omnia bella regalia et consilio eius fiebant cunctis diebus uite regis Ali’: CAI, ii.§11;
trans. Barton and Fletcher, The World of El Cid, p.209.
30 ‘Reverter, dux populi Christiani captiui’: CAI, ii.§101; Huici Miranda, Historia políti-
ca, I, p. 117. One of Reverter’s sons, known as ‘Ali b. Reverter, subsequently enlisted
in the Almohad army and may even have converted to Islam: Huici Miranda,
Historia política, I, pp. 321–2, 327–30.
31 Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp. 187–95. cf. the comments of Al-Makkari,
History of the Mohammedan Dynasties, II, pp. 309–10.
32 See Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l’Afrique septen-
trionale, trans. W. M. Baron de Slane, rev. edn P. Casanova, 4 vols (Paris, 1925–56), II,
pp. 577–8.
33 CAI, ii.§110.
34 D. Lopes, ‘O Cid português: Geraldo Sempavor’, Revista Portuguesa de Historia 1
(1940), 93–109.
35 There are some notes on the career of Fernando Rodríguez in GRC, I, pp. 324–30.
On his role in the attack on Ciudad Rodrigo, see DRH, p. 243.
36 GRC, I, pp. 330–6, 720.
37 ‘Paucis diebus antea audierat mortuum esse Petrum Fernandi Castellanum in part-
ibus de Marrocos, quem uelud inimicum capitalem rex nobilis persequebatur’:
Crónica latina de los reyes de Castilla, ed. L. Charlo Brea (Cadiz, 1984), henceforth
CLRC, p. 41; ‘Anales Toledanos I’, ed. E. Flórez, España Sagrada 23 (1767), 381–400,
at p. 399.
38 CLRC, pp. 19–20; Ibn Abi Zar’, Rawd al-Qi rta s, II, pp. 457–60; C. Smith, Christians
and Moors in Spain, vol. II (Warminster, 1989), pp. 6–11; Goñi Gaztambide, Historia,
pp. 100–1.
39 On the crusading activities of Archbishop Rodrigo, see Gorosterratzu, Don Rodrigo
Jiménez, pp. 191–201; Goñi Gaztambide, Historia, pp. 141–8.
40 For the fullest account, see Huici Miranda, Historia política, II, pp. 451ff.
41 al-Makkari, History, II, p. 324.
42 Medieval Spain

42 Huici Miranda, Historia política, II, 452–80. According to Ibn Abi Zar ‘, al-Ma’mun
was the first Muslim ruler to take Christian mercenaries from the peninsula to the
Maghreb: Rawd al-Qirtas, II, p. 486.
43 See Smith, Christians and Moors, II, p. 26.
44 DRH, p. 290; CLRC, p. 58.
45 DRH, p. 292.
46 Crónica de veinte reyes, eds J. M. Ruiz Asencio and M. Herrero Jiménez (Burgos, 1991),
p. 300. Earlier, in January 1218, Alvar Pérez may be traced in Marrakesh, where he
may have entrusted the corpse of his late father, Pedro Fernández, to the monks of
Valbuena: see González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, I, p.140 n. 74.
47 Primera Crónica General de España, ed. R. Menéndez Pidal, 2 vols (Madrid, 1977), II,
pp. 731.b-733.a. For another account, see Don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, ed.
J. M. Blecua (Madrid, 1988), pp. 176–9.
48 Ibn Abi Zar‘, Rawd al-Qirtas, II, p. 493, 559; Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-
Mugrib, II, p. 283.
49 For a detailed, but by no means exhaustive, examination of the role of the Christian
militias, see J. Alemany, ‘Milicias cristianas al servicio de los sultanes musulmanes
del Almagreb’, in Homenaje a D. Francisco Codera (Zaragoza, 1904), 133–69; see also,
Mas Latrie, Traités, pp. 32–3, 125–7, 147–53; A. Giménez Soler, ‘Caballeros
españoles en Africa y Africanos en España, Revue Hispanique 12 (1905), 299–327; R.I.
Burns, ‘Renegades, Adventurers, and Sharp Businessmen: the thirteenth-century
Spaniard in the cause of Islam’, The Catholic Historical Review 58 (1972), 341–66. On
their possible role as tax collectors, see Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-
Mugrib, II, p. 97.
50 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, trans. F. Rosenthal, 3 vols (2nd edn, London, 1967),
II, pp. 74–5, 80–1.
51 The fall of Marrakesh to the Almohads in March 1147 was attributed by Ibn al-Athir
to the treachery of the members of the Christian militia who had opened the city
gates to the besiegers: see Ibn Khaldun, Histoire, II, Appendix v, p. 577. For other
examples of treachery attributed to Christian mercenaries, see, for example, Ibn Abi
Zar’, Rawd al-Qirtas, II, p. 553, 559; Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, II,
p. 136, 227–9, 252–3.
52 For example, Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, II, p. 68; Ibn Abi Zar’,
Rawd al-Qirtas, II, pp. 436–7.
53 ‘Unde notandum est, Gotthos fere nunquam fuisse a barbaris uictos, nisi
Gotthorum exulum secum haberent consilium et auxilium’: Lucas of Tuy,
Chronicon Mundi, ed. A. Schottus, Hispania Illustrata, IV (Frankfurt, 1608), p. 108.
54 See, for example, J. N. H. Lawrance, Un episodio del proto-humanismo español: tres
opúsculos de Nuño de Guzmán y Giannozzo Manetti (Salamanca, 1989), pp. 30–1,
65–9; M. A. Ladero Quesada, ‘Una biografía caballeresca del siglo XV: “La Coronica
del yllustre y muy magnifico cauallero don Alonso Perez de Guzman el Bueno” ‘, in
En la España Medieval 22 (1999), 247–83.
55 Crónica de Alfonso X, ed. M. González Jiménez (Murcia, 1998), henceforth CAX, pp.
251–3, 255–8.
56 Ibn Khaldun, Histoire, IV, p. 61.
57 Cantigas de Santa María, ed. W. Mettmann, 4 vols (Coimbra, 1959–72; repr. 2 vols
Vigo, 1981), Cantiga 181, I, pp. 588–9. See J. F. O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the
Cantigas de Santa Maria (Leyden, 1998), pp.135–6 and plate 9.
58 CAX, pp. 201–2.
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 43

59 Ibn Sahib al-Sala, Al-Mann bil-Imama, trans. A. Huici Miranda (Valencia, 1969), p.
135. Ibn Sahib al-Sala erroneously dates these events to the year 1167/8.
60 On Geraldo’s negotiations with the caliphate and his subsequent death at Almohad
hands, see Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, I, pp. 13–14; E. Lévi-
Provençal, Documents inédits d’histoire Almohade (Paris, 1928), p. 216; cf. CLRC,
p. 10.
61 ‘Anales Toledanos II’, ed. E. Flórez, España Sagrada 23 (1767), 401–9, at pp. 404–5;
also Julio Porres Martín-Cleto, Los Anales Toledanos I y II (Toledo, 1993), p. 191.
62 CAX, pp. 70–5.
63 ‘Ruégovos que me enbiedes vuestro fijo e ponerlo he yo con mi fijo Abdiluat en
Marruecos et porné a vuestro fijo rey sobre los christianos e sennor de las huestes’:
CAX, p. 73.
64 CAX, p. 74.
65 ‘Et yo el infante don Felipe e estos omnes buenos sobredichos otorgamos que vos
ayudemos contra todos los omes del mundo, christianos e moros, en guerra e en
paz’: CAX, pp. 124–6.
66 CAX, pp. 127–70.
67 ‘Ipse uero, habito prudentum uirorum consilio, mandauerunt Aluaro Petri ut . . .
exiret de toto regno iturus in terram Sarracenorum, ibique moraturus uel alibi,
donec regis gratiam recuperare posset’: CLRC, p. 89.
68 CLRC, p. 90. As the chronicler indicates, Alvaro Pérez may be sighted with the
Castilian court at Valladolid on 25 March 1234: González, Reinado y diplomas de
Fernando III, III, no. 514.
69 Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, I, p. 314; Ibn Abi Zar’, Rawd al-Qirtas,
II, pp. 485–6. The Rawd al-Qirta s, often prone to exaggeration, claims that Fernando
III sent an army of 12 000 horsemen to accompany al-Ma’mun to Morocco; Ibn
‘Idhari gives the more plausible figure of 500 knights. Subsequently, when the pre-
tender to the caliphate, Yahya b. al-Nasir, entered Marrakesh in 1231/2, the
Christian church there was destroyed and many of the Christians put to the sword:
Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, I, p.338; Ibn Abi Zar ‘, Rawd al-Qirtas,
II, p. 491.
70 For what follows, see C-E. Dufourcq, L’Espagne Catalane et le Maghrib aux XIIIe et
XIVe siècles (Paris, 1966), pp. 101–4. In a similar agreement, drawn up on 18
November 1274, King Jaume agreed to send the Marinid emir Abu Yusuf up to 50
ships of various kinds and 500 knights to assist with the conquest of Ceuta. The
Aragonese monarch stood to make the substantial sum of 200 000 besants from the
agreement, besides which the alcayt was promised a stipend to the tune of 100
besants per day and knights themselves were promised a daily stipend of 2 besants,
as well as a horse and, if necessary a camel, each. In the event, however, the terms of
the treaty were never fulfilled: A. de Capmany y de Montpalau (ed.), Antiguos trata-
dos de paces y alianzas entre algunos reyes de Aragon y diferentes príncipes infieles de Asia
y Africa, desde el siglo XIII hasta el XV (Madrid, 1786; rpr. Valencia, 1974), pp. 1–4; on
the background to the treaty, see Dufourcq, L’Espagne Catalane, pp. 164–8.
71 Among the Castilians who made their way to Tunis were the Infante Enrique who,
having unsuccessfully rebelled against his brother Alfonso X in 1255, sought politi-
cal asylum at the Hafsid court in 1260 and served as a mercenary commander until
about 1266: CAX, pp. 22–5.
72 Dufourcq, L’Espagne Catalane, p. 104.
73 Lévi-Provençal, Documents inédits, p. 216.
74 Huici, Historia política, I, p. 370 n. 2; II, p. 456.
44 Medieval Spain

75 ‘Erant preterea cum Auenhuc Christiani milites nobiles fere ducenti, qui seruiebant
ei pro stipendiis suis’: CLRC, p. 96.
76 Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, II, p. 212; Ibn Abi Zar’, Rawd al-Qirta s,
II, p. 559.
77 Alemany, ‘Milicias cristianas’, p. 145.
78 In a letter to Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo of 20 February 1226 Pope Honorius
referred to the Christians of Morocco dwelling ‘per diversa et remota loca illius
regni, quod vaste amplitudinis esse describitur’: Gorosterratzu, Don Rodrigo Jiménez,
p. 438 (and trans. pp. 245–6); La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, no. 595.
79 For an introduction to these matters, see H. Grassotti, ‘La ira regia en León y
Castilla’, Cuadernos de Historia de España 41–2 (1965), 5–135, repr. in Grassotti,
Miscelánea de estudios sobre instituciones castellano-leonesas (Bilbao, 1978), pp. 1–132;
E. Pascua Echegaray, Guerra y pacto en el siglo XII: la consolidación de un sistema de
reinos en Europa Occidental (Madrid, 1996), pp. 172–94; S. Barton, The Aristocracy in
Twelfth-Century León and Castile (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 111–18.
80 R. Bartlett, ‘Colonial aristocracies of the High Middle Ages’, in Bartlett and MacKay,
Medieval Frontier Societies, 23–47, at p. 30.
81 CLRC, p. 37.
82 J. González, Alfonso IX, 2 vols (Madrid, 1944), II, no. 366.
83 DRH, p. 292.
84 ‘Depaupertatus autem et destitutus omni auxilio transtulit se ad Sarracenos, quibus
multa dampna intulerat’: CLRC, p. 11.
85 ‘Vino Sancho Fernandez ... à Toledo, è dixo que iba al Rey de Marruecos, quel avie
dar grandes averes, è creyeronle muchos Christianos, è muchos Judios mas de XL.
mil: è puso con ellos que fuesen con el à Sevilla, è que los pagarien y’: ‘Anales
Toledanos II’, p. 405.
86 In his letter to Innocent III, Alfonso VIII described the expenses of the campaign as
‘fere importabiles et onerose’: GRC, III no. 897, at p. 567; cf. CLRC, p. 28; DRH, pp.
263–4.
87 CLRC, p. 37.
88 If not exactly a land of milk and honey, al-Andalus was rumoured to abound in
horses, wheat, barley, oil, and other foodstuffs: CLRC, p. 39. However, the Muslim
territories were not immune to the effects of drought, famine and disease: there are
reports that both al-Andalus and the Maghreb suffered an outbreak of plague in
1212/13, and widespread drought and famine devastated the region in 1219/20:
Ibn Abi Zar ‘, Rawd al-Qirtas, II, p. 523; Ibn ‘Idhari al-Marrakushi, Al-Bayan al-
Mugrib, I, p. 279.
89 ‘dominus P[etrus] Fernandi, castellanus dives homo in tota Yspania’: Cartulario de
Santa María de Carracedo, ed. M. Martínez Martínez (Ponferrada, 1997), no. 238.
90 GRC, I, p. 334.
91 ‘E cada uno destos ricos omnes eran de mejor ventura e de mejor seso que non son
éstos de agora’: CAX, p. 146.
92 ‘Por su voluntad saliendo algunt ricohome de la tierra non lo echando el rey, si se
fuere á tierra de moros, non lo deben seguir sus vasallos, et esto porque face traycion
en dos maneras: la una contra Dios, porque va á ayudar á los enemigos de la fe; la
otra contra su señor natural, faciendol guerra et daño en la tierra: et en esta mesma
traycion caerien sus vasallos si se fuesen con él et le ayudasen’: Las Siete Partidas del
rey Don Alfonso el Sabio, ed. Real Academia de la Historia, 3 vols (Madrid, 1807; rpr.
Madrid, 1972), III, Partida iv, título xxv, ley xiii, p. 139; trans. S. Parsons Scott, Las
Siete Partidas, revised R. I. Burns, 5 vols (Philadelphia, 2001), IV, p. 997.
 Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus 45

93 CAI, i, §48; ii §30.

94 DRH, p. 290.
95 See above, n. 62.
96 F. Fita, ‘Noticias’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 11 (1887), 455–6.
97 La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, nos. 243, 439, 562, 579, 588, 590.
98 ‘In regno Miramamolini plures christiani captivi terrore penarum et mortis apos-
tatasse dicantur, quidam etiam pusilanimes in fide mutantes ad precipitum essent
proni’: La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, no. 595; Gorosterratzu, Don
Rodrigo Jiménez, p. 438, trans. pp. 245–6. One such renegade was Abu Zakariya
Yahya, son of one Gonzalo, who took up residence in Mequínez some time
between 1213 and 1223 and is said to have built a splendid bathhouse in that city:
Alemany, ‘Milicias cristianas’, p. 137.
99 J. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels (Liverpool, 1979), p. 52.
100 The pope repeated his threat in a letter of 16 March 1251: Mas Latrie, Traités, nos.
xv, xvii; cf. the comments of Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels, p. 41.
101 Bullarium Franciscanum, ed. J. H. Sbaralea, vol. I (Rome, 1759), p. 434.
102 Mas Latrie, Traités, no. xviii. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels, p. 37.
103 Fletcher, ‘Reconquest and Crusade’, p. 46.
104 E. Manzano Moreno, ‘The Creation of a Medieval Frontier: Islam and Christianity
in the Iberian Peninsula, Eighth to Eleventh Centuries’, in D. Power and N.
Standen eds, Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700–1700 (London, 1999),
32–54, at p. 35.
105 A. MacKay, ‘Religion, Culture, and Ideology on the Late Medieval Castilian–Granadan
Frontier’, in Bartlett and MacKay, Medieval Frontier Societies, 217–43, at p. 217.
106 CAX, p. 23, 84 and n. 140.
3
Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas of
Alfonso X the Learned: a Background
Perspective
Robert I. Burns, SJ

The law codes of Alfonso the Learned of Castile, and especially his monument-
al Siete partidas or Seven Divisions, are arguably that monarch’s greatest gift to
posterity, surpassing his scientific contributions, his work in art and music, and
his literary and linguistic heritage. Like Justinian before him and Napoleon
after him, King Alfonso marshalled a core of jurisprudents to organize a com-
prehensive and organic legal summa, as part of the Roman Law enthusiasm
then sweeping Europe. Progressing by some 2700 informal essays on every
aspect of life, this law code becomes in intent and character ‘instructive
and preventive, rather than penal, as definitions and moral maxims are used
skillfully to clarify, exhort, or admonish.’1 Alfonso’s code, like all his legal trea-
tises, would later spread with the spreading Spanish empire, taking root in
Latin America, the Philippines, and in surprising ways even in the United
States.
At the end of his massive Partidas, in the seventh partida on crime, Alfonso
abandons momentarily his relentless legal construction of a Christian society
and adverts to the large communities of Jews and Moors in his kingdom, devot-
ing just over four pages to each. My own books and articles have often centred
on the communities of Jews and Muslims within the sweep of medieval
Mediterranean Spain called the realms (regnes) of Aragon. This has taken the
direction of archival recovery of communities, persons, and events long lost in
the mists of history. Recently, however, I was invited to present in brief
and compact form a synthetic summary or sketch of the Jews and Muslims as
seen in the eight pages of the Partidas. The purpose was to introduce those
passages to the non-medievalist and general reader, while holding the atten-
tion even of well-instructed Hispanists. The introduction had to be brief,
comprehensive, and original, and not wander off into the other legal output,
charter evidence, or remote antecedents. Could any pedagogue resist the
challenge?

46
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 47

Representative readings

The three topics – Alfonso el Sabio and medieval Spain’s Jews and subject Moors
– are each well supplied with a burgeoning bibliography. The king’s septicen-
tennial in the 1980s ushered in an Alfonsine renaissance of academic writings,
conferences, dissertations, and even a display at the Library of Congress. Joseph
O’Callaghan alone has now given us not one but two biographies of Alfonso,
each from a different perspective. Manuel González Jiménez has presented
a shorter but equally authoritative biography.2 Where the bibliographical
streams on Alfonso and on his interactions with or attitude toward the Jews and
Moors converge, however, only a dozen articles hold the field. Articles connect-
ing Alfonsine law specifically with Jews and/or subject Muslims are half that
number, plus one short book. Alfonso’s legal bibliographer Jerry Craddock
could list twelve items somehow touching on Jews and the king’s law up to
1986, and three for the Moors; but nearly all were general and superficial.3
Several excellent works stand out, however, and can serve to introduce the
themes and bibliography pertinent to our topic. Robert MacDonald has a
monograph-length article, ‘Law and Politics: Alfonso’s Program of Political
Reform’, reviewing the king’s legal codes and resources as instrumental to his
general policies, and untangling the scholars’ debates on the evolution and
interrelationship of the several legal texts. Craddock has a companion article
summing and expanding in easy terms his more formidable bibliographical
book, as ‘The Legislative Works of Alfonso el Sabio’.4 One important point in the
commentators may need revision: the common understanding that the Partidas
remained inoperative and merely literary in Alfonso’s own lifetime, with prom-
ulgation as supplementary law only in 1348. Joseph O’Callaghan now cogently
argues that the Partidas, finished between 1256 and 1265, had ‘the force of law
in his court’ immediately, as an outgrowth and amplification of the Especulo
promulgated in 1254, a conclusion he sees as reinforced by the king’s framing
language in the Partidas.5 This position has an important corollary: the original
had not necessarily suffered a half-century of free evolution before finally being
consolidated in a 1348 text, but was more substantially Alfonso’s own.
David Romano offers orientation and perspectives for future work in his
‘Alfonso X and the Jews’, notably sketching the underlying ‘philosophy’ and
exceptions behind Alfonsine legal texts on Jews. He notes those laws that the
Partidas, as against the king’s other codes, omits or includes; and he offers a
close reading of Alfonso’s preamble to his Partidas section on Jews.6 Larry J.
Simon has a book in hand on the Jewish community in reconquest Majorca.
In 1987 Simon published a comprehensive essay on ‘Jews in the Legal Corpus
of Alfonso el Sabio’, assessed by Craddock as ‘extremely well documented’,
especially in tracing the canonical sources.7 My own recent Jews in the Notarial
Culture, while Arago-Catalan rather than Castilian, introduces another per-
spective applicable to both regions, participation of Jews routinely in the daily
legal culture of the parallel Christian society.8
48 Medieval Spain

Far and away the best study concerning Alfonso and the Jews is the small
book of exegesis centering on the Partidas segment by Dwayne Carpenter. His
obsessively complete ingathering and analysis of the data in Alfonso’s four
pages, in comparative textual perspective, constitute the most elaborate expo-
sition of any essay or title in the whole range of the Partidas.
Carpenter presents the text tradition, critical edition, English translation,
immediate legal and historical frameworks, sources and antecedents, and a
chapter each on Alfonso’s separate laws or essays on the Jews. Carpenter con-
cludes that this title is ‘framed in a decidedly positive manner’, tolerant of both
religious praxis and economic elements. Arguing that justice, not acceptance or
understanding, ‘is the essence of tolerance’, he finds that Alfonso is ‘not only
[the] Learned, but also [the] Tolerant’. And he notes how, ‘of all medieval
Spanish kings, Alfonso most openly surrounded himself with Jews’, notably of
course in his great scientific enterprises. Tolerance is a modern construct, of
course, a legacy of the Enlightenment era; each of the three religious communi-
ties in Iberia would have thoroughly rejected that concept. Carpenter’s rein-
venting tolerance as justice, however, may at least save the term. The limited
acceptance of minorities together with programmed rejection in Alfonso’s time
amounted rather to a modus vivendi.9 Carpenter has also published the most
notable article on Alfonso and the subject Moors in the Partidas, a topic whose
bibliography is depressingly exiguous and which will be considered below.

Circles of context

Not even Carpenter’s exemplary achievements with the Jewish and Moorish
elements of the Partidas exhaust the subject or preempt new advances. Further
clarification can come, for example, by placing the code within ever-widening
circles of thirteenth-century context. As preamble we must confront three
questions. Alfonso does not interject Jews and Muslims into the Partidas as
lonely and unmodified items. Instead he considers Jews, Muslims, and
heretics in sequence, sandwiching them between sorcerer–magicians on one
side and suicides–blasphemers on the other. Why are Jews and Muslims dis-
cussed in a Christian code, since both communities enjoyed their own laws
and juridical systems except when a Christian somehow entered the equa-
tion? If included in a Christian code, why place these peoples in the partida on
crime, since neither group was particularly criminal in behaviour? And if
located in the category of crime, why seem to associate Jews and Muslims with
heretics or bracket the two between magicians and suicides/blasphemers?
Alfonso would probably have responded that Jews and Muslims were guests
within Christendom and therefore required a few basic ground-rules for their
external relations with the host community. The tone of the king’s rules dif-
fers greatly for Jew as against Muslim, partly because Jews were perceived as
connected with the Christian story by a common Hebrew Bible revelation and
a continuing providential role, and partly because the Muslim community
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 49

still posed a serious military threat in league with the wider Islamic world.
Jews and Muslims appear under the rubric of crime because the crown feared
two kinds of serious crime extrinsic to the situation of these minorities but
omnipresent–apostasy by Christians, and conversely mistreatment or coerced
conversion of the guest communities to the detriment of public order and
Christian belief.
The third question points to the common topos of Muslims, Jews, and
heretics as defined by their common lack of orthodox Christianity; they are
the ultimate Outsiders, each in its very different way. But Jews were not
heretics, despite a brief effort in the late thirteenth century to define them so
from their newly perceived talmudic foundations.10 And Muslims were not
heretics to Alfonso, despite a minority view or confusion which understood
them as neo-Arians.11 The bracketing with sorcery/magic has nothing to do
with the common superstition that Jews were often magicians. As he explains
in his preamble to this section, Alfonso rather follows a rhetoric in which
diviners seek to penetrate God’s secrets, whereas conversely Jews refuse to
accept God’s workings.12 The final bracket, joining suicides or desperate assas-
sins with blasphemy, closes the king’s categories of all crime and seems less
relevant to Jews, Muslims, and heretics than to an independent character as
crimes most offensive to God.
The first circle of interpretive context is the phenomenon of parallel societies.
The Muslim and Jewish communities within Christendom, and especially
within Spain where they were very large, ancient, and proud, were as exclusive
as the Christian. The elites of each of the three groups obsessively feared assimi-
lation. Each fostered its own world of symbol, praxis, and pervasive public
expression, while restricting entry into or sharing in the religiously defined
societies of the other two peoples. The paradox of daily mingling, economic
activities, and osmotic interchanges involving all three peoples did not cancel
out this more elemental orientation.13 The Spanish kingdoms accommodated
this impermeability of radical orthodoxies by establishing parallel semi-
autonomous societies with their independent legal, administrative, festive,
behavioural, and expressive systems. Despite encroachments by the dominant
wider society, or lapses by the subordinate societies into the seductive activities
and celebrations of their neighbours, the containing parallelisms held.
It is commonly thought that the medieval Christian governments were sim-
ply borrowing from Islam the dhimma mechanism by which Jewish and
Christian communities as ‘peoples of the book’ were excluded from most
Islamic life and governance, but by koranic mandate were accepted in their
subordinated separate societies. The framing realities probably had a more
complex origin, including antecedents from pre-Islamic Sassanid Persia and
from Byzantium.14 The insistent example for centuries of a more advanced
Islamic society as immediate neighbours of the Spanish Christian prin-
cipalities, however, suggests at least a strong supporting role for the dhimma
in the evolution of the analogous Christian arrangements. In the case of
50 Medieval Spain

Christendom’s Jews, as we shall see, Christian scriptures mandated perman-

ent if minimal acceptance of Jews as a religious society. This scriptural war-
rant, however, was becoming badly undermined by thirteenth-century
developments. In and of itself the system of parallel societies marginalized the
religious minorities, exposed them to contempt and stereotyping, and
restricted their freedom except within their own autonomies.

Theological default

The second circle of context applies to Alfonso’s Jews, and went far to nullify
the advantages conferred by the system of parallel societies. That context
is the failure of Christian theology together with the spasm of aggressive
conversionism in this century. Remarkably enough for so obsessively and
impatiently scholastic a period, it never attempted a theology, or academic
exploration around scripture and magisterial tradition, about the nature, pur-
pose, and sacred meaning of the present Jewish parallel society, its inner life
and immediate destiny, so as to disentangle core scripture, speculation, pas-
toral reactions, hardened polemical themes, and historical circumstance. The
generation was sharply aware that its own Christian roots and founders
were Judaic; it wrote much concerning Christian–Jewish relations, Jewish
foreshadowings and fulfilment of Judaism in Christianity, and of ancient
Judaism. Over half a millennium had passed in the post-Roman ruralized
West, with a large disinterest on the part of theologians as to the inner dynam-
ics of medieval Jewish religion and life. Even the awareness at the end of
the thirteenth century as to the role of the Talmud resulted in temporary
shocked rejection by the Western clerisy rather than inquiry into the provi-
dential role of rabbinical Judaism and the beneficial development or evolu-
tion it implied.
When they thought of the problem at all, the thirteenth century’s academ-
ics reassembled the polemical positions, stereotypes, pastoral preoccupations,
and rhetoric available since Patristic times, consolidating and congealing
these elements into a very different context as the kind of doctrine shared here
by Alfonso. The authority of the Patristic writers as witnesses to the doctrines
of their respective regions and times was not an issue here, but it lent an
adventitious validation to these stereotypes. The theological failure to con-
front these materials was not malicious, any more than the similar failure to
confront the contradictions of slavery, but its effects were tragic both for
Christians and Jews. The canonist lawyers embodied this inherited teach-
ing;15 papal letters echoed it; and even a theologian so original and compre-
hensive as Thomas Aquinas essentially passed along the fossilized results,
when indeed he adverted to the matter at all. The indifference and inattention
of theologians implicit in this process persisted into modern times, until the
Nazi Holocaust galvanized the theological profession into rallying a more rad-
ical attention, still however too often self-referential.
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 51

In his extensive analysis of Aquinas’s participation, John Hood collects the

convictions of Alfonso’s contemporaries about the Jews and traces the theo-
logical elements.16 The Patristic era had accepted the unflattering depiction of
some Jewish leaders in the time of Jesus, inherited from the apostolic age, and
had applied it to the polemics of the Patristic period and effectively to all time.
Thus history becomes theology, theology becomes a kind of doctrine, and
Jews become blind, stubborn, and in their religiosity mechanical. The con-
tentious Patristic era also inclined to see God as now removed from Jews and
Judaism, as part of a superseding of one covenant by another, a transfer from
the Old to the New Israel. Room is barely left for St. Paul’s scriptural warning
that God irrevocably loves the Jews ‘for the sake of their ancestors’ and that
He still keeps His covenant with the beloved Jews despite the fulfilment
of Judaism in Christianity. The greatest theologian of the previous century,
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, had added his own warning as the conversionist
movement began: the Jews ‘have their set time [for conversion near the end of
the world], which cannot be advanced’, so that conversion efforts should
instead target pagans and Muslims.17 That was not a prevalent attitude in
Alfonso’s Spain.
Theological acceptance of Jewish enclaves by most of Alfonso’s contempor-
aries rested rather upon the role of medieval Jews as exiles under God’s
punishment and as inheriting some blame as killers of Christ by their acquies-
cence in or at least association with the distant past. Starkly missing from
Alfonso’s perspective was the commonplace counter-doctrine, that the cruci-
fixion was essentially occasioned by the sinfulness of all descendants of
Adam, so that the few historical personnages involved were a mere screen for
the real culprits, namely ourselves. As Alfonso’s contemporary Francis of
Assisi preached to Christians: ‘it is you who have crucified him and crucify
him still’.18 Grudging acceptance of an organized Jewish presence rested part-
ly too upon their role as living witnesses to the Hebrew prophecies, to the
roots of the Christian dispensation, and to the triumph of Christianity.
Though preserved for this double role, Jews must be contemned and
debased in status, as inferiors in the Christian world. Simultaneously
Alfonso’s generation managed to believe that the Jews must be treated with
compassion and kindness, must never be pressured into conversion, and if
faithful to their Judaism would be led by God to a providential end. This
inchoate jumble of themes was inherently contradictory and dualistic in that
form. As Hood remarks, it was ‘ambiguous enough to justify relatively oppres-
sive as well as relatively tolerant social policies: all that was required was a shift
in emphasis.’19

Short-term contexts

The two contexts just adumbrated, as parallel societies and theological failure,
were structural and could seem immemorial workings of life itself. The third
52 Medieval Spain

context comprises all those relatively short-term movements converging like

storms on that more permanent situation in thirteenth-century Spain. One
such movement was the reformist energies originally unleashed by the
Gregorian Reform and now at gale strength in the western Mediterranean
lands; this was not the self-reform of Christian tradition but the objectifying,
judgmental, and self-righteous mindcast feeding upon the reformation of
others. This self-congratulatory reformism coloured all the societal convul-
sions of the century. Another such movement was the unwarrantedly confi-
dent rationalism engendered by the Roman/Canon law enthusiasms and by
the metaphysical preoccupations of university scholasticism, a rationalism
impatient of Jewish resistance to what seemed to Christian leaders only rea-
sonable common sense and which surfaced in the century’s one-sided ‘dispu-
tations’ and confrontational Christian sermonizing in synagogues and
mosques.20
Both the reformist and rationalist elements combined in the intrusive con-
versionist programmes of the century. Though novel as a policy toward the
medieval Jews, that agenda was born out of a far wider missionizing effort
aimed at the many peoples then being encountered by western merchants
and missionaries.21 Under the alarmist title ‘The Eleventh Hour’, a papal mani-
festo in 1235, reissued in 1245 and continually thereafter, called for missions
to central Asia, India, Nubia, the Islamic lands, and other populations to a
total of twenty.22 The domestic mission to Europe’s Jews and Muslims formed
part of this nearly worldwide ambition. The reformist, rationalist, and conver-
sionist movements found at hand an essential instrument in the newly
invented Mendicant orders, centralized universal bodies unlike the older
monasticism, mobile, university trained, urban centered, and ubiquitous. The
well-known thesis by Jeremy Cohen that these friars transformed the whole
Christian understanding of and approach to Europe’s Jews, so that the century
marks a disastrous abandonment of Augustinian tolerance and the start of
modern antisemitism, has come under critical fire; in less sweeping terms,
however, it offers a certain plausibility.23 The more radical application of such
a shift from tolerance to intolerance, by Robert I. Moore, in which persecution
of minorities from sodomites to heretics and Jews was an integral function of
society itself, a tool by the privileged to maintain ascendancy, seems too theory-
driven to be more than abstractly possible.24
All this reformist, rationalist, and conversionist turmoil combined with
other European developments, such as the culmination of the centralizing
papacy, the ever more exclusionist and publicly expressive ‘Christendom’, a
restless apocalypticism, the grand century of Romanist law codes, a stigmatiz-
ing of Jews as usurers, and an undergrowth of gross superstitions about Jews
among the general populace.25 More particularly Hispanic contributions, to
these destabilizing and for the Jews ominous experiences, included the vast
Islamic areas of Spain conquered in this century by both Castile and Arago-
Catalonia, incorporating whole populations not only of Muslims but of those
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 53

Arabized Jewish communities that had survived Almohad persecution.

Expulsions from northern Europe near the end of the century would displace
waves of Occitan and Ashkenazi communities into the Spanish peninsula.
Both demographically and culturally, thirteenth-century Spain became the
centre and heart of European Jewry, a kaleidoscope of jostling and interacting
Jewish subcultures.26

Commonplace contents

Given this epic multicultural canvas, and given Alfonso’s many Jewish con-
nections, it is disappointing to find the king’s lawyers repeating in this partida
a handful of conventional attitudes, restrictions, and protections as his contri-
bution on the Jews. Like his contemporary Aquinas, he breaks no new ground
but serves as a conduit for established patterns already on display in canon
law. Most of his items date back to the codes of Theodosius and Justinian in
the Roman Empire. The protective elements had been rearranged already in
the famous constitution ‘Sicut Judeis’, of the early twelfth century, the first
systematic policy statement by medieval popes, frequently reissued and in
1234 entering the fundamental Decretales of Canon law. This conservatism by
Alfonso in restricting so sharply the place of Jews in his code must be due in
part to the ambiguous and precarious toe-hold that outsiders such as Muslims
and Jews could claim in a legal constitution designed expressly for a Christian
population, and in part of course from the traditional and repetitive nature of
law itself.
Larry Simon has analysed most Alfonsine laws on the Jews as corresponding
closely to the papal Decretales compiled by Ramon de Penyafort in 1234 in its
section ‘Concerning Jews, Saracens, and their Slaves’, and as reflecting as well
‘the topical reordering of canonical material’ in Penyafort’s Summa de peniten-
tia. Though Simon finds the language of the Partidas here to be harsher than
that in the king’s other legal treatises, and less ‘protective and conciliatory’
than the general run of over forty references to Jews elsewhere in the Partidas,
he concludes that ‘this legislation indicates a degree of social integration and
interaction between Jews and Christians that was not found elsewhere in
Europe at this time.’27
In this partida Alfonso allows the Jews ‘to live among’ Christians, ‘quietly
and without disorder, practicing their own religious rites’, even though Jews
‘insult His name’ and live ‘as it were’ in captivity, as a reminder ‘that they were
descended from those’ who crucified Christ. Jews must not speak ill of
Christianity, or under pain of death try to convert a Christian; and on Good
Friday they must stay in their houses to be safe from attacks. Because of their
‘treason’ in disowning Christ, they cannot hold office over Christians. (In fact
of course Alfonso used Jews as physicians, ambassadors, scribes, administra-
tors, tax collectors and financiers, and as intimate participants in his cultural
projects.) Only the king can approve the construction of a new synagogue,
54 Medieval Spain

which must not be higher, larger, or better decorated (‘painted’) than the old.
Still, a ‘synagogue is a place where the name of God is praised, [so] we forbid
any Christian to deface it, or remove anything from it’, or put ‘any animal’ in
it, ‘or loiter in it, or place any hindrance in the way of the Jews while they are
there performing their devotions according to their religion’. Christians must
respect the Jewish Sabbath, not annoying or arresting or citing Jews to court
on that day. At any time, Christians can only arrest or confront a Jew through
a proper court action, and must not offer violence.
‘No force or compulsion shall be employed in any way against a Jew to
induce him to become a Christian’; conversions are to come by Scriptures and
‘kind words’, and converts must receive ‘honor’. Christians who convert to
Judaism merit death. Jews cannot employ live-in Christian domestics or
attend the public baths on Christian days; Christians cannot eat with Jews or
drink wine Jews have made or take medicines mixed by them. These barriers
to social assimilation do not extend to such persons as Christian bodyguards
and land-tenants of Jews. Alfonso explains the atavistic prohibition on inter-
course with Christian women by their being spouses of Christ through bap-
tism; the Jew’s penalty will be death, hers a range of punishments from fines to
scourging or death, depending on her status. Jews must not own Christian
slaves, or keep a slave who converts to Christianity. Finally, ‘many crimes and
outrageous things occur between Christians and Jews because they live
together in cities and dress alike’. Consequently, and by order of the 1215 ecu-
menical council of Lateran IV, all male and female Jews ‘shall bear some distin-
guishing mark upon their heads’. In fact this dress code was bitterly opposed
and unevenly applied. Alfonso adverts to the persistent rumours about Jews
crucifying stolen children or making wax images, but he does so to curb popu-
lar action: a formal charge must be brought to court and proved in a trial. Such
beliefs in ritual murder by Jews had twice been condemned in Alfonso’s life-
time, by Pope Innocent IV in 1247 and by Gregory IX in 1272.
Do the commonplaces of Alfonso’s essays here on the Jews simply reflect the
legal boilerplate for such a code, or does their mode of expression reflect some-
thing of the king’s personal or societal context? There is no reason to think
that the king did not accept the ancient attitudes and ideals expressed here, to
be applied according to the political possibilities of a given time or place. The
real story of the Iberian kings’ relations with their Jewish subjects must be
drawn, however, not from these jejune laws but from the full armament of
surviving documentation, legal and non-legal.

Mudejars: Muslims under the Latins

The status of ‘Mudejars’ or Muslim communities ‘allowed to remain’ after

conquest by a Spanish Christian state was both different from and analogous
to the status of the Jews.28 The two were alike in that each had its own parallel
society under dhimma-like rules, with its separate internal administration and
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 55

legal system, its religious organization and lifestyle, its religious buildings,
separate weekly holy day, special bath days and dietary rituals. They were alike
too in their abhorrence of assimilation away from their own religious folk-
ways into the symbol-laden Christendom encompassing them. The majority
of Western Muslim leaders like Ibn Rushd went further, insisting that con-
quered Muslims must leave a land ruled by the infidel Christians.29 Like the
Jews also, Mudejars interacted with the larger Christian society continually in
many formal and informal interchanges. Particularly as domestic slaves and
agricultural workers the subject Muslims penetrated Christian society intim-
ately. As with the Jews, Mudejars suffered the conversionist movement, with
Mendicant-operated schools of Arabic to facilitate that mission.30
In important ways however Mudejar status was very different. To Alfonso
their ‘pagan’ religion and religious society ‘is, as it were, an insult to God’ and ‘a
foolish belief’, not ‘a good religion’. Again, Jews had lived here immemorially
among Christians and had achieved a deeper level of interpenetration, sharing
the local Romance languages. Muslim communities had been incorporated
into Christian states only recently, however, the earliest at Toledo’s surrender
in 1085 and the larger number only in Alfonso’s lifetime. Resident Muslims
were also feared as a kind of fifth column, ready to revolt or to assist the power-
ful Islamic states that regularly attacked the Christian states or suffered attack
themselves. Conversely, but also unlike the Jews, Muslims were often romanti-
cized as exotic warriors, while their Mudejar contingents fought in Christian
armies or served as entourages for rural nobility. Both Jews and Mudejars had a
presence in Spanish cities, but Jews were more urban while Mudejars progres-
sively fell back into isolated rural communities, sometimes by expulsion and
sometimes to enjoy religious solidarity. On the other hand, the Mudejar pres-
ence was more widely diffused, not only as more numerous in much of Spain
but because a skilled Mudejar agricultural tenant brought serious profit, as
expressed in the common proverb ‘No Moor, No Money’ (Quien no tiene moro,
no tiene oro). For this reason, and despite a rhetoric of expulsion for foreign con-
sumption, James the Conqueror and his contemporaries imported Muslim
communities into his already heavily Muslim Valencian kingdom.31
Though Spanish Christians acknowledged a parallel or dhimma society for
both Jews and Mudejars, for the Jews this rested ultimately on Christian scrip-
tures which could only be gainsaid by way of anti-scriptural abuse, in the
belief system of Alfonso’s own time. Conversely, acceptance of Muslims rested
only upon the multiple local treaties of surrender, pragmatic and binding
under a Roman law contract susceptible of legal emendation and deconstruc-
tion.32 This legal context has led modern scholars to assume that the Christian
states must naturally have allowed self-interest progressively to erode the
Mudejar situation, in a linear descent over the centuries from maximum priv-
ilege to minimum, and thence to the mass expulsion in 1609 of the remaining
‘Moriscos’ (Mudejars converted by threat of exile in the Renaissance era). The
researches of Mark Meyerson indicate that the evolution was more circular
56 Medieval Spain

than linear, with recovery and descent in complex patterns, and differing in
its Castilian and Aragonese progress.33

Mudejar historiography

Mudejar history attracted few scholars here or abroad until about thirty years
ago. The intervening decades have resurrected these lost communities in rich
detail, with the contradictions, ambiguities, and motley variety proper to
life. Mudejar communities differed according to time and place, their distribu-
tion changing radically and their successive profiles reflecting the constantly
changing circumstances of each century or generation. Even in Alfonso’s day
and kingdom, as he struggled to expel Mudejars from his conquered cities into
the countryside and to replace the urban population with Christians, the
Catalans and Aragonese of Mediterranean Spain resembled rather a colonial
environment where an overgrid of Christian settlers uneasily governed the
conquered but restless Muslim majority.
An historiographical polemic has set ‘continuists’ against ‘discontinuists’ in
interpreting the nature of Mudejar society: was it from the start a preservation
of the Islamic way of life, a survival of the social and economic structures, so
that little actually changed for the surrendered Muslim? Or was the transition
to colonial status entirely a shipwreck, with nothing essential salvaged? The
debate rests upon false questions. Christian domination certainly altered and
acculturated the framing Islamic structures of the conquered, but that did not
mean no survival persisted. Indeed, ‘the very survivals or continuities in them-
selves constituted discontinuity, and the more so the longer they survived.’
The Mudejars redefined themselves and their structures in bastard forms, but
the deconstructed elements persisted. Instead of end and new beginning, as
theory-driven or Marxist historians would posit, there was change. The result
was a recognizable Islamic polity, a true Islam, not without lessons for our con-
temporary world situation.34
The bibliography on Spain’s subject Muslims, though exiguous a generation
ago, has now become a flood. Mudejar studies are a flourishing special field,
with Anglophone contributions notable.35 Mudejars in Alfonso’s reign have
their own local and general studies. Three short articles on Alfonso and the
Jews especially make room in their titles and contents for his attitude toward
Mudejars.36 The only extensive and serious article on Mudejars in the king’s
Partidas, however, is Dwayne Carpenter’s 1986 ‘Alfonso el Sabio and the
Moors: some Legal, Historical, and Textual Clarifications with Reference to
the Siete partidas’.37

Contents and conversions

As with the Jews and for the same reasons, Alfonso’s lawyers in the Partidas
confine themselves to a few commonplaces relating rather to Christian
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 57

behaviour. Mudejars ‘shall live among Christians in the same way’ as the Jews,
‘observing their own religion and not insulting ours’, without urban mosques
(a Castilian preoccupation) or ‘sacrifices publicly’. Christians must convert
them ‘by kind words and suitable discourses, and not by violence or compul-
sion’, because God ‘is not pleased with the service which men perform
through fear’. The king orders ‘all Christians of both sexes’ to refrain from
insults and contempt toward converts. All Mudejars enjoy the king’s protec-
tion in person and property; damage to property will incur a fine of double its
amount. Alfonso also notes that ‘envoys frequently come from the land of the
Moors’ and must be safe and secure. Apostasy to Islam, when persons ‘some-
times become insane’, is ‘very great wickedness and treason’, meriting death
and confiscation. There must be no danger of family bonds, except of course
for converts: neither man nor woman may marry a Muslim, a Jew, or a heretic.
If a Muslim has intercourse with a Christian woman, he must be stoned. If she
is married, her husband must punish or kill her; if a virgin, she loses half her
property; if a prostitute, both man and woman must be scourged.
Half of Alfonso’s ten laws or essays here discourse on the horrors of
Christian conversion to Islam, including the case of repentance by the culprit.
Why this preoccupation with Christian apostasy? One might think that few
Christians became Muslims, or for that matter became Jews? To the contrary,
however, a drift of converts from Christianity to Islam both in Spain and the
wider Mediterranean world was not inconsiderable and can be documented in
detail for Alfonso’s era. Similarly some Jews became Muslims or Christians,
and some Muslims became Jews or Christians. Since conversion from Islam
meant death in Islamic lands, and conversion from Christianity meant death
in Christian lands, those classes of convert usually fled out of the threatening
society involved.
This drift of converts in all directions would seem to have been sporadic
rather than a major movement (and relatively rare where the death penalty
was a factor); but it was considerable enough, and so heinous in the eyes of
believers, that it cannot be ignored as an element in the medieval psyche. For
Spain alone I have been able to find a surprising number of conversions by
Christians to Islam.38 Similarly Shlomo Goitein documents from a wider per-
spective the conversion drift from Judaism to Islam as well as the more per-
ilous transition in Islamic lands from Islam to Judaism.39 The most notorious
loss for Spanish Christians came in the fourteenth century, when the Catalan
Franciscan Anselm Turmeda was converted to Islam by his crypto-Muslim
professor and colleagues at the University of Bologna and fled to become the
collector of customs at Tunis. He is the only medieval author considered a clas-
sic both in Arabic and European literature, and a holy man whose tomb is still
venerated in the market at Tunis, as ‘Abd Allah al-Tarjuman al-Mayurqi.40
The Mudejars not only had access to legal textbooks in Arabic from east and
west but also prepared three major codes of traditional sharl‘a law in
Romance, respectively for Castilian and Catalan (actually Valencian) commu-
58 Medieval Spain

nities. These provide a window onto Mudejar law. The Leyes de moros, from the
last third of the fourteenth century in Castile, was probably ‘a redaction pre-
pared for submission to a Christian ruler’ as the final appeals court and for use
‘by Christian lawyers’. The Breviario sunni in Castilian from mid-fourteenth
century by the Segovian religious functionary Ice de Gebir (‘Isa b. Jabir?) was
part of a larger Christian project for converting Muslims. The Llibre de la Çuna
e Xara, in Catalan from 1308 or 1408, covers the ‘sunna and shari‘a’ in 355
chapters. The three present an extensive review of the civil and criminal law
within the legally autonomous Mudejar communities, and the view accessible
to Christian authorities and lawyers.41
As with the Jews, the circles of context defining Mudejar life as touched on
in the Partidas would start with the condition of a statutory and customary
form of a parallel but osmotic society. As with the Jews, a penumbra of legal
and social Mudejar documentation is available to extend the few items
deemed necessary for the Partidas. Again like the Jews, Alfonso’s Moors were at
the mercy of a theology or ideology; but its non-scriptural protections were
vulnerable to successive erosions. And as in the case of the Jews, Mudejar sta-
tus was at the mercy of the unending short-term changes in the wider
Hispanic, Islamic, and European world that successively redefined the
Mudejars’ usefulness and their threat.
Provisions about Jews and subject Muslims in the Alfonsine code eventually
became moot with the expulsion of both communities in early modern times.
The laws themselves remained on the books, however, and preoccupation
grew both with Christian ‘Purity of Blood’ and with the fearsome Islamic
threat. The structural contexts for the two communities had disappeared with
their expulsion; but the restrictive spirit involved became self-referential and
internalized in Christian Spain. Space devoted to Jews and subject Muslims in
the Alfonsine code had been minuscule when seen against the massive whole.
But the implications of those few pages would remain broad and their echo
enduring.

Notes
1 Robert A. MacDonald, ‘Law and Politics: Alfonso’s Program of Political Reform’, in
The Worlds of Alfonso the Learned and James the Conqueror: Intellect and Force in the
Middle Ages, ed. Robert I. Burns S.J. (Princeton, 1985), p. 181. For Alfonso’s main law
code see Las Siete Partidas, trans. Samuel Parsons Scott, ed. Robert I. Burns, S.J., 5 vols
(Philadelphia, 2001). A preliminary variant of the present reflections can be found in
7: xxvi–xxxv.
2 Joseph F. O’Callaghan, The Learned King: the Reign of Alfonso X of Castile
(Philadelphia: 1993), and his Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: a Poetic
Biography (Leiden, 1998). Manuel González Jiménez, Alfonso X, 1252–1284, in the
Corona de España, Reyes de Castilla y León series (Palencia: 1993). For most purposes,
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 59

these biographies replace the huge and unwieldy Alfonso X el Sabio by Antonio
Ballesteros Beretta (Madrid: 1964, and with indexes Barcelona: 1984). An intro-
duction and summary for the Siete Partidas is John E. Keller, Alfonso X, el Sabio in
the Twayne World Authors series (New York, 1967), pp. 116–33. For Alfonso’s
cultural–legal–scientific achievements, see Robert I. Burns S. J. (ed.) Emperor of
Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance,
(Philadelphia, 1990).
3 Jerry R. Craddock, The Legislative Works of Alfonso X, el Sabio: a Critical Bibliography
(London, 1986), nos. C 3, 25, 27, 55–7, 123, 148–9, 355, 401, 444, and 512 for Jews;
nos. C 3, 355, 444 for Muslims. See, for example, Miguel Angel Orti Belmonte,
‘Glosas a la legislación sobre los judíos en las Partidas’, Boletín de la Real academia de
Córdoba de ciencias, bellas letras y nobles artes, 26 (1955): pp. 41–66, characterized by
Craddock as ‘the work of an interested amateur’ (C 512).
4 MacDonald above in n. 1 pp. 150–202. Craddock, ‘The Legislative Works of Alfonso
el Sabio’ in Burns, Emperor of Culture, pp. 182–97.
5 Learned King, pp. 36–7, summing up also the controversy between Alfonso García
Gallo and Aquilino Iglesia Ferreirós.
6 Romano, ‘Alfonso X y los judíos: problemática y propuestos de trabajo’, Anuario de
estudios medievales, 15 (1985), 151–77; reprinted in his collected studies, De historia
judía hispánica (Barcelona, 1991), pp. 373–99. Cf. his ‘Los judíos y Alfonso X’,
Revista de occidente, 11 (1984), 203–17.
7 Simon, ‘Jews in the Legal Corpus of Alfonso el Sabio’ Comitatus, 18 (1987), 80–97;
cf. Craddock, Legislative Works, first supplement, no. C 770. Simon’s Mudejars and
Jews of Crusader Majorca: a Comparative Study is nearly ready for press.
8 Burns, Jews in the Notarial Culture: Latinate Wills in Mediterranean Spain 1250–1350
(Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1996), esp. Chs. 1, 2. And see his Muslims, Christians, and
Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia (Cambridge, Eng., 1984).
9 Carpenter, Alfonso X and the Jews: an Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24
‘De los judíos’ (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1986), quotes on pp. 5, 105. This also sub-
sumes the author’s previous ‘Christian Attitudes Toward the Jewish Sabbath in the
Light of Medieval Spanish Legal Texts’, Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance
Conference, 4 (1979/1982), 51–62; his ‘Jewish–Christian Social Relations in
Alphonsine Spain: a Commentary on Siete Partidas, Book VII, Title xxiv, Law 8’, in
Florilegium Hispanicum: Medieval and Golden Age Studies Presented to Dorothy Clotelle
Clarke, ed. John Geary et al.(Madison, Wisconsin, 1983), pp. 61–70; and his
‘Tolerance and Intolerance: Alfonso X’s Attitude Toward the Synagogue as Reflected
in the Siete Partidas’, Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 31 (1984), 31–9.
10 See however the extraneous resonances of heresy in Carpenter, Siete Partidas, pp.
83–4. In contemporary Byzantium some heretics were called Jews, while Judaizing
Christians could be called heretics (Stephen B. Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium
1204–1453 (University, Alabama, 1985), pp. 29–30).
11 See James Kritzeck, ‘Islam as a Christian Heresy’, in his Peter the Venerable and Islam
(Princeton, 1964), pp. 141–52, with full Latin text of Peter’s ‘Summa totius haeresis
Sarracenorum’ on pp. 204–11.
12 On diviners see Edward Peters, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (Philadelphia:
1978); on permissible astrology see Nicolás E. Álvarez, ‘Las Siete Partidas alfonsíes y
el apólogo astrológico del Libro de Buen amor ’, Crítica hispánica, 4 (1982), 97–110.
13 An introduction to this mindcast is Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance:
Jewish–Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (Oxford, 1961), especially part
1. See too his Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New
60 Medieval Spain

York, 1993), especially Ch. 3, ‘Barriers against the Outside’, with its nuances and
qualifications.
14 Burns, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, especially pp. 54–60.
15 Walter Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews (Ebelsbach, Germany, 1988), a thor-
ough and unusually comprehensive treatment. Edward A. Synan, The Popes and the
Jews in the Middle Ages (New York, 1965).
16 John Y.B. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia, 1995).
17 St. Bernard, ‘De consideratione, ad Eugenium papam’, I, i, 3 in Opera omnia, ed. Jean
Leclercq et al., 7 vols to date, (Rome, 1957–74), 3: 433. See also David Berger, ‘The
Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux Toward the Jews’, American Academy for Jewish
Research, Proceedings, 40 (1972), 89–108; and Jeremy Cohen, ‘ “Witnesses of Our
Redemption”: the Jews in the Crusading Theology of Bernard of Clairvaux’, in
Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman, ed. Bat-Sheva Albert et al. (Ramat-Gan,
Israel, 1995), pp. 67–81.
18 ‘Our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross . . . [and] our crime in
this case is greater in us than in the Jews’, since as St. Paul says they acted in ignor-
ance but we in full knowledge: ‘sinners were the authors and the ministers’ of all
Christ’s sufferings. From the 1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests,
cited as still ‘magisterial [essential] teaching’ in the official Catechism of the Catholic
Church promulgated by John Paul II (Vatican City/St. Paul, Minn., 1995), p. 154, no.
598; also quoting St. Francis, Admonitio, 5, 3.
19 Hood, Aquinas and the Jews, pp. xi–xii (quotes).
20 See Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Missionizing and Jewish Response
(Berkeley/Los Angeles: 1989); his Barcelona and Beyond: the Disputation of 1263 and
its Aftermath (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1992); and Robert I. Burns S.J., ‘The Barcelona
“Disputation” of 1263: Conversionism and Talmud in Jewish–Christian Relations’,
Catholic Historical Review, 79 (1993), 488–95. A general survey is Hyam Maccoby,
Judaism on Trial: Jewish–Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (London, [1982] 1996).
21 Explored extensively as affecting resident Muslim communities in Robert I. Burns
S.J., ‘Christian–Islamic Confrontation in the West: the Thirteenth-Century Dream
of Conversion’, American Historical Review, 76 (1971), 1386–434.
22 On this wider conversionist movement including the ‘Cum hora undecima’ bull,
see James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels: the Church and the Non-Christian
World, 1250–1550 (Philadelphia, 1979), pp. 36–7, 74–5, 153.
23 Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982). Cf. Robert I. Burns S.J.
‘Anti-Semitism in Christian History: a Revisionist Thesis’, Catholic Historical Review,
20 (1984), 90–3. Among contrary paradigms is that of Gavin Langmuir in which
medieval anti-Judaism was transformed into modern antisemitism in the twelfth
century by the ‘irrational fantasies’ about evil Jewish desecrators and killers, just
when self-doubts afflicted Christendom. See his History, Religion, and Antisemitism
(Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1990) and his essays Toward a Definition of Antisemitism
(Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1990).
24 Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe
950–1250 (Oxford, 1987). Moore’s study bypasses the properly historical, along
with historical context and documentation. It posits or assumes anxieties of the
minority elites in their drive to power as the governing explanation for medieval
societies. These elites created mythical scapegoat groups, persecuting them ‘as a
weapon in the competition for political influence’ and then as ‘an instrument for
consolidating their power over society at large’. This approach allows coverage of
continents and centuries in some 150 pages.
 Jews and Moors in the Siete Partidas 61

25 A classic on the apocalyptic atmosphere is Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the

Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and its
Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements (New York, 1961), including index under
‘Jews’ and ‘Moslems’. On anti-Jewish superstitions see Joshua Trachtenberg, The
Devil and the Jews (New Haven, 1943 and Philadelphia, 1983). A novel and brilliant
reinterpretation of the kinds and role of violence against Jews, Mudejars, lepers and
others, in which local context is all-important, while tolerance and violence
become paradoxically interdependent, is David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence:
Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1996), focused largely on the
realms of Aragon.
26 See Burns, ‘Notarial Culture’, pp. 12–16 and authors cited there.
27 Simon, ‘Jews in the Legal Corpus of Alfonso el Sabio’, pp. 84–8.
28 The most comprehensive and authoritative survey of Mudejars in all periods and
regions is Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100–1300, commissioned and edited by James
M. Powell (Princeton: 1990); for Castile see Joseph F. O’Callaghan’s contribution,
11–56. More focused on Alfonso’s era are the brilliant six chapters on the Mudejar
experience by Leonard P. Harvey, Islamic Spain 1250 to 1500 (Chicago, 1990), Chs.
4–9. See also Robert I. Burns S.J., Islam Under the Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the
Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia (Princeton: 1973); his Medieval Colonialism:
Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia (Princeton: 1975); and his Muslims,
Christians, and Jews; and the articles in English on Mudejars by Clifford Backman,
Christopher Davis, William Stalls, and Rhona Zaid in Sharq al-Andalus: estudios
árabes, 4 (1997). The same journal carries annually an exhaustive bibliography on
Mudejars, Moriscos, and Muslims in Spain. Extensive ongoing studies appear regu-
larly in the acts of each Simposio internacional de Mudejarismo (no. 5: 1996) from
Teruel’s Centro de Estudios Mudéjares.
29 On the prevailing view in western Islam that Mudejars must emigrate, see Harvey,
Islamic Spain, Ch. 3.
30 Burns, ‘Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West’.
31 Robert I. Burns S.J., ‘Immigrants from Islam: the Crusaders’ Use of Muslims as
Settlers in Thirteenth-Century Spain’, American Historical Review, 80 (1975): 21–42.
32 An extensive study in depth of these treaties is Robert I. Burns S.J. and Paul E.
Chevedden, Negotiating Cultures: Bilingual Surrender Treaties in Muslim–Crusader
Spain under James the Conqueror (Leiden, 1999).
33 Mark D. Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: Between
Coexistence and Crusade (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1991).
34 For a full discussion of this and allied polemics in Mudejar historiography see
Burns, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, Ch. 1, especially pp. 17–37.
35 See for example Robert I. Burns S.J., ‘Mudejar Parallel Societies: Anglophone
Historiography and Spanish Context, 1975–2000’ in Mark D. Meyerson (ed.)
Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and
Cultural Change, (South Bend, Indiana, 2000) pp. 191–214. For general Mudejar bib-
liography see above, n. 28.
36 Albert I. Bagby, ‘Alfonso X el Sabio compara moros i judíos’, Romanische Forschungen,
82 (1970), 578–83. Marjorie Ratcliffe, ‘Judíos y musulmanes en la jurisprudencia
medieval española’, Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos, 9 (1985), 423–38. Olga
Walmisley Santiago, ‘Alfonso el Sabio’s Attitude Toward Moors and Jews as Revealed in
Two of His Works’, Bulletin of the Cantigueiros de Santa Maria, 6 (1994), 30–41.
37 Carpenter, ‘Alfonso el Sabio y los moros: algunas precisiones legales, históricas y
textuales con respecto a Siete Partidas 7.25’, Al-Qant ara, 7 (1986), 229–53.
62 Medieval Spain

38 Robert I. Burns S.J., ‘Renegades, Adventurers, and Sharp Businessmen: the

Thirteenth-Century Spaniard in the Cause of Islam’, Catholic Historical Review, 58
(1972), 341–66.
39 Shlomo G. Goiten, A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish Communities of the Arab World
as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols (Berkeley/Los Angeles,
1967–93), 2: 299–311; cf. index, ‘Conversion’.
40 Míkel de Epalza, Anselm Turmeda (Palma de Mallorca, 1983); his ‘Nuevas aporta-
ciones a la biografía de fray Anselmo Turmeda (‘Abdalla al-Turchuman)’, Analecta
sacra tarraconensia, 38 (1964), 87–158; and Epalza (ed.), La Tuhfa, autobiografía y
polémica islámica contra el cristianismo de ‘Abdallah al-Tar ŷuman (fray Anselmo
Turmeda) (Rome, 1971).
41 Harvey devotes a chapter to the two Castilian codes in his Islamic Spain, 74–117 (75
for quotation above), the best account to date, including exploration of the dates,
purposes, and details from the laws. The third code is edited by Carmen Barceló as
Un tratado catalan medieval de derecho islámico: el Llibre de la çuna e xara dels moros
(Córdoba, 1989).
4
Trading with the ‘Other’: Economic
Exchanges between Muslims, Jews,
and Christians in Late Medieval
Northern Castile
Teofilo F. Ruiz

On 7 September 1305, Andalla (or Audalla) the Moor, and his wife, Doña
Çienso, sold houses on the street of Salinería to Pedro de Mena, alcalde del rey
(a royal judicial official) in Burgos for the amount of 5000 maravedíes (mrs).1
The record of this transaction, extant in the cathedral archives of Burgos,
opens a window on the life of Mudejars (Muslims living under Christian rule)
and their relations with Christians in a city deep in the rearguard of the
advancing frontier with Islam. This transaction provides important informa-
tion not only on the type of economic exchanges that took place between
Christians and members of the two other religious groups in Iberia ( Jews and
Muslims), but also on aspects of Muslim life in a predominantly Christian city.

Introduction

In his pioneering work, Angus MacKay introduced complexity to the study of

the relations among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in medieval Iberia.
MacKay’s insightful rendering of Castile’s past, in particular his keen analysis
of the way in which religious, sexual, and trade relationships affected the
social, political and cultural life of Christians and non-Christians in the
peninsula, have long served as an inspiration and guide to numerous his-
torians. I, for one, through this modest contribution, wish to acknowledge a
great and old debt of gratitude to Angus and to add to the growing body of
work on themes MacKay opened up for historical inquiry.
In the following pages, my aims are limited in scope. I wish to explore the
nature of economic exchanges between the dominant Christian majority and
subaltern religious minorities and to determine what these exchanges meant
for the social life of Jews and Muslims under Christian rule. What do these
interactions tell us about the changing economic climate in thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century northern Castile? The history of the relations among
these religious groups has received a great deal of attention lately, but this

63
64 Medieval Spain

attention has usually focused on cultural, religious, and social aspects.2 The
paradigmatic model established long ago by Américo Castro, a literary scholar
with great influence on the study of Castilian medieval culture, was that of
convivencia: the peaceful intermingling of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in
Iberia and their bonding across cultural and religious boundaries.3 For Castro
and his followers, this idealized vision of coexistence was most vividly articu-
lated in the court and scriptoria of Alfonso X (1252–84). In that setting, so the
story goes, representatives of the three religious toiled harmoniously, side by
side, to further Alfonso X’s ambitious cultural programme. I have never been
enamoured of this formulation and regard convivencia as having little to do
with the Christians’ penchant for riding roughshod over those below. If any-
thing, relations were fraught with animosity and mistrust, and often medi-
ated by punitive legislation and pejorative cultural representations.4
Property transfers, tax collection, and the retail trade functioned as sites for
social interaction and contestation because they encoded complex symbolic
and cultural conventions: ideologies of class, gender, and ethnicity; discourses
of religion and politics. In the following pages, I will focus on economic
exchange among members of the three religious groups to show how the pub-
lic debate over intergroup commerce manifested itself in various social and cul-
tural practices. But most economic transactions were pragmatic in nature and
fell within the established parameters governing economic relations among
Christians. That is, documents recording the purchase and sale of lands or
houses between Christians and non-Christians were indistinguishable from
those recording such transactions among Christians, except for the fact that
one of the participants was a member of a religious minority. This detail, how-
ever, meant all the difference. When business was transacted with Jews and
Moors, their religious affiliation was clearly stated; in transactions among
Christians, religion affiliation was not mentioned. Moreover, despite evidence
to the contrary, the records show Christians for the most part purchasing prop-
erty, and Jews and Muslims selling it. Religion thus, to a large extent, deter-
mined how transactions were recorded and whether they survived.
A tentative typology of economic transactions, and of measures regulating
those transactions, will provide a preliminary framework for understanding
pluri-religious interaction in the economic sphere. As such, it may serve as a
springboard for further study of a topic that merits greater attention.5
Instances of exchange and regulation can be categorized as follows:
1. Retail transactions among Christian, Jewish, and Muslim merchants, arti-
sans and their clients.
2. Moneylending and transfers of property among members of the three groups.
3. Legal provisions to regulate or restrict economic exchanges between
Christians and non-Christians.
The chronological boundary for this study starts in the early thirteenth cen-
tury, when rapid changes in Castile’s political and economic structures
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 65

brought a turn for the worse in attitudes toward and representations of reli-
gious minorities.6 It ends in 1350, when the Black Death led to violent local
attacks against Jews, and to Castile’s descent, shortly afterwards, into endless
social, political, and economic crises. The geographic locale is northern
Castile, specifically the towns for which we have information of economic
exchanges between Christians and members of the other two religions. But
here I must introduce a caveat. The sources available for this history are, at
best, fragmentary. Worse, documents showing property purchases by Jews
and Muslims are rare indeed. Considering the indirect evidence of Muslim
and Jewish ownership of property (references to the real-estate of Jews in peti-
tions to the king for the abolition of Jewish tax-exemption; internal evidence
in the few surviving records of transactions between Christians and non-
Christians that mention houses owned by third-party Jews or Moors), one
must assume that such records were either suppressed or discarded. Extant
sources thus represent a minuscule portion of the land and other transactions
in question. The fact that these documents, above all those showing Jews and
Muslims as purchasers of property from Christians, are missing from the
record tells us a great deal about general attitude toward religious minorities
in late medieval and early modern Castile. The documentary silence is an
integral part of this story. It may have been acceptable to transact business
with the ‘other’, but it also seemed wise – at least to the Castilians – to eradic-
ate the evidence of such transactions. And for good reason. At the cortes of
Haro in 1288 and of Valladolid five years later, the urban procurators demand-
ed that the Crown forbid the sale, donation, or gifting of property to Jews and
Muslims because, as the petition stated, ‘great damage is done to our [ability
to collect] taxes and we lose our rights’.7 The erasure of evidence can be
ascribed to a fear of losing tax revenue and a latent mistrust of Jews and
Moors.

Legal provisions to regulate economic exchanges between

Christians and non-Christians
Though records of individual transactions may be scarce indeed, the ordin-
ances of the cortes provide revealing glimpses of their frequency and character.
From the mid-thirteenth century until the end of the Middle Ages, the legisla-
tion of the cortes sought to restrict and regulate economic exchanges between
the dominant Christian population and Muslims and Jews. The frequency of
these prohibitions, and the tedious repetition of restrictive measures against
Muslims and Jews, tell us how often these injunctions were ignored or circum-
vented; they also signal the importance of these transactions in the economic
life of the realm. Not all of these measures, were economic in nature; at least,
they were not overtly so. Some of the cortes’ ordinances sought to prevent
Jews and Muslims from having intimate contact with Christians and to differ-
entiate them by regulating their clothing and hairstyle. But even these ordi-
nances were seldom enforced; and the fluid movement across religious lines
66 Medieval Spain

continued to feed the resentment of both the ruling groups and those at the
lower levels of society.8
Most of the petitions to the king at the regular meetings of the cortes came
from urban oligarchical groups devising coherent programmes to restrict the
economic activities of Jews and Muslims. These petitions sought to bring an
end to the longstanding competition between Christian mercantile elites and
the Jews (and, to a lesser extent, Muslims) for control of trade, usury, and other
sources of income (though competition sometimes spawned business part-
nerships, especially in matters of moneylending). In many respects, the con-
cern of urban procurators – all of them members of the ruling elite – with the
matter of who had the right to collect taxes in Castile, and how taxes should
be collected, became a central issue in the economic warfare against the Jews.
This does not mean that Jews were singled out for abuse, while Muslims could
do as they pleased. It just means that Muslims or Mudejars, on the whole
occupying a lower economic level and engaged in different occupations in
northern Castile in this period, were not seen as threats to the economic well-
being of Christians.
At the cortes of Palencia (1286), the urban procurators asked for, and
received, exclusive rights to collect taxes. Between 1286 and 1350, the
Castilian concejos (municipal councils) made their right to collect taxes the
outstanding issue of debate at the cortes. In part, the concejos’ desire to control
tax-collection stemmed from the abuses royal tax collectors had inflicted on
the cities.9 But protests against tax-farming were almost as widespread as
claims to tax-collecting rights by urban knights (the caballeros villanos) and
good men (omnes bonos or buenos). Since large-scale tax-farming was often in
Jewish hands, or perceived to be in their hands, the petitions to the king at the
cortes and the protests from the Castilian municipalities were in fact anti-
Jewish measures. The minority religions thus developed strategies to deal with
these obstructions. At the realm’s highest levels, Jews and a few Muslims
engaged in active lobbying, disputes, and even cooperation with Christian
royal and municipal officials about the always troublesome business of col-
lecting, farming, and dispatching tax revenues to the Crown.
From another perspective, paying taxes to a Jewish tax farmer involved an
economic transaction that put Jews ‘on top’.10 And the wealth of some Jews
was considerable. In 1291, to cite one example, the aljama (the Jewish com-
munity) of Burgos, the second largest in the kingdom, paid 109 921 mrs in
head tax and service (a form of tax). The aljama of Avila, a smaller city, paid 74
142 mrs. These large sums reflect the presence of wealthy tax farmers and, in
the case of Avila, a large artisan and mercantile Jewish population.11 Their
political and financial influence was likewise remarkable. The almojarife
mayor, or royal treasurer, was often a Jew who, as in the case of Çag de la
Maleha in 1277 and Abraham el Barchilón in 1287, farmed the taxes for the
entire kingdom.12 Abraham el Barchilón exemplifies perfectly the role Jews
played in royal finances and in cross-religious business transactions with
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 67

Christians. When Abraham purchased the right to collect royal taxes in 1287,
the alcaldes of the cities and villages in León and Castile were ordered to pro-
tect Abraham and those who collected taxes in his name.13 Seven years later,
Abraham el Barchilón farmed the diezmo (tithe), even though just the previ-
ous year the ordinances of the cortes had reserved the farming and collecting
of taxes within the kingdom to the good men and urban knights of the cities.
The same year, 1294, a certain Don Samuel, a Jew, collected 30 000 mrs for the
fonsadera of Pajares. Another Jew, Don Daniel, collected taxes in Zamora, and
Don Todros served as almojarife (treasurer) for the entire kingdom. The collec-
tion of the diezmos de la mar from the ports of the Bay of Biscay was in Jewish
hands in 1294, and probably throughout most of this period. That year Mier
Celin and Abraham el Barchilón outbid Don Todros el Leví, Mosé Falcón, and
Don Abrehem Abenxuxen, though all three had held the concession the pre-
vious year.14
The most obvious evidence of Jewish–Christian economic exchange is
found in the cortes’ thirteenth-and fourteenth-century ordinances that, cav-
ing in to the procurators’ monotonous demands, reduced interest rates for
usurious loans and mandated the partial cancellation of debts to Jewish mon-
eylenders.15 These legislative efforts to reduce debt at a time of crisis – in the
1280s, the 1310s, and afterwards – were also concerted efforts to undermine
the economic standing of the Jews. But although not a single disposition of
the cortes acknowledges a Christian role in moneylending, Christians also lent
money at interest, sometimes in partnership with Jewish lenders (a tactic
many used to circumvent injunctions against usury); even the procurators
pleading with the king for sanctions against the Jews often profited from illicit
loans. This conundrum unveils the somewhat contradictory nature of the
policies being hatched: on the one hand, capping interest rates and restricting
Jewish financial activity diminished profit returns for Christians as well as
Jews; on the other hand, eliminating Jews from the moneylending circuit left
the field wide open for Christians to ply the trade exclusively. It also helps to
explain why these policies were rarely successfully enforced. Instead, a rather
unimpeded commerce flowed among members of the three religions, as
Christians and Jews (and Muslims) paid, garnered, and farmed taxes or grant-
ed, collected, and paid off loans, from a few pennies to vast sums of money
(see below).
In the same manner – and so that we do not forget that most Jews were not
rich – it should be noted that cortes’ ordinances also forbade Jews to serve as
nannies to Christian babies or to cohabit with Christians. These measures
regulating employment and sexual exchange shed additional light on the rou-
tine and intimate ways in which the three religions came together.16 The fre-
quency of edicts banning these relations underscore how common they must
have been. Christian babies were often brought up by Jewish and Muslim ser-
vants or slaves. Christian men visited houses of prostitutes, where sexual (and
economic) transactions took place with the ‘other’. And Jewish and Muslim
68 Medieval Spain

mistresses competed with Christian wives for the attentions of Christian

men. When the Spaniards expanded their empire, these complex social,
economic and sexual interactions, so common to heterogeneous societies,
were reproduced in relations with the natives and African slaves in the
New World.

Retail transactions among Christians, Jews, and Muslim merchants and

artisans
The short vignette opening this article – the sale of property in Burgos by the
Muslim couple, Audalla and Doña Çienso – identifies Audalla as a dyer (tintor),
a trade usually associated with Mudejars throughout northern Castile. A docu-
ment dated 7 September 1305 and another one, three months later, which
record Don Pedro de Mena’s formal taking of possession, gain us further
insight into the economic links between the different religious groups. We
know that Audalla’s and Doña Çienso’s four houses – which must have been
quite a desirable piece of real estate, since 5000 mrs was one of the highest
prices paid for urban property between 1200 and 135017 – were bound by the
street of Tintores (the dyers’ street which led to the gate of Tintes in the lower
part of the city). On one side of the property were the ‘houses of Mohamat,
the son of Don Çulema’, and one of the witnesses to the transaction was
‘Lope, son of Don Burgalés, the Moor’.18 The deed recording the transfer of the
property from Audalla to Don Pedro de Mena shows that Audalla and his wife
rented some of the aforementioned houses to Vellido and Yhuda, two Jews,
and that Don Pedro de Mena, the alcalde of Burgos, upon taking title of the
house, proceeded to rent it back to its former owners and inhabitants. The
document graphically describes the symbolic gestures and rituals of posses-
sions that attended the transfer of property. Don Pedro entered the house on
foot, ‘taking possession [of it] bodily’, and putting Audalla, Doña Çienso,
Vellido, and Yhuda out of doors. After his rights had been asserted, Don Pedro
allowed them back into the houses, but now as tenants. Çulema and Iohan
López, both Mudejars, joined some clerics and other Christian citizens of
Burgos in witnessing the ceremony.19
In early fourteenth-century Burgos, the southwest corner of the city was the
location for a series of dyer shops, most of them manned by Mudejars and
Jews. Living close to their shops and stores, these religious minorities tended
to the needs of the whole population. But this is not the only evidence we
have for retail or craft shops run by religious minorities. In Burgos, Jews
owned and worked in butcher shops, and had stores where they sold their
weaving and similar products. In Avila, where the evidence for commercial
activity by religious minorities is far more abundant, one may assume that the
majority of the city’s shops and artisan crafts was run by Jews or Muslims.
Between 1240 and 1360, thirty-four Jewish storekeepers or artisans are identi-
fied as conducting business in Avila. Twenty-nine of the thirty-four are men-
tioned in a 1303 inventory of the cathedral chapter’s property. In other words,
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 69

we know of their existence because they rented their shops or dwellings from
the cathedral chapter. Their number must have been much larger. In the Avila
documents, Muslims often appear as witnesses to documents and are men-
tioned as owners or inhabitants of houses adjacent to properties being trans-
acted; on seven occasions, they are identified as artisans or merchants. These
include fruit sellers, a locksmith, a painter, a weaver, and similar trades. Avila
was a small city in 1300, with approximately 4000 inhabitants, but at least
forty shops were owned or run by Jews and Muslims. Throughout northern
Castile, above all in cities and large towns, Christians must have shopped
from and transacted business with members of religious minorities on a regu-
lar basis. Although for this period we do not have personal accounts that
would tell us unequivocally that ‘on such or such day I bought a shirt from or
had my cloak dyed by Audalla, the Moor’, it could not have been otherwise.
This was particularly the case with trades that were the monopoly of one or
the other of the religious groups. But Jews too actively engaged in the trade of
dying cloth in Avila, and a transaction in 1297 confirms that this was the
case.20 In fact, a number of transactions in the late 1290s, briefly cited below,
point to the artisanal activity of religious minorities in medieval Avila.
We also know that most of the masonry and construction work in northern
Castile was carried out by Mudejars; the style of the surviving buildings are liv-
ing proof of Mudejar craftsmanship.21 By the same token, most physicians,
before 1391, were either Jews or Muslims. The aristocratic nuns of Las Huelgas
of Burgos – the Lady ruling the monastery was always of royal blood – had
twelve Muslims doctors to attend to their health. Moreover, in 1270, Alfonso
X granted the nuns of Las Huelgas jurisdiction over the Jews of Santa Cecilia of
Briviesca, earning them the right to use a Jewish doctor to tend to their ailing
sisters. The municipal council of Burgos, whose procurators constantly
pushed for punitive measures against Jews and Muslims, often hired one of
the latter as the municipal doctor.22
The day-to-day economic exchanges among members of the three religions,
in terms of trade and services alike, provided a unique context for social inter-
action. In many respects, these exchanges – most of which were not recorded
and left no discernable traces in the extant documentation – brought diverse
religious groups into closer intimacy than did some of the better-known cul-
tural or violent encounters. Economic exchange did not necessarily lead to
harmonious relations between different religious groups, but face-to-face
encounters occasioned by small retail and service transactions bred a familiar-
ity not unlike the kind that exists today, in heterogeneous neighbourhoods all
over the world, among members of antagonistic ethnic groups.

Moneylending
Moneylending has had a long history as a stereotype of Jewish economic
activity, but nothing was further from the truth in medieval Iberia. There,
Muslims and Jews engaged in a wide range of economic endeavours, of which
70 Medieval Spain

moneylending was one; and Christians, at both macro and micro levels, par-
took in the trade with undeniable zeal, often in open or covert partnership
with Jews. What is remarkable about moneylending is that despite the over-
whelming circumstantial evidence for its existence in medieval northern
Castile – and I have seen most of the documentation for the region between
1200 and 1360 – there is not a single document that directly records a lending
agreement between a Christian and a Jew. Loans among Christians were
recorded, but interest charges were always hidden in special clauses.23 This
gap is even more striking, since Jews were legally permitted to lend money at
interest.
The ordinances of the cortes that set the interest rate (at the very high level of
33 percent) clearly illustrate the terms under which loans were raised and
paid back. But records of loans and other daily transactions were not of a
kind to elicit concerns about preservation, especially in the ecclesiastical
archives where most of the extant sources for the period can be found. Despite
the absence of data, two types of loan transactions are known to have taken
place among Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The first one was financing at the
highest level. As observed above, Jews were often in charge of royal finances in
thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Castile. Whether holding the office of
almojarife or treasurer (a title of Muslim provenance), or discharging similar
duties, Jews like Çag de la Maleha, Abraham el Barchilón, Don Todros and
others, played a prominent role in the economic life of the realm. In exchange
for security against future tax income, these men advanced capital to the king,
extended credit to the Crown, and helped run the financial branch of gov-
ernment. Unlike personal loans, these activities were carefully recorded.
Moreover, their secondary activities as farmers for kingdom-wide and/or local
taxes gave them an extra hand in driving the economic affairs of Castile.
Jewish tax farmers were in continual contact, negotiation, and of course con-
flict, with local authorities over when and how much taxes were to be collect-
ed. Though farming taxes was a profitable enterprise, it required the outlay of
considerable capital and risk. The ordinances of the cortes regulating com-
merce between Christians and religious minorities illustrate the vulnerability
of Jewish financiers to the Crown’s changing edicts and increasingly intoler-
ant stance. Sometimes it meant the severe loss of money; sometimes it
entailed the loss of life. This was the case of Don Çag de la Maleha who, like
other Jewish tax collectors, lost his life to the wrath of the king, when the
funds for the siege of Algeciras wound up in the hands of the rebellious
Infante Don Sancho.24
Jewish tax farmers and royal financiers, however, only affected a limited
number of Christians – mainly, the urban elites and royal officials with whom
they organized tax collection – and their business, seemingly unprotected,
was regulated by law and praxis. This was not always the case with petty mon-
eylenders. Granting loans to nearby farmers and urban neighbours meant per-
sonal contact with a wider range of people, mostly the lower and middling
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 71

sorts, who were in great need of immediate small loans and willing to pay usu-
rious rates. As stated earlier, Jews were not alone in lending money at interest
in Castile. Christians did the same, often in association with Jews serving as
fronts for their activities. And, although we have only incidental information,
literary references and the oft-mentioned ordinances of the Castilian cortes,
they tell of robust lending and borrowing activity between Jews and
Christians. The most compelling evidence in this period are the urban procu-
rators’ petitions to the cortes that sought to cancel or reduce the interest rate
on monies Christians had borrowed from Jews. The frequency of such appeals
evinces a groundswell of resentment against Jews among Christians, and
among Christian borrowers in particular, and the unwavering anti-Jewish
antagonism of the urban elites represented in the cortes, an antagonism that
was spurred by competition for mercantile and lending prospects, by mistrust
of tax-exempt Jews in the cities, and by envy of their proximity to the royal
court. Jews who acted as royal agents in late medieval Castile were frequently
perceived as rivals and enemies. As Mackay and others have pointed out, vio-
lence and antagonism against Jews (and Moors) were often not-so-veiled
attacks against royal authority. In these pages, however, I am far more interest-
ed in catching a glimpse of petty exchanges between Jewish moneylenders
and Christian borrowers than in discussing royal policies, legislation, or
finances. The evidence, albeit lean, is suggestive enough to show that trading
with the ‘other’ indelibly marked the quotidian social relations of the three
religious groups in Iberia.
As it does today, agricultural production often required an outlay of capital
that would not be recovered until the harvest was completed. Rental contracts
in late medieval Castile included provisions that took into consideration the
impact of inclement weather or failed crops; rental dues were decreased in the
event of natural disasters.25 But these kinds of protection were not enough to
shield farmers from debt. Peasants often had to seek money elsewhere. In four-
teenth-century northern Castile, judicial agents of small towns and villages
confiscated farms and auctioned them off to ensure payment of outstanding
debts to Jews. This is revealing in several ways: 1) it is an indirect but powerful
confirmation of the Jews’ role in floating loans to small farmers; 2) it illustrates
what could happen to those who were unable to repay their loans, whether to
Jews or Christians. Losing one’s farm was a disaster of extraordinary dimen-
sions in the rural world of northern Castile; 3) Jews had recourse to local
authorities to enforce the terms of loans and to collect outstanding debts.
I have argued elsewhere that it was precisely this type of transaction that fed
popular rancour against Jews, and that anti-Jewish or anti-Morisco sentiment
manifested itself most violently among the lower social groups. Levels of
antagonism varied among the religious groups in Castile and Spain, their
articulation often pertaining to social status. The higher a person’s standing in
society, the less likely that he or she would sustain virulent anti-Jewish or anti-
Morisco sentiments.26
72 Medieval Spain

But to return to the actual examples. In the 1290s, the Cistercian monastery
of Our Lady of Rioseco purchased several properties in and around the hamlet
of Homa. Under the supervision of the alcalde del rey (a royal judicial official),
several peasants were forced to sell their lands to satisfy outstanding debts to
Jewish moneylenders from Medina de Pomar. On 12 January 1290, Sancha
Alvarez sold her cereal-growing lands (de pan llevar) and vineyards to the
monastery for 150 mrs. Shortly after that, on 19 February 1290, Muño García
sold all his property in Homa to the nuns of Our Lady for 500 mrs, and on 7
December 1292 Doña Elvira sold her lands there for 250 mrs.27 All the transac-
tions took place in winter, probably following a bad harvest the previous sum-
mer and early fall. There were well-established Jewish moneylenders in
Medina de Pomar, a small town in northern Castile, located on the great com-
mercial thoroughfare running from the Bay of Biscay ports to Burgos and
boasting an important agricultural hinterland. These Jewish moneylenders –
not identified by name in the documentation – were able to apply for royal
protection and have clients’ debts liquidated by such extreme measures as
confiscation or forced sale of their land. The prices paid for the land in Homa
indicate that these were small independent farmers swallowed up by a late
thirteenth-century deteriorating economy and caught between the demands
of Jewish moneylenders and the territorial ambitions of the monastery of Our
Lady of Rioseco. As a sad footnote to the affair, by 1352 Homa was deserted
and the monastery no longer collected any rent from the place. What hap-
pened to the peasants and farmers who lost their lands? The documents do
not tell. They probably joined the swelling ranks of the displaced and the
growing tide of anti-Jewish protesters among the poor.
One more example illustrates the dynamics of economic exchanges
between Christians and the ‘other’. In 1347, a period of harsh weather and
famine in many regions of northern Castile, the council of Toviella sold vil-
lage lands, possibly owned communally, to the aforementioned monastery of
Our Lady of Rioseco for 3200 mrs to pay their debts to Jewish moneylenders.
The numbers indicate that a significant amount of land was involved. Such
forced sales must have crushed the inhabitants of Toviella and seriously
threatened their fragile independence. Again, the sale occurred in October,
after what must have been a failed crop.28

Buying from and selling property to the ‘other’

Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Castile served as an active land and real-

estate market.29 Most of the extant records show monasteries, cathedral chap-
ters, and individual clerics buying property from lay sellers. The cathedral
chapters of Avila, Burgos, Segovia, Salamanca, and other northern cities
owned close to half of all the dwellings within the walls of their respective
cities in the thirteenth century.30 Nonetheless, the ecclesiastical grip on the
real-estate market was dramatically eroded by the patrician elite’s aggressive
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 73

purchases of urban property, and by clergymen who bought property, not for
their monasteries, but for themselves and their families.31
Jews and Muslims played a role in this market, perhaps a more prominent
one than the documents allow. Since most of the extant evidence shows Jews
and Muslims selling rather than buying property, we must conclude that at
one time or another they bought property, and that they continued to do
so until their social and political milieu changed for the worse in the 1250s.
A more efficient way to examine these transactions is to render them in table
form, which shows the number of Jews and Muslims engaged in land and real-
estate exchanges and the percentage these transactions represented within
the overall market. Table 4.1 clearly illustrates real-estate and record-keeping
patterns in Burgos.
Most of the Burgalese transactions, which occurred in the periods 1200–19
(115 transactions) and 1320–50 (97 transactions), comprised bulk acquisi-
tions by a few individuals endeavouring to build large estates. The percentage
of transactions involving religious minorities appears to have been exceeding-
ly small: less than one per cent. But, according to the prices paid, the pro-
perties transacted by religious minorities seem far more substantial than those
exchanged among Christians. It may be useful to examine in detail the three
transactions that have survived in the records.
In December 1209, Don Martín Illán de Vega and his wife, Doña Sancha,
sold houses with a wine cellar (lagar) and an attached garden to Don Auolafia
(Abulafia) Caçon and Don Çach Cotar, Jews of Burgos. The houses, located in
the Burgalese neighbourhood of Vega, abutted a garden owned by the cathe-
dral of Burgos, a house owned by the sons of another Jew, Lop, and a road. The
price paid for the property was 200 gold mrs. Eight additional transactions
appear for that year in the Burgalese documentation (see Table 4.2). Only one
involved more money than the 220 mrs paid by Don Auolafia and Don Çach,
and the document for that transaction does not indicate whether the sale
price was paid in gold mrs. Transactions in gold mrs represented several times
the amount of regular (non-gold) mrs. Two other Jews, Mosse Eneamos and
Nombre Bueno Algudiex, along with seven Christians, witnessed the latter
transaction.

Table 4.1 Number of transactions in Burgos, 1200–1350

Number of transactions 377

Purchases by religious minorities 1
Sales by religious minorities 2
Percentage of Jewish and Muslim transactions 0.78%

Source: Archivo de la Catedral de Burgos and Documentación de la catedral

de Burgos in Fuentes medievales castellano-leonesas (Burgos, 1983 to the
present), hitherto FMCL.
74 Medieval Spain

Table 4.2 Other Transactions and monies exchanged in 1209 Burgos

5 mrs (gold) 10 mrs (gold) 29 mrs 150 mrs

8 mrs (gold) 17 mrs (gold) 60 mrs (gold) 220 mrs

Source: Documentación de la catedral de Burgos (1184–1222), ed. J.M. Garrido Garrido in FMCL, 14
(Burgos, 1983), pp. 141–221. The purchase by Don Abulafia and Don Çach is on p. 221.

Three years later, three Muslims, Don Espinel, his sister, Doña Galiana, and
her husband, Abderramen, sold their garden in the Burgalese neighbourhood
of Santa Agueda to Domingo, a canon of the cathedral chapter of Burgos, for
50 mrs and a passada of land. The exchange for a passada of land (an easement
or right of way to a road or public way) indicates that the Muslims owned at
least another property in the city. This Muslim urban holding (the one for
which they obtained a right of way) was adjacent to the home of Doña
Estefanía, the recent widow of Pedro Sarracín, many times alcalde of the city
and one of the leading and most powerful citizens of Burgos.32 The details of
the third Burgalese transaction, involving Audalla the Moor, are outlined in
the opening paragraph of this article.
Burgos, an important mercantile centre dominated by a Christian oli-
garchy, curtailed the role and number of Jews and Muslims in trade (long-dis-
tance as well as local), in artisanal occupations, and, as is obvious from the
above data, in the market for land and real estate.33 Burgalese financial restric-
tions, however, were not typical. In Avila, Segovia, Sepúlveda, and Salamanca,
where the ruling elite derived its income from livestock and land rents, reli-
gious minorities were far more prominent as shopkeepers and craftsmen. Not
surprisingly, the extant records in these towns show far more active participa-
tion in the property market by Jews and Muslims. Table 4.3 foregrounds the
role of local conditions in determining property exchanges between
Christians and Jews.
In 1290s Avila, a series of real-estate purchases shown in Table 4.4 imparts
more fully the meaning of economic exchanges between Christians and the
‘other’ in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Castile. Remarkably, most sales
by Jews or Muslims were concentrated in the decade of the 1290s. In many
respects, they tell us something about shifts in the relations between the hege-
monic and the minority religions and provide glimpses into the lives of reli-
gious minorities in Castilian cities in the late thirteenth century.
In 1296, Dueña Cara, the widow of Abdalla the Alatar, and her son,
Mahomad, sold two stores in the Alhatería to Don Fernando, a canon of the
cathedral chapter of Avila, for 150 mrs. From the boundaries described in the
transaction, we learn that Dueña Cara retained an adjacent store for her own
use. Two Mudejars, Mahomad, the son of Yuçaf and Daziz surveyed the prop-
erty. Another Yuçaf, Hamad, Zohra, and Hatima, the children of Dueña Cara,
agreed to the sale and pledged themselves as guarantors of the transaction. All
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 75

Table 4.3 Urban real-estate markets of Avila and Salamanca (1240–1360)

Avila Salamanca

Total number of extant transactions 34 60

Number of transactions involving Jews 14 13 (1 purchase)
Percentage of total 41% 22%
Lowest price paid for Jewish-owned property 143 mrs 15.5 mrs
Highest price paid for Jewish-owned property 1300 mrs 450 mrs
Average price per transaction 620 mrs 174.6 mrs

Identity of Jewish sellers No. of transactions

Couples 5 5
Female 2 4
Male 6 2 (including a rabbi)
Siblings 1 (brothers) 1 (brother and sister)

Source: AHN, Clero, carps. 23–30; carps. 1886–1888; Documentación medieval de la catedral de Avila,
Angel Barrios García, ed. (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1981); Documentos de los archivos
catedralicio y diocesano de Salamanca, siglos XII–XIII, José L. Martín et al., eds (Salamanca:
Universidad de Salamanca, 1977). Cited in Crisis and Continuity, p. 279.

Table 4.4 Real-estate transactions in Avila, 1290–1300

Number of property Transactions among Transactions among

transactions Christians Christians and
non-Christians

18 7 11

Source: Documentación medieval de la catedral de Avila, pp. 125–87; Cándido M. Ajo González y
Sáinz de Zúñiga, ed., Avila: Fuentes y archivos, 2 vols (Madrid, 1967).34

the Muslims mentioned in the document were ‘the vassals of Blasco Muñoz’,
the son of one of the most influential citizens of Avila, Don Blasco.35 A year
later, Menahén, a Jewish dyer, and his wife, Çimha, sold to Pascual Sánchez, a
cleric of the church of St. Vicente of Avila, two houses in the central market of
the city (near the cathedral and in the fashionable part of medieval Avila) for
1300 mrs. The document informs us that Menahén and his wife lived in one of
the houses and that another Jewish couple lived next door. Altogether, in just
a decade, 15 Muslims and 41 Jews are mentioned in the documents as pledges
or surveyors of property, or as owners and renters of property adjacent to the
real-estate being sold. From 1300 to 1360 only three Jews appear as sellers of
property, and the number of Jews or Muslims mentioned in Avila records falls
precipitously from the height of the 1290s. What conditions in that decade
prompted this rash of sales by religious minorities?
76 Medieval Spain

Trading with the ‘other’

In this essay I have attempted to contribute to our general understanding of the
economic conditions of Jews and Muslims in late medieval Castile. To this end,
I have provided examples of the type of economic exchanges that took place
between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The record of these exchanges, or
absence thereof, alert us to the fact that Christians were buying up Jewish and
Muslim properties and slowly strangling the economic lifeline and independ-
ence of these two groups. Following the restrictive legislation of the cortes, atti-
tudes towards religious minorities from the mid-thirteenth century onwards
shifted drastically. This hardening in the treatment of minorities rose and fell
according to changing economic conditions. The late 1290s, for instance, suf-
fered a period of great civil unrest, because of Ferdinand IV’s minority. Jews in
Avila and elsewhere in the realm could no longer count on the monarchy to
protect their economic pursuits or, eventually, even their lives.
While the documents may not tell the whole story, their silences and omis-
sions have failed to conceal the robust economic role that Jews and Muslims,
despite their changing fortunes, played in northern Castile. Nonetheless, fre-
quent economic exchanges did not foster greater understanding in religious-
ly-plural Castile. On the contrary, something ominous loomed in the pattern
of sales, in the vanished records of Jewish and Muslims buyers. These patterns
did not bode well for the future. The violence of 1350 and, worse, that of 1391,
were after all just around the corner.

Notes
1 Archivo de la Catedral de Burgos (ACB), vol. 41, part 2, f. 374 (7-IX-1305). The docu-
ment is published in F. Javier Pereda Llarena, Documentación de la catedral de Burgos
(1294–1316) in Fuentes medievales castellano-leonesas (hereafter FMCL) 17 (Burgos,
1984), pp. 177–8.
2 The bibliography on these topics is quite extensive and a few titles will suffice here.
David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages
(Princeton, 1996); José María Monsalvo Antón, Teoría y evolución de un conflicto social.
El antisemitismo en la corona de Castilla en la baja edad media (Madrid, 1985); Ana
Echevarría, ‘Mudéjares y moriscos: el Islam en los reinos cristianos de la península
ibérica (siglos XI a XVII)’ in M. Jesús Viguera (ed.), El Reino Nazarí de Granada
(1232–1492). Sociedad, via y cultura. Historia de España Menéndez-Pidal, vol. VIII. 4
(Madrid, 2000), pp. 367–440; A. MacKay, ‘Popular Movements and Pogroms in
Fifteenth-Century Castile’, Past & Present, 55 (1972): 33–67.
3 This was most powerfully presented in Castro’s The Structure of Spanish History, trans.
E. L. King (Princeton, 1954).
4 A devastating critique of Américo Castro’s ideas is found in Thomas J. Glick, Islamic
and Christian Spain in the early Middle Ages. Comparative Perspectives on Social and
Cultural Formations (Princeton, 1979), pp. 277–99. See also Dwayne E. Carpenter,
Alfonso X and the Jews; an Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24 ‘De los
 Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 77

judíos’ (Berkeley, 1986); T. F. Ruiz, ‘Representación: Castilla, los castellanos y el

Nuevo Mundo a finales de la Edad Media y principios de la moderna’, Historia a
debate. Medieval (Santiago de Compostela, 1995), pp. 63–77.
5 I am presently completing a book manuscript on property, entitled From Heaven to
Earth: Property, Salvation, and Representation in Late Medieval Castile. Although it does
not deal directly with Jews and Muslims, it seeks to provide a context for economic
exchanges in late twelfth-and early thirteenth-century Castile.
6 For pejorative representations of Jews and Muslims see my ‘Representación’, and n.
4 above.
7 Cortes de los antiguos reinos de León y Castilla, 5 vols; vols I and II (Madrid, 1861–63):
I, Haro (1288), pp. 111–12, 115; Valladolid (1293), et passim. ‘Otrossi alo que nos
pidieron que los iudios e los moros non ouiesen los heredamientos de los chris-
tianos por compra nin por entrega nin en otra manera, que por esto se estragaua
muy grande pieça delos nuestros pechos et perdimos nos ende nuestro derecho . . .’
8 See, for example, Cortes: I, Valladolid (1258), p. 59; (Jerez (1268), pp. 68–9; Palencia
(1313), pp. 227, 231, 244–5 et passim.
9 Cortes, I, Palencia (1286), p. 97; Haro (1288), p. 104; Valladolid (1293), p. 110;
Valladolid (1295), p. 131; Valladolid (1299), p. 142; Burgos (1301), p. 149; Medina
del Campo (1307), p. 191; Palencia (1313), pp. 224, 239; Medina del Campo (1318),
pp. 332–33; Valladolid (1322), p. 342; Valladolid (1325), p. 383; Madrid (1329),
p. 435; Madrid (1339), p. 469 et passim.
10 I am borrowing this term from William C. Jordan’s wonderful article on money-
lending and Jews entitled ‘Jews on Top: Women and the Availability of Consumption
Loans in Northern France in the Mid-Thirteenth Century’, Journal of Jewish Studies,
29 (1978), 39–56.
11 J. Amador de los Ríos, Historia social, política y religiosa de los judíos de España
y Portugal (Madrid, 1973), pp. 919, 930.
12 Memorial histórico español, 49 vols (Madrid, 1851–1948): I, 308–24; Amador de los
Ríos, 260ff. Çag was not the only tax farmer. Amador de los Ríos provides a detailed
description of the large number of Jews engaged in some financial role in thir-
teenth-century Castile.
13 Mercedes Gaibrois de Ballesteros, Historia del reinado de Sancho IV de Castilla, 3 vols
(Madrid, 1922–28), I: clxxxv–clxxxix (6–I–1287).
14 ibid., pp. 1; li, lii, lviii; lix.
15 Cortes I: Valladolid (1258), p. 60; Jerez (1268), pp 80–1; Valladolid (1293), pp. 114,
127; Valladolid (1299), p. 144; Valladolid (1307), p. 195; Palencia (1313), pp.
227–30; Burgos (1315), pp. 280–5; Medina del Campo (1318), p. 334; Valladolid
(1322), pp. 352–6 et passim.
16 Cortes I: prohibiting marriage or cohabitation with Christians, Jerez (1268), p. 77;
Palencia (1313), pp. 244–5; Burgos (1315), p. 280; Cortes II: Valladolid (1351), p. 18.
banning the use of Christian names: Cortes I: Jerez (1268), p. 68; Burgos (1315), p.
280; Cortes II: Valladolid (1351), p. 19. That Jews should not be used as nannies:
Cortes I: Valladolid (1258), p. 66; Jerez (1268), p. 77; Palencia (1313), p. 227; Cortes
II: Valladolid (1351), p. 19.
17 T.F. Ruiz, Crisis and Continuity: Land and Town in Late Medieval Castile (Philadelphia,
1994), p. 229. A table for urban property transactions in Burgos between 1230 and 1350
show that although the highest price paid for property within the city walls was 8000
mrs. (Audalla’s property was second), the average price of transactions was 1594.9 mrs.
18 Documentación de la catedral de Burgos (1294–1316), pp. 177–9.
19 ibid., pp. 184–5 (7–XII–1305).
78 Medieval Spain

20 See my Crisis and Continuity, pp. 278–9 and references therein. Also T. F. Ruiz,
‘Judíos y cristianos en el ámbito urbano bajomedieval: Ávila y Burgos, 1200–1350’,
in Xudeos e conversos na historia, 2 vols (Santiago de Compostela, 11994), II:
pp. 69–93. See also F. Cantera Burgos, ‘La judería de Burgos’, Sefarad, 12 (1952), pp.
59–104; L. Torres Balbás, Algunos aspectos del mudejarismo urbano medieval (Madrid,
1954); T. López Mata, ‘Morería y judería burgalesas en la edad media’, Boletín de la
Real Academia de la Historia, 129 (1951), pp. 335–84; Pilar León Tello, Judíos de Avila
(Avila, 1963). For the 1297 document see Documentación medieval de la catedral de
Avila, ed. Angel Barrios García (Salamanca, 1981), pp. 163–4 (1296): Muslims selling
stores; pp. 164–5 (1296): a Muslim, Yuzef, selling two stores in Avila; pp. 165–8
(1297): a Jew, Menahén, a dyer, sold two houses to cleric; pp. 172–4 (1298): the Jew
Mossé de Dueñas and his wife, Çid Buena, sold half of their house to the dean;
pp. 176–8 (1299): the Jews, Halaf and Alazar (brothers), sold property in Avila to the
dean of the chapter, et passim. See below.
21 See Torres Balbás, Algunos aspectos del mudejarismo urbano medieval.
22 Antonio Rodríguez López, El Real Monasterio de las Huelgas y el Hospital del Rey, 2 vols
(Burgos, 1907), I, pp. 206, 506–7; Anselmo Salvá, Cosas de la vieja Burgos (Burgos,
1892), p. 162.
23 One example will suffice. Simón González, an urban knight of Burgos and member
of the ruling body of the city (regiment) in 1345, lent 94 gold ecus to the abbot of
Santo Domingo de Silos. For Simón González see my ‘The Transformation of the
Castilian Municipalities: the Case of Burgos’, Past & Present, 77 (1977), 3–33.
24 Baer, A History of the Jews in Spain, I: pp. 129–30.
25 For rental agreements see T. F. Ruiz, Crisis and Continuity, pp. 161–9.
26 See my ‘Judíos y cristianos en el ámbito urbano bajomedieval’, pp. 78–87; see also
my A Social History of Spain, 1400–1600 (London, 2001), Chs 4, 7 and 8 for violence
against Moriscos.
27 Archivo histórico nacional (AHN), Clero, carp. 354, no. 6 (12-I-1290); no. 7 (19-II-
1290); no. 9 (7-XII-1293).
28 AHN, Clero, carp. 383, no. 10 (4-X-1347). For more evidence of sales prompted by
debts to Jews see Salvador de Moxó, ‘Los judíos castellanos en el reinado de Alfonso
XI’, Sefarad, 35 (1975), 136–41.
29 For the market for land in Castile see my Crisis and Continuity, Ch. 5.
30 See, for example, the census of urban property owned by the cathedral of Avila
within the walls, in Angel Barrios García, ed., Documentación medieval de la catedral
de Avila (Salamanca, 1981), pp. 222–32; for Burgos, the Cuadernos de Contabilidad in
the cathedral archives are a magnificant source for the chapter’s real estate hold-
ings. See also Hilario Casado Alonso, La propiedad eclesiástica en la ciudad de Burgos en
el siglo XV: el cabildo catedralicio (Valladolid, 1980), pp. 97–138.
31 For this pattern see my ‘The Transformation of the Castilian Municipalities’.
32 Documentación de la catedral de Burgos (1184–1222), p. 253. For Estefanía and the
place of the Sarracíns in Burgos history see my ‘Two Patrician Families in Late
Medieval Burgos: the Sarracín and the Bonifaz’, in T.F. Ruiz, The City and the Realm:
Burgos and Castile, 1080–1492 (Aldershot, 1992), ch. 6.
33 See my ‘Burgos y el comercio castellano en la Baja Edad Media: Economía y mental-
idad’, in The City and the Realm: Burgos and Castile 1080–1492, ch. 3.
34 Only three other transactions involving economic exchanges between Christians
and Jews are found in the Avila documentation between 1301 and 1360. The pat-
tern of exchanges in the 1290s was very unusual indeed.
35 Documentación medieval de la catedral de Avila, pp. 163–4.
5
Catalina of Lancaster, the Castilian
Monarchy and Coexistence*
Ana Echevarria

The succession to the Castilian throne

When the Treaty of Bayonne was concluded in 1388, probably few Castilians
realized that twenty years of war with England were at an end, and that a new
period of peace had been ushered in, which was to last until 1418. The couple
whose marriage was settled in the treaty – the future Enrique III of Castile and
Catalina of Lancaster – were to contribute substantially to this outcome. The ori-
gin of dynastic strife occurred in 1369, when Pedro I had been murdered on the
battlefield of Montiel by his half-brother Enrique of Trastámara. This established
the rule of a new dynasty, the Trastámaras, who were to face a long struggle to
make secure the throne they had won by war. From the beginning of his reign,
Pedro had supported an English alliance, contrary to normal Castilian policy.
When Enrique had been forced to flee abroad to escape brotherly retribution, he
continued to support nobles opposed to Pedro, with the backing of Charles V of
France. So civil strife in Castile became an issue in the Hundred Years War.
The intervention in Spain of two princes – Edward III’s sons Edward Prince
of Wales (the Black Prince) and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster – resulted in
an English claim to the throne of Castile. After Pedro’s murder, his daughters
Constanza and Isabel (unlike their imprisoned brothers) managed to flee
abroad, reaching Bayonne. Gaunt saw an opportunity to become a king and
married Constanza in September 1371. The bride travelled to England, where
the Black Prince received her as Queen of Castile.1 To ensure the future of the
new dynastic link, Isabel was married, the next year, to Edward III’s third sur-
viving son, Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge. Gaunt claimed the
Castilian throne in right of his wife; he and Constanza were formally recog-
nized as King and Queen of Castile by Edward III. Gaunt hoped to gain the
support of Aragón and Portugal.2 Catalina was born about 6 June 1372,3 after
her father had started to style himself as King in his charters: from birth, she
was in legitimist eyes infanta of Castile, heir to its throne.
Catalina’s education had to be carefully planned to match her position. It
was inappropriate to put her in the care of Katherine Swynford, governess of

79
80 Medieval Spain

her elder half-sisters Philippa and Elizabeth – and her father’s mistress.
Following English tradition, Catalina was given her own nursery, composed
of a nurse, Agnes, cradle rockers, a chamberwoman, a launder, and a ‘lady mis-
tress of the nursery’ of noble origin. Catalina probably spent her first four
years with her mother at Hertford Castle, where the duchess had moved whilst
her husband enjoyed London life with his mistress Katherine Swynford.4 In
1375 Catalina had her own chamber in Melbourne Castle (Derbyshire).5
Elizabeth Kelsey supervised her finances.6 A nurse was appointed the follow-
ing year, and so were new servants, such as the valet de chambre Symond
Templer7 and a Castilian lady called Johan Martyns (perhaps Juana Martínez).
She may have been Joan, governess to Isabel Countess of Cambridge, who had
accompanied the princesses in their flight from Castile. The affection which
Gaunt had for Catalina and her elder sisters is reflected in his gifts to them, at
Christmas 1379, of works in Cyprus gold, imported by Francis Cristofre,
valued at £20. For New Year he then gave them ‘trois hanapes et trois covercles
dor’, worth £30.8 In 1381 he gave her as a special New Year’s present ‘un tablet
dor et de perry’;9 like her brother and sisters, she received a covered gold cup.10
Medieval noble children, once they reached the age of reason (between the
ages of three and six) commenced their formal education, often in the house-
hold of a related family. Whilst Philippa and Elizabeth remained attached to
their father’s household (possibly because of his prolonged liaison with their
governess), their brother Henry had been dispatched in 1369 to live with a rela-
tive, Joan Lady Wake, and in 1377 with another relative, Joan Lady Mohun.
Catalina was placed in Lady Mohun’s household in 1380.11 So Gaunt’s two
prospective heirs spent some of their childhood under the same roof, which
might help to explain the warmth of their correspondence when they were
both rulers. However, their joint sojourn may not have lasted long, for at
Christmas 1380 Henry (now styled Earl of Derby) was married to Mary de
Bohun at Leicester in his family’s presence.
Lady Mohun (who was to be influential at Richard II’s court),12 was the
daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bartholomew Lord Burghersh, and her
husband John Mohun had been a member of the Black Prince’s household. In
Goodman’s words, ‘Lady Mohun, as a mature widow, had qualities of birth
and character which led Gaunt to commit the prospective heiress of Spain, his
daughter Catherine, to her care in 1380’.13 She seems to have been a personal
friend of Gaunt, who gave her and members of her family gifts on special occa-
sions.14 He granted her £100 for Catalina’s wardrobe and servants. She
remained in charge of the princess until at least 1383, and perhaps until her
journey to Castile. We must assume that Catalina was given an education gen-
erally typical for English ladies of the higher nobility, although she acquired
through her contacts with Castilian ladies some knowledge of the Spanish
language and, maybe, of Castilian customs.
During Catalina’s early years the politics of the Iberian Peninsula had been
further complicated by the outbreak of the Great Schism.15 Its rulers had to
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 81

decide whether to respond to the the demands for recognition from either
Urban VI or Clement VII, and the pressure in favour of the latter’s cause from
the French Crown. However, the Spanish kings acted cautiously: Enrique II of
Castile, Carlos II of Navarre and Pedro IV of Aragón all remained neutral for
the time being. It was the next generation of kings who took sides. Enrique’s
son and successor Juan I summoned an assembly of clergy to Medina del
Campo to hear and assess the rival arguments; they finally pronounced in
favour of submission to Clement VII. The decision was conditioned by the
long-standing Franco-Castilian alliance, and by Juan’s concern over the threat
posed by the alliance concluded between Fernando of Portugal and Gaunt in
July 1380. An English army commanded by Catalina’s uncle Cambridge sailed
for Portugal with the aim of launching a joint invasion of Castile: Juan
responded by invading Portugal (June 1381). Gaunt’s policy collapsed: the
pro-Castilian faction at the Portuguese court opposed aggressive action,
English troops alienated opinion by their excesses, and Gaunt was rebuffed by
parliament in his attempts to raise a subsidy for further military action.
Fernando reversed alliances, marrying his daughter Beatriz to Juan I, instead
of to Catalina’s cousin Edward of Norwich, Cambridge’s son (1382).
In 1381 Catalina was referred to in the Lancastrian records as ‘Katerine
d’Espaigne’,16 but, rather than soon being installed as infanta of Castile, as she
may have been led to hope, she was briefly to be in peril of her life, because of
Gaunt’s unpopularity. In the Peasants’ Revolt his Savoy Palace in London was
destroyed by a mob, Duchess Constanza fled northwards, and Gaunt himself
took refuge in Scotland. However, as a result of this episode, Gaunt reconsid-
ered his position and attempted a reconciliation with the duchess, banishing
his mistress from his household. Thus he aligned himself more positively with
the legitimist Castilian cause. A new opportunity to promote it arose a few
years later, as a consequence of the anti-Castilian dynastic revolution in
Portugal, embodied in the proclamation of João of Avis as king on 11 April
1385. He immediately asked England for help against the Castilians, so Juan I
was confronted with the decision of either giving up his claim to the throne in
right of Beatriz or invading Portugal. He invaded in the summer of 1385.
João’s victory at Aljubarrota convincingly established his kingship, humiliat-
ed Juan, and encouraged Gaunt to make renewed efforts to push forward his
claim to Castile. Fernão Lopes was to depict vividly reactions in the ducal
household to the news of the battle:

E iso mesmo ao Duque dAlemcrasto a o que lguo foraó´ dizer, presemte a

Duquesa sua molher, comtando lhe como [se] todo parasa . . . O Duque out-
orguava có´ o que elle dezia, mas por os feitos de Casa de Imgraterra em que
ataa emtão fora ocupado, se escusava de o naõ poder fazer. E falamdo en
estas rezões, a Duquesa se fimcou em giolhos amte elle, cô a Infante dona
Catarina sua filha, e começou a dizer: ‘Senhor, de quantas boas amdamças
vos Deus deu neste mundo em vosas guerras e trabalhos por os feitos
82 Medieval Spain

alheios, pareçeme que rezaõ seria trabalhardes vos por vosa homrra e por
cobrar a heramça que [he] minha e de vosa filha, de que estamos deserda-
dos; ca o reino de Castella a my pertemçe de direito, ca naõ aos filhos do tre-
dor bastardo que matou meu padre como naõ devia’. E em dizemdo esto
choravaõo ambas, e filha e a madre.

Either because of his family’s pleas (if the scene is more than an invention of
the chronicler) or out of straightforward political interest, Gaunt finally deter-
mined to go to war.
In May 1386 João and Richard II concluded the Treaty of Windsor, the foun-
dation of Anglo-Portuguese collaboration in the following centuries; João also
concluded an alliance with Gaunt as King of Castile.19 Despite the refusal of
Navarre and Aragon to fight in his cause, Gaunt set sail from Plymouth with
an army in July.20 He took many of his immediate family with him: Catalina
saw Castile for the first time when they disembarked at La Coruña. She must
have been impressed by their subsequent pilgrimage to Santiago, before set-
tling in Orense. Duchess Constanza and Gaunt’s three daughters stayed in the
monastery of Celanova during the campaign in Galicia. João sought either
Philippa or Catalina in marriage, but Constanza rejected Catalina’s candidacy
on the grounds that she was too young to marry.21 Since she was fourteen, an
acceptable age of marriage for a princess, one must seek other reasons for the
reservation of the infanta’s marriage.
Envoys from Juan I had already visited Gaunt in 1386 to propose the mar-
riage of his son and heir Enrique to Catalina, but the proposals had been dis-
missed. However, recent events had shown that a Luso-Castilian dynastic
marriage might have unfortunate consequences for the people of both realms.
Finally, in February 1387, Catalina’s elder sister Philippa22 was betrothed to
João; they married in Oporto some months later. Differing versions of prince-
ly itineraries are found in English and Portuguese chronicles. According to the
former, Constanza and Catalina visited Queen Philippa at her court whilst her
husband and father were on campaign in Castile. If this version is accepted, it
is likely that Catalina stayed longer with her sister; Gaunt allegedly said that
she could then be in no better company.23 On the other hand, Lopes states
that, before the campaign, Gaunt and Constanza were joined by João at
Bragança, and they were all together feasting until Philippa returned alone to
Coimbra.24
Between March and June 1387 the Anglo-Portuguese army had some suc-
cesses in their Castilian campaign: Alcañices, Tábara, Zamora, and Ciudad
Rodrigo were some of the places they captured. A number of reasons have
been given for the readiness to make peace which Gaunt showed after the
campaign, when he was at the peak of his power: his troops were too few, his
finances were low, his Castilian conquests insecure, and he had no certainty of
further support for campaigning from the English government.25 His negoti-
ations with Castilian envoys were conducted behind João’s back, after their
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 83

return to Portugal. Four successive drafts of a treaty were made, three at

Trancoso between 10 June and July; the final version was sealed the following
year at Bayonne (8 July 1388).26 The fundamental articles remained the same
in all the drafts: the parties were to work for the restoration of the unity of the
Church; Gaunt and Constanza renounced their claims on the Castilian
throne in return for a large annual income; the infante Enrique and Catalina
were to be married.27 Juan made some concessions in view of Gaunt’s con-
tinued strength in the west of Castile. He omitted from his titles that of King of
Portugal; he granted indemnities and pardons to Pedro I’s partisans. Some of
them received restitution of their goods, and Gaunt and Constanza had the
right to resume their royal claim if their pension fell more than three years
into arrears.
The clauses concerning Catalina in the drafts of the treaty show that her
future position had been carefully worked out. She was to renounce her claim
to the throne in favour of her prospective husband or any son and heir she had
by him; if widowed, she would not reclaim the right. The proposal that the
younger infante Fernando should be a hostage in England for the fulfilment of
the treaty was dropped, since Juan had only two sons. Instead, it was agreed
that he should remain unmarried until Enrique, then aged eight or nine, was
of age and the marriage was consummated, ready to be a substitute spouse in
case his brother died. A clause forbidding Catalina to divorce Enrique was
dropped from the final treaty. The succession to the throne was fully worked
out in case of the death of any of the parties. As Catalina was of age, she for-
mally gave her consent to the treaty.28 One wonders how many young
princesses were asked to give such prior consent to their marriages.
In accordance with the treaty, Juan granted the pair as endowment the
duchy of Soria, and several towns – Almazán, Atienza, Deza, and Molina.29
Although, according to Castilian law, a husband could not appropriate the
wife’s dowry, in practice – with marital consent – he could alienate it.30 Later
in life, Catalina was to be deprived of at least one town, Almazán.31 She
received royal authorization to purchase properties in exchange. It is difficult
to say how much distress the confiscation would have caused her. In the last
charters she issued, her titles read: ‘Doña Catalina, por la gracia de Dios Reina
de Castilla e de Leon, madre del Rey, e tutora e Regidora de los sus Reynos,
Duquesa de Soria, Condessa de Carrion, e señora de Molina, de Huete e de
Atienza, e de Coca, e de Palençuela, e de Mansilla e de Rueda e de Deza.’32 Her
domains, then, included rich towns in northern Castile.
With regard to Constanza, one of the most important clauses in the treaty
was the provision for her of a grant for life of Guadalajara, Olmedo, and
Medina del Campo. All three were famous centres of trade, because of the
ferias held at them several times a year. It is significant that this important ces-
sion only appears in Trancoso III and the Treaty of Bayonne: it is an index of
Juan’s extreme anxiety to conclude the treaty. The English negotiators prob-
ably worked for their exchange in return for Gaunt’s conquests, such as
84 Medieval Spain

Santiago and Zamora. However, this grant, together with the annuity paid to
the duke and duchess by Castile, was to be a drain on the resources of the
realm for fifteen years. Since Constanza’s properties were under the control of
Catalina’s chamber, and were supervised by her steward Juan Alfonso de
Mayorga,34 it is clear that the Lancastrian princesses received the revenues of
some of the richest towns in Castile. The small portion of their incomes still
pertaining to the Crown was conferred on Queen Beatriz. When the infante
Fernando was made Duke of Peñafiel in 1390, his father granted him the rever-
sion of Medina del Campo and Olmedo after the duchess’s death.35
One of the consequences of the Treaty of Bayonne was the creation of a new
title for the heir of Castile: that of ‘Prince of Asturias’ was to replace infante
mayor.36 The charter creating the Principality has not survived, nor was its cre-
ation stipulated in the treaty. Goodman’s suggestion that the titles conferred
on Enrique had a certain symmetry with those of the Black Prince is worth
noting, but his argument depends on citing only three of Enrique’s titles – as
‘Prince of Asturias, Duke of Soria and Lord of Molina’.37 However, in the
records of the Castilian Chancery he is commonly styled with a larger group of
titles, which renders the suggested parallel inexact. The title was conferred at
the Cortes of Briviesca in 1387, when the couple became sworn heirs to the
throne. The ceremony has been recorded as follows: ‘the king seated his son
on a royal throne, put a hat on his head and a golden rod in his hand, and he
gave him peace before his face, calling him prince of Asturias’.38 The reason
given for this choice of title by a Spanish writer is that these territories were the
first ones held by Castilian kings after the end of Visigothic rule.39 Froissart’s
Chroniques suggest that at some point the title negotiated for the couple had
been that of Princes of Galicia. This was discussed with commendable clarity
by Goodman in his biography of Gaunt; it is hard to believe that Froissart was
so ill-informed as to make such a mistake.40
Soon after the making of the Treaty of Bayonne, Catalina was taken to
Fuentarrabia on the Castilian frontier, where she was received by knights and
taken to Palencia. There Juan I welcomed her and celebrations with tourna-
ments and pageantry were prepared. The reason for the choice of Palencia,
according to González Dávila, was not only its size and importance, but its
symbolic significance:

en remuneración del servicio que le avia hecho en el año antes, que como lle-
gasse el Duque de Alencastre con su gente a poner cerco a Palencia, en la
sazón que estava sola, y sin gente: porque su nobleza y ciudadanos avian ido
a socorrer la villa de Valderas: las dueñas y ciudadanos y gente del pueblo
defendieron animosamente sus puertas, torres y muros, peleando con el
adversario inglés. Por esta hazaña el rey don Juan concedio a las mugeres
nobles desta ciudad que pudiessen traer vandas de oro encima de los tocados
y ropas, como las traian los cavalleros de la Vanda, pues hicieron ellas el ofi-
cio dellos; y añade la Palentina que duro muchos años el traer este atavio.41
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 85

Enrique, aged nine, and Catalina aged sixteen, were married in the cath-
edral of St Antolin on 17 September 1388. By November her mother had arrived
in Guadalajara and strengthened her family bonds with Juan with letters and
presents. One might assume that, since the marriage could not yet be consum-
mated, and an interview between Juan and Gaunt was being arranged,
Catalina spent the period with her mother, both of them arranging the ten-
ancy of their Castilian properties.42 It is difficult to say where Catalina was
during the next four years. Chroniclers do not mention whether she travelled
with the court; if so, she was probably in Queen Beatriz’s retinue, continuing
her training as a future queen. Another possibility is that she stayed in a con-
vent, but no trace has been found of this. Did she live in any of the cities given
the pair under treaty? Enrique already had his own chamber, but it is doubtful
whether his young bride would have been allowed to reside there.
Juan I died from a fall from his horse on 9 October 1390, when Enrique was
only eleven years old. Immediately after his succession, his brother Fernando
was betrothed to Leonor countess of Albuquerque, the richest heiress in the
kingdom – but they could not be married, under the terms of the Treaty of
Bayonne, until Enrique and Catalina had consummated their marriage.44
Catalina was to live through two royal minorities, her husband’s and her
son’s. Her position during the first one has never been properly examined.
Unfortunately, chroniclers were silent about this phase of her life; stress has
been placed on the political problems of the minority, the pogroms of 1391,45
and the struggle for power among the nobility and higher clergy. In my opin-
ion, Enrique’s regency is crucial for an understanding of Catalina’s attitudes
during her regency of Juan II, and her role in international politics.
The struggles for power within the regency council between 1390 and 1393
are the main subject of the fragmentary chronicle of Enrique III.46 During
these years, Catalina stayed in tactful retreat, so there are no indications of
whether she was living with the king, or concerning her relations with mem-
bers of the Council. Only a few aspects of her life then were sufficiently
notable to have come down to us, such as her ensnarement in the effects of the
Great Schism. According to treaty, she was permitted to adhere to the Roman
allegiance in her private worship. However, once she was in Castile it was
inevitable that there would be pressure on her to acknowledge the Avignon
papacy. Apparently one member of the Regency Council, Fadrique Duke of
Benavente, was particularly insistent. According to English sources, he plotted
with a Carmelite frair to make the queen turn to Clement VII, by means of
false letters attributed to her father. When the plot was discovered, both of the
culprits were imprisoned, but the duke soon managed to escape.47 However,
at some point Catalina decided to convert, as a letter addressed to her by the
antipope suggests.48 Later in life she became an ardent supporter of Benedict
XIII.
Because of the complications of the Schism, the queen perforce had to wait
patiently for her confirmation to the throne: she needed dispensations from
86 Medieval Spain

the rival popes to validate her marriage with her cousin. To provide one, two
legates from Boniface IX travelled to Castile. So the marriage was recognized
in the Roman obedience, but the couple had to wait longer for Clement’s dis-
pensation, necessary for the Castilian Church to accept their union.
The first real change in the political orientation of the reign occurred at the
Cortes of Madrid (1393), in which Enrique assumed power.50 The king, aged
fourteen, suspended the Council and revoked the concessions made during
the Regency. He also curbed the territorial power of members of the Council
by reducing their incomes and confirming privileges to other nobles. In this
way he strengthened an alternative network of power, to challenge those who
had caused so much upheaval in the realm. Enrique, despite in the first
instance being merciful to kinsfolk, in the following years managed to get rid
of their influence. In 1394 the duke of Benavente, after leading a revolt which
the king succeeded in suppressing, was imprisoned in the castle of Monreal.
Juan García Manrique, Bishop of Santiago, fled to Portugal and the count of
Noreña abandoned his stronghold of Gijón for a life of exile. In 1395 Leonor
of Navarre returned to her kingdom.
The fact that the Crónica de Enrique III stops precisely at the point when the
king commenced his personal rule deserves particular consideration.
López de Ayala was certainly ill when he gave up writing his chronicles, but
he was not to die until 1407. We need to refer to the critical analysis of his
cycle of chronicles made by Gómez Redondo and Orduna. According to their
interpretation, Ayala had conceived a project which would trace the resolu-
tion of the problems posed by the confrontation of Pedro I and Enrique II.
During his service at the court of Juan I, he was able to gather more informa-
tion, which he worked on during his Portuguese imprisonment after his cap-
ture at Aljubarrota. After his return to Castile, he realized that his material had
to be adapted to new circumstances, since the marriage of Catalina and
Enrique had solved the dynastic problem. He then set out to ‘reconstruct a his-
torical narrative, not so much to justify a grievous political sequence, as to
elaborate a unitary cycle to explain the hidden springs which had determined
the fate of Alfonso XI’s dynasty and the establishment of a new perspective at
court, which facilitated the reconciliation of the lineages separated at
Montiel’.51 If so, when Enrique III started to rule for himself, the cycle was
closed. Ayala was too old to embark on another major historical work and,
after the vicissitudes he had witnessed, writing devotional works was probably
more to his taste.
The consequences for Catalina of the commencement of the king’s majority
are unclear in most respects. The consummation of the marriage fulfilled the
terms of the Bayonne settlement, concluding the dynastic conflict of the two
Castilian royal houses. The superscription of royal charters issued during the
Cortes is significant: ‘don Enrique, regnante en uno con la reyna donna
Catalina mi muger e con el infante don Fernando mi hermano en Castiella, en
Leon, en Toledo, en Gallisia, en Sevilla, en Cordova, en Murçia, en Jahen, en
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 87

Baeça, en el Algarbe, en Algesira, en Viscaya e en Molina’. So, whilst the royal

council went unmentioned, Catalina was publicly associated with the king in
her role as consorts and, the king as yet having no issue, so was Fernando as
heir to the throne. How far either of them participated in concerting this royal
style is unclear, but their association in it strengthened Enrique’s new grasp on
authority.
Enrique’s accession to power was marked by the start of public works and
patronage to raise the prestige of the new royal family and to signal a new style
of monarchy. This court style was reflected in secular building works such as
several halls in the Alcázar of Segovia, the towers of the alcázar in Madrid, and
the queen’s residences in Valladolid, site of the later Augustinian convent.52
There were also the hunting lodges at El Pardo and Miraflores (Burgos) – on the
site of the latter the Carthusian house founded by his son Juan II now stands.
Religious foundations were in the reforming mode established by Juan I.
However, patronage of the religious was undertaken mainly by Catalina,
whose engagement in it had already appeared in her husband’s minority. In
1392 she had founded the convent of Dominican nuns at Mayorga, and the
house with the most impressive buildings which she was to set up – that of
Santa María la Real de Nieva, near Segovia. In 1394 she granted a number of
privileges to the Dominican sisters at Toledo, addressed to their prioress,
Teresa de Ayala, and to her daughter María, Catalina’s aunt. The queen’s
predilection for the Order was also manifest in her choice of three confessors
from it – Alonso de Córdoba, Juan de Morales, Bishop of Bádajoz and Jaén, and
García de Castronuño, later Bishop of Coria.53 Royal monastic patronage con-
tinued with the foundation of houses for the Hieronymites in Toledo (1396)
and Valparaiso (Cordoba, 1405), and the Carthusian house of Santa María de
la Cueva in 1400. Even when founders were not princes, royal associations
could be made in symbolic ways, such in as the dedications. For instance, the
Hieronymite house founded by Bishop Pedro Tenorio in Talavera was dedicat-
ed to Saint Catherine.54
Santa María la Real de Nieva, the most outstanding foundation, provides
insights into Catalina’s patronal interests. Tradition has it that when the
Virgin Mary appeared to a shepherd in the slate quarries of Nieva, a hamlet of
Segovia, a statue hidden during the hard times of Muslim conquest was found.
The queen was interested when Alonso de Frias, Bishop of Segovia, informed
her of the miracle; she travelled to the spot. In an attempt to link the vision to
the royal family’s personal devotions,55 she ordered a nearby hermitage to be
reconstructed in order to house the statue. Moreover, she asked Clement VII
for permission to provide a prior and six chaplains to serve the cult of the
image, named Nuestra Señora de la Soterrana (Our Lady of the Cave).
Pilgrimages and miracles started to occur there so quickly that Catalina
founded a hospital too. In order to achieve independence for the monastery
which she was planning, Catalina had to encroach on the parochial jurisdic-
tion of the neighbouring village of Nieva, and the communal rights of the
88 Medieval Spain

community of Segovia (Comunidad de Villa y Tierra). In face of the opposition

to this, Enrique summoned a special court, which found in Catalina’s favour.
This enabled her in 1395 to request the king to make a grant of the lands
around the church in order to establish a village. The construction of the
church lasted from 1392–93 until 1432, long after Catalina’s death. In 1399
the image of Our Lady was solemnly processed to the church, whose construc-
tion had been financed not just from royal patronage, but also by the contri-
butions of the faithful, attracted by successive indulgences. Two hundred
villagers and the inhabitants of surrounding hamlets worked on the church
fabric; the building was subsequently given to the Order of Preachers. This
completed the process of freeing the foundation from local ecclesiastical or
secular jurisdictions, and put it into reliable hands.56 The next concern was
the construction of its cloister,57 which displays one of the best collections of
carved capitals from the period. In their scheme, traditional iconographical
themes such as those of the calendar and scenes from the life of Christ are
combined with some new features – a series of capitals with sculptures depict-
ing the daily life of the friars, stressing preaching activities and, in the imposts,
graceful carvings of courtiers and Dominicans. The buildings were completed
with royal and claustral lodgings designed in ‘court-Gothic’ style, which made
a contrast with the incipient Mudéjar style of the church itself. Finally, the fri-
ary was granted by the queen mills, granaries, and a great deal in bequests,
both in money and chattels.58 The iconographical programme contained
themes which glorified monarchy and inculcated religious reform.
Let us go back to consider the circumstances of the royal family from 1393
onwards. With the royal marriage fulfilled, infante Fernando was freed from
the restrictions imposed on him by the Treaty of Bayonne. As we have seen, he
was speedily betrothed to Leonor de Albuquerque. This rich heiress was on the
verge of falling into the embrace of the Duke of Benavente, anxious to aug-
ment his inheritance. By marrying Leonor (1395), Fernando established what
was to be the basis of his power in Castile, in combination with the lordships
of Lara and Peñafiel granted to him by his father. Thus Fernando fully entered
the two circles which were to mark out his life and political ambitions. He
achieved prominent status in Enrique II’s dynasty, acting as his brother’s
right-hand man, and he joined the ranks of the nobility, among whom he had
precedence in the Cortes, a position which he used to help his brother in con-
trolling them. In addition, as long as his brother had no issue, he was heir to
the throne.
Catalina also enjoyed a new status. Her chamber, which must have been
already established, acquired novel importance. At its head was the Great
Steward of the Queen, an office first occupied by Gómez Suárez de Figueroa,
and later by Juan Álvarez de Ossorio. Other officers were Anton Sánchez de
Villa Real (Great Treasurer), Alfonso Sánchez (Great Accountant), her secre-
taries and other lawyers, and her chaplain, the Dean of León. In structure, if
not necessarily in size, this was a typical noble lady’s household.59
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 89

Catalina was certainly now well-placed to try to intervene in the process of

political decision-making; as her epitaph in Toledo Cathedral puts it, she was
the one ‘by whom all peace and harmony had been settled forever’.60
Nevertheless, it seems to have sufficed Catalina to exercise her influence pri-
vately with her husband. However, as regards medieval queenship, the validi-
ty of the distinction between public and private has been recently questioned.
As J. C. Parsons has recently stated,

a queen’s intercession with her husband was an important element in the

public personae of both king and queen that could betoken an intimate
and suspect influence; that queens received petitioners in their bedcham-
bers – sites of that intensely scrutinized procreative activity – in effect pub-
licized intimacy as a base of their power . . . Queens were ‘marginalized’ to a
‘private’ sphere in the narrow sense that patrimonialization of authority or
bureaucratization of administration lessened their direct role in govern-
ment, but they retained power, however ‘unofficial’ or informal, and it was
by paths inarguably linked to family roles that they preserved a share in
rulership on a non-insignificant basis.61

We shall adduce a number of examples of Enrique and Catalina working in

tandem in matters of state. One might reasonably surmise that their married
life was a happy one. Enrique had neither lovers nor bastards, as far as is
known. The king’s words to her, in the only remaining letter between them,
provide the most convincing testimony of their good relations: ‘Reyna: yo el
Rey vos enbio mucho saludar como aquella que amo como a mi coraçon’.62
The birth of a child, María (14 November 1401), was a great joy for the king
and realm, as there had been doubts about the couple’s fertility. Noble and vir-
tuous ladies of the royal family attended the queen, among them her aunt
Doña María, daughter of Pedro I by Teresa de Ayala, who had entered the
Dominican convent in Toledo,63 and may have been the baby’s godmother.
The infanta María was proclaimed Princess of Asturias by the Cortes of Toledo
on 6 January 1402.64 As had happened to her mother in infancy, the princess’s
chamber was speedily constituted, headed by her wet nurse Juana de Zúñiga,
wife of Fernandez López de Estúñiga, alcaide of Burgos castle (for whom her
daughter Mencia was later substituted), and the Great Steward, Pedro
González de Mendoza.65 As the princess grew up, Inés de Ayala, a member of
the chancellor’s family, became her governess.66
In January 1403 a second daughter was born, christened Catalina.
Afterwards, the queen started to exhibit the first symptons of her later malady,
putting on excessive weight. In the light of this and of Enrique’s poor health, it
was feared that they would not produce a male heir. In this scenario, Fernando
and his family had a part to play. As father of a large brood by Leonor de
Albuquerque, he tried to make matches with his brother’s daughters. The
prospective marriage of the Princess of Asturias to Fernando’s eldest son
90 Medieval Spain

Alfonso was a neat way of dealing with the problem of a female succession
without recourse to the prospective installing of a foreign prince as ruler of
Castile. Recent experiences, such as the cases of Beatriz of Portugal and
Catalina’s own mother, discouraged such an arrangement. If Fernando con-
sidered a marriage settlement as a way of keeping alive hopes that his lineage
would eventually inherit the throne,67 Enrique could envisage that such an
outcome would strengthen the Crown, as the prospective bridegroom,
Fernando’s son Alfonso, would augment it with the extensive estates he stood
to inherit. It is, therefore, not surprising that Enrique, in his testament, laid
down that this marriage should be carried out.
So Catalina’s next pregnancy must have come as a surprise to everybody at
court. Her last baby, a boy, was born at Toro on 6 March 1405. The fact that this
was a difficult pregnancy can be deduced from the care which Enrique took in
arrangements for the queen’s confinement. In order to please her,

considerando el estado en que vos agora estades, et por que tengades ay con
vos quien vos fagar todo plaser e vos quite de algunos enojos, he acordado
enbiar por donna Teresa, priora del monesterio de Santo Domingo el Real
de Toledo para la enbiar a vos que este conbusco, porque es tal persona con
la que vos abredes mucho plaser más que con otra persona alguna, et que
vos fara todavia quantos serviçios e plaçeres ella pudiere.68

Thanks to the king’s solicitous correspondence, we know a good deal about the
future Juan II’s birth and first weeks. Both the prioress, Teresa de Ayala, and her
daughter Doña María, were asked to look after Catalina both before and after
her delivery. Arrangements were made for their temporary absence from the
convent, as was customarily the case whenever the queen required their attend-
ance. They were granted a safe conduct for their journey from Toledo to Toro,
where the queen was staying. As it was a long way, and as the Meseta was already
in the grip of winter, Catalina wrote in December for information about their
itinerary. When they got to Toro the prioress, together with the Marshal of the
queen’s household, Diego Fernández, and Master Juan, the king’s physician,
assumed the responsibility of informing Enrique about the state of the queen.
The choice of a wet nurse needed to be dealt with before a noble child was
born, especially in cases in which the mother’s milk might be of inferior qual-
ity, due to health problems. As we have seen in the case of Catalina’s infancy,
her father had provided the officers for her chamber as well as the wet nurse.69
Enrique undertook this task keenly. We know how the wet nurse was chosen
thanks to correspondence preserved by the Dominican nuns of Toledo. From
a list of twenty candidates, the prioress and Marshal were to select a short list
of six who would match the following qualifications:

la primera, que sean de hedad de fasta veynte fasta treinte annos e que sean
bien conplesionadas e de buenas colores e bien carnudas. Otrossi que esten
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 91

paridas de dos fasta quatro meses e que sean de finas febras si ser pudiere.
Otrossi que tengan las criaturas bien mantenidas e criadas e que tengan
buena leche en quantidad e en color e en sustançia e que sean de las mejores
maneras e condiciones que pudieren ser, que sean fijas dalgo que ser non, et
que non sea ninguna dellas muger de estrangero.70

Enrique himself, with the advice of his physicians, made the final choice –
Aldonza Gómez de las Ruelas, wife of Rodrigo Álvarez de Santoyo, squire of the
adelantado of Castile. The king also arranged for Juana de Zúñiga, infanta
María’s wet nurse, to be prepared to act as a substitute. In view of the advice of
Master Juan the physician, her prompt attendance was required. Behind
Enrique’s emphatic insistence on her presence there may have lain disagree-
ment with the queen, who perhaps wanted Juana to remain with María.71
With the birth of Juan, the longed-for male heir to the throne had arrived.
Catalina immediately wrote formal announcements of it to civic authorities,
as it was customary for queens to do.72 Catalina’s joy, however, led her to
stumble: her husband reacted angrily when she appointed officers for their
son’s chamber. Enrique’s rebuke was contained in a letter to Teresa de Ayala
and Doña María, ordering them to restrain the queen from making appoint-
ments and to curb anyone who might counsel her to do so.73 Enrique would
not it allow be forgotten that it was his prerogative to appoint to offices in the
prince’s chamber. This was one of the few occasions on which Catalina
showed an interest in intervening politically during the reign. However, her
political mission as transmitter of Pedro I’s dynastic right was fulfilled when
Juan was proclaimed Prince of Asturias at Valladolid on 12 May 1405, with the
same ritual as had been used for his parents.74
Catalina, from the time of her education as heiress to Castile, had been
imbued with her dynastic role. Besides performing her duties as mother of a
prince, she exercised her personal authority in various spheres traditionally
susceptible to female control.75 Firstly, she maintained a network of familial
bonds with her natal and affinal kindred, namely, the English and Portuguese
royal families. Earlier examples of female political activity in foreign affairs
had principally concerned marriage negotiations between royal families. For
instance, María of Portugal had tried to marry her son Pedro I to Edward III’s
daughter Joan during Alfonso XI’s reign.76 Secondly, Catalina attempted to
enlarge her networks of domestic influence, as well as the king’s, by conferring
privileges on their specially loyal subjects, and promoting marriage alliances
among them. For example, Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, the queen’s Great
Steward, received from the Crown villages that had been attached to Bádajoz
(1394) – Feria, Zafra, and La Parra.77 In the private circles of former queens,
favourites such as the famous Leonor López de Castro and Inés de Torres repre-
sented a more informal but equally powerful political force. Catalina’s coterie
was widely criticized, precisely because it eluded traditional forms of male
control of social advancement.78 A more uncertain sphere of her authority
92 Medieval Spain

was as a landowner. Since married ladies could only manage their lands with
the husband’s permission, her scope for action as a landowner was limited,
but she helped to maintain the influence of the Crown estate. Finally, and no
less important than other spheres of authority, was that of the education of
royal children. Catalina tried to participate actively in this, though rebuffed in
instances such as the matter of appointments to the infante’s chamber.
Whereas this proved beyond her power as queen consort, it would become
feasible during her long regency.

Portugal, England and the dynasty

The strengthening of family bonds was a constant in Catalina of Lancaster’s

thought and deeds. It is hard to agree with Sir Peter Russell’s statement that
‘when Catalina of Lancaster entered Castile in 1388 to begin her married life
there, she seems to have very largely severed her personal connexion with
English life’.79 My opinion is rather that she promoted what Goodman has
called ‘a distinctively Lancastrian agenda’.80 One must not forget that a cru-
cial issue in this period was the stance of Castile in the Hundred Years War.
There were important issues dividing Castile and Portugal. Allied to France,
Castile was not free to develop relations with Portugal and England, though
their Atlantic commercial interests brought them into close contact with the
Castilians. Catalina’s relationship with the English Crown was to form an
interesting counterpoint to the officially francophile policies pursued since
the accession of the Trastámaras, and may be regarded as a revival of her
grandfather Pedro I’s anglophile policy.
Duchess Constanza of Lancaster had died on 24 March 1394, but contact
between Catalina and her father continued, although only traces of political
exchanges remain. John of Gaunt, acting as counsellor to his nephew Richard
II, used his Castilian connections in order to win advantages for England.
Richard himself wrote two letters to his cousin Catalina, in February and April
1393. The first concerned commercial relations between the two realms, as
was often to be the case in her correspondence and that of her sister Philippa
of Portugal and their kinsfolk on the other shore. At the same time, Richard
addressed letters to Enrique and his regency council to intercede in suits pend-
ing, involving a certain Robert Scarburgh.81 The second letter to Catalina was
affectionate, dwelling on family matters, but was sent in connection with an
embassy from Gaunt to her husband and to her.
Gaunt, for his part, had not given up his dream of an Anglo-Castilian rap-
prochement: his envoys, Sir Walter Blount and Sir William Par, were author-
ized to propose an alliance. Out of respect for his daughter, Gaunt remitted the
fine due for arrears in the payment of his pension from the Castilian Crown, as
agreed in the Treaty of Bayonne. Nevertheless, he asked for it to be paid up.
The matter was deferred till Enrique proclaimed his majority in the Cortes.
Though future payment of the pension was granted, as far as peace was con-
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 93

cerned the response was a flat refusal.82 The question as to whether these pres-
sures resulted in any hostility towards Catalina in governing circles has been
drawn to our attention by Goodman.83 Whatever the case, there is no doubt
that more envoys went between Gaunt and his daughter, presumably bring-
ing news and gifts.
The Duke of Lancaster died on 13 February 1399, in the midst of a tense
political situation in England. His daughter Queen Philippa of Portugal
attended his funeral,84 but it seems that Catalina did not. However, she had
been mentioned in her father’s will (3 February 1399): ‘I leave my very dear
daughter, Katherine, Queen of Castile and León, a covered gold chalice’.85 On
Duchess Constanza’s death, the cities that had been granted to her by the
Treaty of Bayonne – Medina del Campo, Olmedo, Guadalajara, and, later,
Huete – had reverted to the Crown. Although Juan I had granted Medina and
Olmedo to Fernando,86 Enrique did not immediately hand them over to his
brother. He kept control of these important economic and political centres
until 1404, and used them to help to restore the royal finances. However, it is
unclear whether they continued to be managed through the queen’s chamber,
as they had been during her mother’s lifetime. As Gaunt’s will makes clear,
there were still arrears of the pension owing.87 In effect Gaunt’s death relieved
Castile of the need to make any more payments of the pension, releasing
funds for other enterprises, as evidence from c. 1401 shows. Moreover, the
truces of Leulighen, concluded by France and England and their allies in 1394
and subsequently extended, had provided a new framework for peaceful mari-
time commerce, which was certainly benefiting Castile.88
Some months after Gaunt’s death, his son Henry of Bolingbroke’s engineer-
ing of Richard II’s deposition and his usurpation as Henry IV must have shaken
Peninsular courts. As might be expected, considering the fact that Henry was
Queen Philippa’s brother, Portugal acknowledged the new king immediately.
As a reward, João received the Order of the Garter, being the first foreigner to
receive this distinction.89 Likewise, the Castilian queen sent a messenger
to her half-brother (July 1400), possibly with letters of congratulation,90 but
no other political gesture was made by Castile to the usurper at the start of his
reign.
Once in charge of her son’s regency, following the death of Enrique III in
1406, Catalina sponsored a series of Anglo-Castilian truces from 1410 to 1416,
combined with an active official correspondence on such matters as peace,
commerce and the appointment of envoys.91 Diplomatic traffic between the
two realms was fuelled by commercial relations. A certain squire, Juan
Rodríguez, master of the Trinidad, arrived in London with letters from the
queen. He was granted safe conduct for a year for his ship, sailors, and servants,
to expire the following Easter.92 Rodríguez must have been a trader since, when
he performed a similar mission in 1413, sailing in a ship belonging to the king
and his mother, it had a cargo of wine. It was detained in reprisal at Dartmouth
on behalf of one Margery of Coventry. In consideration that the ship was not
94 Medieval Spain

from Santander, but from Lepe (Huelva), and in aid of his sister, Henry IV
ordered the release of Rodríguez and restitution of the cargo.93 Juan de
Zamora’s voyage in 1411 was less hazardous: he was sent by Henry to Catalina
with gifts of cloth and gold thread for her use. This particular shipment signifi-
cantly coincided with an interruption of commerce between Castile and
Granada due to war. It seems that Catalina took the opportunity to provide her-
self with luxury English textiles to substitute for Granadan material. The ship-
ment included ‘one cloth of scarlet, one cloth of sanguine colour grained, one
cloth of burnet [dyed dark brown] of lyre, twelve beds furnished with worsted,
six pieces of worsted, twelve pounds of silk, two pounds of riband and fringes,
eight pipes of thread of gold of Venice, two pounds of good white thread, and
two pairs of trussing coffers which the king is sending to her for her use’. Some
days later, the rest of the consignment was delivered – ‘two pieces of linen cloth
of “reynes”, two marks’ worth of gold foil, and twelve yards of cloth of scarlet’.94
When the Crown’s ships were not needed for war or transportation, they were
hired out to merchants, so it is not surprising that a ship of the Queen of Castile
was loading goods at London in 1411, or on hire to the Genoese Agostino
Lomellini of Seville in 1412 for the purpose of taking goods to England.95
Eventually, a perpetual treaty between the two kingdoms came under con-
sideration, so Henry asked his councillors to search for precedents: they pro-
duced a treaty made with Alfonso XI, which was cited in Henry’s letters of
December 1414.96 Unfortunately, Catalina’s death was to change Castilian
policy: Juan II failed to follow up his mother’s diplomatic initiative.
As regards a rapprochement with Portugal, the situation was far more com-
plex than with England, and Catalina’s room for manouevre was consequent-
ly more limited. From 1395 to 1397, the failure of the Portuguese Crown to
pay war reparations, and frontier incursions by both land and sea, kept hostil-
ities going. Through raiding, Portugal seized important frontier towns such as
Tuy and Badajoz. Catalina’s efforts to mediate had no effect, neither did her
private advice to her husband to avoid war.97 In 1399 a Castilian counter-
attack gained possession of Peña Maçor, Miranda, and Nódar. There was a suc-
cession of embassies; in the end, truces were agreed on 15 August 1402. The
Portuguese were still seeking a final peace when Enrique died.98
The disturbances in Castile that occurred in the first two years of Juan II’s
regency led João I to offer military support to Catalina. This initiative was a
determining factor in her and Fernando’s relations with Portugal. Fernando
must have been smarting from Enrique’s prohibition of his attempts to nego-
tiate his children’s marriages with Portuguese infantes, but he was keen to get
Portugal involved in the campaign against Granada that he was organizing.
However, he was ready to assert Juan II’s right to the Portuguese throne, if the
Portuguese insisted on the return of conquered lordships and the payment
of compensation to participants in previous wars. In any case, he was deter-
mined that demands should be made which mirrored those likely to be raised
by the Portuguese.
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 95

The first negotiation of the regency, held at Easter 1407 between San Felicies
de los Gallegos and Cuidad Rodrigo, was a complete failure.100 Fernão Lopes
summarized the Castilian demands under three headings: firstly, Portuguese
exiles in Castile should have their forfeited lordships and possession in
Portugal restored to them; secondly, there should be an alliance against
Granada on Castilian terms, and, finally, the Portuguese should pay repar-
ations for war of up to 1 616 000 doblas. Naturally, João was enraged; he refused
to countenance discussion on these terms. There was several adjourn-
ments,101 but the likelihood of a peace treaty being made seemed increasingly
remote.
At this juncture Catalina personally intervened in the negotiations, offering
to act as mediator between João, on the one side, and the Castilian royal coun-
cil and Fernando on the other. The role of international mediator had, indeed,
been a typical one for queens in the Iberian Peninsula. Their capacities as such
had always been subject to the approval of the king or the Council – and, in
Catalina’s case during the regency, were subject to Fernando’s too. These
mediating queens were usually members of the families of both parties, mak-
ing it easier for them to achieve agreements which respected the various
interests. Indeed, they often took the opportunity to promote further inter-
marriage between the families. Catalina used a highly trusted servant for the
mediation, Juan Ruíz, archdeacon of Gordón. Her participation had the
immediate effect of making the Portuguese amenable to discuss the most con-
tentious issues raised.102 They were ready to admit the demand concerning
exiles; Castile renounced that for reparations. Then the discussion turned on
the question of whether Portugal should enter an obligation to provide paid
military assistance for campaigns against Granada. At least, this is what is stated
in Fernão Lopes’s chronicle, the only source to deal extensively with the nego-
tiations. Why are the Castilian chroniclers practically silent about the
negotiations? Apart from three allusions, the two chronicles of Juan II’s reign
focus on the Granadan campaigns and, after the capture of Antequera, the
issue of the succession to the Crown of Aragón. For they were devoted to
extolling Fernando’s achievements, and carried on in this vein until his death
in 1416. They therefore had no incentive to discuss Portuguese relations, since
these had escaped from the infante’s sphere of influence into the hands of the
queen regent. In contrast, because of Catalina’s bonds with the Portuguese
royal house, and Portuguese interest in securing a perpetual peace which
would bolster the former Master of Avis’s dynastic position, Lopes devoted
nine pages of his chronicle to the diplomatic process.
In fact the queen’s first steps as mediator had continued on the lines estab-
lished by previous embassies, but in a more conciliatory tone, so as to appease
her brother-in-law’s anger.103 João saw the acceptance of the obligation to
help Castile with a naval force as a humiliation, and as disproportionate for a
kingdom whose naval power was small compared to Castile’s. An issue con-
cerning him which was not openly raised was the effect which impressment of
96 Medieval Spain

shipping would have on commerce: trade with England, one of his few sources
of income, would be bound to suffer in these circumstances. This consider-
ation leads us back to Fernando, proud owner of Medina del Campo and
Olmedo, famous for their cattle ferias and their wool trade, especially with
Flanders and England. This route was in competition with Portugal’s export
trade. So, with this particular demand for peace terms, the infante could hope
to kill two birds with one stone. He would be able to count on Portuguese sup-
port in war, and in so doing would squeeze Portuguese trade with northern
Europe to the commercial advantage of Castilians. Clearly the nub of the issue
was not just a matter of honour, as João claimed. However, despite the failure
to resolve it or to make peace, the traffic of embassies was soon once more in
full swing. Agreements were made about the tenure of frontier strongholds. In
1410 an accommodation was reached about boundaries at Penamacor,
Valverde, and Carvajal, and about the straying of cattle across the frontier, and
in the following year there was a similar one relating to Badajoz and
Olivenza.104
When, at the start of 1411, the Portuguese envoys Martín Dossem, Fernán
González Belagua, and Juan Gómez de Silva arrived in Castile, events showed
how the character of relations between the two realms had been transformed.
They were hospitably greeted at Aillón with the performance of a pageant. At
length the queen, with the support of nobles such as Bishop Sancho de Rojas,
Diego López de Stúñiga, and Admiral Alfonso Enríquez, managed to gain
them an audience with the Council. Fernando was boxed in, for he needed the
queen’s financial support to pursue his claim to the Crown of Aragón.
Although the envoys formally acknowledged his position as regent of Castile,
their greetings to him were distant. Whereas they addressed the queen direct-
ly, Fernando was to be informed of proceedings by her. Likewise, he was
absent when the final acceptance of the terms offered by the Portuguese was
proclaimed, as Lopes noted.105 We are left to wonder whether the absences of
Don Fernando were due to his annoyance at the nature of the détente and to
the queen’s outmanouevring of him, or if the affairs of Granada and Aragón
really kept him from getting involved in determining such a crucial matter as
relations between Castile and Portugal. In any case, the leading role played by
Catalina in the process of détente was decisive, and transparently so. Castilian
rapprochement with Portugal during the regency can be considered as her
achievement.
Agreement was practically reached by the summer of 1411 and was formally
concluded at Aillón on 31 October.106 The treaty included France as the ally of
Castile; it effectively ended conflict between Castile and Portugal as a compon-
ent of the Hundred Years War, which had reached its peak at Aljubarrota. In
the treaty, both parties renounced all claims to financial compensation for
damages in war before 1403. In 1412 the deputies of the Castilian cities swore
to uphold the treaty. João ratified it in 1414 at the request of the bishop of
Mondoñedo and Díaz Sánchez de Benavides.107
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 97

It is hard to overemphasize the importance in these developments of

Catalina’s design for a dynastic policy: allusions to her centrality recur in the
official correspondence relevant to the negotiation and within the treaty
itself. Sentences such as ‘porque visto os gramdes esforços e boó´s dividos que
amtre el Rey e Rainha nosos Senhores e vos, e seus filhas e os vosos, a isto soo
ovoso emntemder e abastante certidam e comfiamça’108, or ‘considerando
sobre ello el serviçio de Dios e pro e bien de nuestros regnos, e otrosi los
grandes debdos que a Dios plogo que fuesen entre nos e nuestra sennora la
reyna donna Catalina nuestra madre e nuestra hermanas, las infantes donna
María e donna Catalina, e nuestro tio el infante don Fernando e su muger e sus
fijos, e el dicho rey don Johan de Portogal e la reyna donna Felipa su muger
nuestra tia, e el infante Aduarte e los otros infantes sus fijos primos’109 are
given as guarantors of the treaty. João even indulged in reminding his sister-
in-law of the help which he had proffered to her in the dark days after
Enrique’s death. It is no wonder, then, that once the treaty was made, a new
marriage policy was devised in order to consolidate it. This time it did not
involve Fernando’s children, but a proposed match between the second-born
infanta, Catalina, and the heir to the Portuguese throne, Duarte. This project
was abandoned because of the prospective bride’s tender age, which would
delay consummation for too long. Another scheme was floated – a marriage
between Juan II and João’s and Philippa’s only daughter, Isabel. Catalina pro-
posed to meet her sister to discuss the proposal,110 in line with the traditional-
ly prominent role of queens in matrimonial diplomacy.111 However, the
interview never took place, probably due to the Queen of Castile’s indisposi-
tion. When she died in 1418, the Aragonese king and infantes hastened to
marry Juan to their sister, María, so as to frustrate the Portuguese match.112

The queen and convivencia

Juan’s regency was long and difficult, although in a different way to his
father’s. I am not concerned here with the complexities of internal Castilian
politics, which have been dealt with brilliantly by Torres Fontes and Suárez
Fernández and more recently by Porras Arboledas, in the works cited below.
Rather, I will confine myself to a brief outline of the main developments in
order to arrive at that memorable year, 1411, when so many issues were decid-
ed before Fernando embarked on his claim to Aragón. When Enrique III died
in 1406, Fernando and Catalina were supposed to act together as joint regents,
with the advice of a council. The person of Juan was to be entrusted to two
nobles for his education.113 However, the queen refused to hand over her son,
and prepared to have herself, her children, and her household defended in the
alcázar of Segovia. The question of the young king’s custody and tutelage has
always been examined in its political context – undoubtedly important, but
not the only one. Catalina must have had grave reasons for her determination
to keep her son with her in contravention of the terms of Enrique’s will.
98 Medieval Spain

Having lived through her husband’s difficult regency, she was probably trying
to ensure that his son did not endure his harsh experiences of going from the
hands of one magnate to another.
Fernando soon decided to proceed with the plans for attacking Granada
that Enrique had been working on shortly before his death. Catalina was
opposed to the project, because she was worried by the poor state of royal
finances, but nothing would keep Fernando from fighting the Muslims.
Catalina retained control of the treasury during the regency, so expenditure
required consultation with her. She proved to be a capable administrator and
did not hesitate to invest in what she considered worthwhile objectives, such
as Fernando’s claim to Aragón, but she considered war, whether against
Portugal or Granada, as useless. After problematical attempts at implementing
arrangements that would keep the regents together whilst the Granadan cam-
paign was taking place, the kingdom was divided between them into two
spheres of influence.114 Catalina, with half the Council, was to remain in
northern Castile, ruling there, whilst Fernando, with the other half, ruled
Andalucía and Murcia. However, it is important to stress that most of his own
domains as duke of Peñafiel, count of Alburquerque, and lord of Lara were
north of the Sistema Central, so that the division was quite unbalanced. He also
had under his command the extensive areas dominated by the military
Orders.115 Despite its disadvantages, this division (with modifications) was
implemented whenever the regents were separated. They had to be kept
informed of one another’s activities, and all royal charters had to be validated
by both of them. Yet effectually Castile started to have two parallel courts.
Another outcome of the situation was the development of two rival dynastic
policies, one forwarded by Catalina in her son’s interest, the other by
Fernando to promote his own family’s.
After Fernando’s decisive coup of 1408, which has been analysed by Torres
Fontes,116 confrontation between the regents became overt in all fields. One
of the areas where their differences may be assessed with precision lies in the
ordinances against Jews and Muslims promulgated in 1412.117 In 1408 both
regents had issued an ordinance on the attire and badges to be worn by
Muslims. This law is to be understood in the context of the crusade. The start
of war with Granada was at first fixed as 30 September 1407, when the existing
truces expired. Dissension emerged when the King of Granada proposed a
new truce, which was agreed in 1408, to run to 1410. In the meantime, prep-
arations for war were still under way, so measures to distinguish Muslims by
badges were imposed as a means of ensuring control of those regarded as
potentially fifth columnists. That explains why the ordinance only mentions
Muslims, not Jews, who were already in theory obliged to wear badges.118
The second set of ordinances, which covers both confessions, is a much
more complex one and is to be placed in part in a different context. It is con-
nected not only with warlike policies, but also to a religious offensive. All the
chronicles of Juan II’s reign mention a visit paid by the famous Dominican
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 99

preacher Vincent Ferrer to Aillón in 1411.119 Vincent had been a chaplain to

the antipope Benedict XIII, and he was called to the royal court when preach-
ing in Toledo. At court he preached In the presence of Catalina, Fernando, and
Juan, then aged seven. Among other requests which he put to the regents was
that they should order Jews and Muslims to live in separate neighbourhoods
in all the cities of the realm, on the grounds that their contact with Christians
was dangerous for the latter, and especially for those who had recently con-
verted as a result of his efforts. Measures to this end had already been
approved, after his sermons, by the town council of Murcia, as Torres has
shown.120 According to the chronicles, the Jews were ordered to wear red
badges, and the Muslims green hoods of light wool. The ordinances covered
almost every aspect of life in which there was likely to be contact between the
three religious communities.
As I have suggested in a previous article,121 the ordinances of 1412 marked a
milestone in legislation about the religious minorities in Castile. They were to
be recalled in the claims of the the signatories of the Sentencia de Medina del
Campo (1465), in religious treatises concerned with preaching and conver-
sion, and in local ordinances issued before the conquest of Granada. In my
view, what has not been sufficiently stressed is the influence these regulations
had in Portugal. Such interaction, as has been said, was probably promoted by
the intense contact between the two ruling houses. It can be objected that the
first ordinance concerning the enclosure of Jews in Portugal, dated 30
September 1405, was never fully applied. However, it is worth considering the
role of the young prince, Duarte, who c. 1412 was placed in charge of domestic
administration, whilst his father João concentrated on foreign affairs.122 The
Ordenaçoes Afonsinas are a collection of undated ordinances concerning Jews
and Muslims issued by Duarte in this period. It is not coincidental that their
subject-matter, form, and spirit accord with the Castilian ordinance. They
included existing regulations compelling Jews to live in juderías (1405; title
lxxvi), modified to allow them to leave their neighbourhood after curfew
(1417; title lxxx). However, Muslims had an ambiguous status before
Duarte’s ordinances, when restrictions started to be applied to them as well.
Differences between the Portuguese and Castilian ordinances are to be
explained in terms of the distinctive relationships which the minorities had
with each Crown.
Spatial boundaries between the minorities and Christians were set first in
the Castilian ordinances of 1412. Jews and Muslims were to live in separate,
walled areas with only one door, on pain of forfeiting all their property.
Alcaldes were appointed to choose the most convenient locations with regard
to the size of the communities, with a remit to relocate them speedily. Within
their new quarters, Jews and Muslims were not to allow access to their markets
to Christians. Anxiety about intermixing and sexual relations between
Christians and non-Christians had been widespread in the fourteenth cen-
tury;124 in accordance with this trend, Christian women were forbidden entry
100 Medieval Spain

into morerías and juderías by day or night, under penalty of fines according to
their status.
Jews and Muslims had been free to circulate for a long time after the capture
of most Islamic cities in al-Andalus. Commencing with these ordinances,
fixed penalties were imposed on those who left their native town. If they were
discovered in their new domiciles, the Christian authorities were obliged to
send them back home. If any of them were caught trying to leave the realm,
they would forfeit all their properties. These measures put relations between
the Christians and the minorities in the Peninsula on a new footing. They are
to be interpreted in part in the light of current economic and social trends.
Kings and landowners were in competition for manpower, scarce as a conse-
quence of the plague pandemics, a century of Castilian wars with Aragón, and
internal strife. Emigration further reduced the basis for taxation. Powerful
lords offered inducements to settlers to move onto their estates: the royal ban
on the movement of Muslims and Jews was a counter-measure to frustrate
such blandishments. It was particularly significant in northern parts of
Castile, where Muslims were taxed at the same level as Christians, or even
higher. There were cases of economically depressed Muslims, in regions as far
south as Toledo, who made threats to their lords that they would emigrate to
Granada.125 Preoccupation with the external appearance of Muslims was
related to these problems. The ordinances carefully described their approved
apparel. Hoods and head-dresses were to be of a particular sort, made of mater-
ials whose value was specified. The coloured badges (red for Jews and blue for
Muslims) had to be clearly displayed, and the men had to wear their hair and
beards long, as had been the case in former times. This stereotyped moulding
of their appearance enabled Christian neighbours to recognize and keep con-
trol over them; the neighbours were encouraged in the ordinances to
denounce any infringements.
There can be no doubt that the next set of restrictions had important conse-
quences for the communities affected by them. The minorities were forbidden
to engage in occupations which brought them into contact with the Christian
community, as is implied by the phrase used – ‘non sean . . . de Christianos nin
de Christianas’.126 Influence in elite circles was restricted by prohibition from
public office or the possession of weapons, under fine. Professions relating to
medicine, pharmacy, and the supply and preparation of foodstuffs were
closed off too, probably because of fears of poisoning – but this clause
remained a dead letter. The third group of occupations prohibited consisted of
certain crafts and artisan work. Those related to fashion, for example, embroi-
dery, tailoring, and shoemaking, were considered potentially subversive of
Christian values, because in Castile they were increasingly influenced by
Muslim styles. The textile industry was an important source of income for
Mudejars, who imported raw material from Granada. Exclusion from being
carpenters, builders, and blacksmiths related partly to concern that the build-
ing trade was in Muslim hands (as it would remain for years), and partly to
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 101

fears that, if there was an invasion from Africa, these craftsmen were likely to
help the invaders by producing weapons and constructing ships for them.
Finally, Jews and Muslims who were traders or muleteers were ordered to
desist. Customary penalties were laid down for Muslims who had Christian
servants and slaves in their households, in line with various existing fueros
and, in particular, the legislation of the Cortes of Briviesca (1387). However
solemn these ordinances were, and impressive in detail, serious doubts remain
as to whether they were enforceable, since a large part of Castilian production
and trade would have been adversely affected if they had been implemented.
They are useful for the historian for the information they provide about the
occupations of Jews and Mudejars, rather than revealing handicaps actually
imposed on them.
Another set of laws was directed at curtailing the freedoms of the aljama, the
local community of Muslims or Jews in its juridical personality as a semi-
autonomous corporation, subject to Christian authority.127 In Castile aljamas
had the right to choose their judge (rabi or alcalde mayor), and to appeal to an
alcalde mayor de las aljamas de moros (an office instituted by Enrique II),128 or
else directly to the king, who was obliged to judge them by their own law. It
was for the purposes of appellate jurisdiction that the famous Leyes de Moros
were complied: according to Weigers, they were not intended as a guide in tri-
als presided over by Muslim judges, but as an aid for Christian judges.129 In
1412, however, the aljamas’ own judges were abolished, their powers being
handed over to the local judges (alcaldes de consejo). The ordinance was also
concerned with the important subject of taxation: liability for tax was usually
distributed among the inhabitants of the aljama by its own authorities. It
seems that the latter used their powers to raise their own subventions, for their
expenses in office, for charitable purposes (according to the Islamic sunna),
and for the general needs of the community. Henceforth such levies were for-
bidden: only royal taxes could be raised. The most likely purpose of those was
to finance the Crown’s plans for a crusade against Granada.
The tenor of this legislation shows that the ordinances of 1412 were an
attempt to redefine the character of social and economic relations between
Christians and religious minorities, subverting the customary codes that
promoted more or less peaceful coexistence. The hierarchical equivalence of
the noble and learned elites among the minorities was undermined by the
prohibition of the mode of address to them as Don. The tenor of these ordin-
ances was repeated in Castile throughout the fifteenth century whenever
was with Granada was planned. So preparations for war were made through
the application of domestic policies as much as by military organization, in
the promulgation of measures to curb the Mudejars, disabling them from
supporting their coreligionists, and in taking similar measures against those
traditionally considered as their allies, the Jews. Concurrently, economic
sanctions weakened these communities, so that they would not be able to
aid the Moorish cause. Yet were the ordinances of 1412 implemented? The
102 Medieval Spain

evidence points to a negative answer. Though they were eventually promul-

gated in Aragón by Fernando I,130 in 1414, they had aroused controversy in
Castile. The Muslims of Murcia and the aljama of Seville complained to
Fernando (as co-regent ruling over Murcia and Andalucía) soon after the
ordinances were first issued, asking him to suspend their operation.
Fernando ruled that, until he decided which of the ordinances should be
applied, they were to have no force in the regions he ruled – precisely those
of higher Muslim density.131
The fact that Catalina, brought up as an Englishwoman, took an interest
in legislation against Jews and Muslims is noteworthy. Some writers have
argued that she did not understand the Castilian mind, but the opposite
may be true, since she was educated by her mother and her Castilian ladies
and went to Castile when she was quite young. However, it was probably
through Vincent Ferrer’s influence that she took confessional legislation to
heart.

Epilogue

Other aspects of Catalina of Lancaster’s regency deserve consideration, but it

is necessary to curtail the present discussion at this point. Apparently
Fernando’s death brought peace to Castile at last, as she was able to rule by her-
self.132 According to contemporary accounts and the testimony of early
chroniclers of the period, this was when her political qualities were most
appreciated. She was to be viewed by chroniclers as providing a calm break in
the stormy world of fifteenth-century politics. For instance, Gonzalo de la
Hinojosa had it that

esta noble e santa reyna doña Catalina, despues del finamiento del rey don
Enrique, su marido, e del finamiento deste rey don Fernando de Aragon,
tovo todo el regimiento e gobernacion destos reynos ella por sí e por el rey
don Juan, su fijo. La cual los rigio e goberno en mucha paz e sosiego e en
grand justicia, asi a los grandes como a los pequenos, por tal manera, que
no hacia falta alguna el rey don Enrique, su marido, nin en su tiempo nen-
guno non oso facer movimiento nin levantamiento alguno en el reyno, por
el grand temor que la tenian.133

The last pen-portrait of the queen, to be found in Pérez de Guzmán’s

Generaciones y semblanzas, should not be used to prejudge her as a ruler when
she was at the height of her powers. It is a description of her during the last
years of her life, when palsy had led to physical deterioration, and she was
feeling ill and tired:

The queen was tall of body and very fat. She was pink and white in her com-
plexion and fair. In her figure and movements she seemed as much like a
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 103

man as a woman. She was very virtuous and reserved in her person and in
her reputation; generous and magnificent in her ways but very much
devoted to favourites and greatly ruled by them – a thing which, in general
is a vice common to royal personages. She was not very well ordered in her
body and had a serious affliction of palsy which did not leave her tongue
properly loose or her bodily movements free. She died in Valladolid at the
age of fifty, in the year 1418.134

Her last important political decision, which has attracted criticism, can be
understood in the light of this evidence. As she grew obese and physically dis-
tressed, she granted the tutelage of her son to the guardians whom she had
vehemently rejected twelve years previously, Juan de Velasco, Diego López de
Estúñiga, and Bishop Sancho de Rojas,135 on condition that she remained in
charge of his safe-keeping. The king was now old enough to ensure that, if she
died, the regency would soon be terminated. In any case, Catalina’s formal
role in his education was soon due to come to an end, as any mother of high
status, however protective, would have acknowledged. However, Catalina still
had two more years to live.
Despite the criticisms in her lifetime, Catalina was to be highly esteemed by
some of the leading political figures of the fifteenth century. Rodrigo Sánchez
de Arévalo praised her as a new Zenobia, stating: ‘Nec solum regina Caterina
prudentissima sedula in filio alendo atque erudiendo erat, sed in regni guber-
natione vigilantissima. Cuncta enim nobilium baronum regni ac prelatorum
consilio agebat’.136 Bishop Lope Barrientos (future tutor and confessor to her
grandson Enrique IV) wrote on 2 June 1418: ‘fue su muerte muy grant daño
para el rreyno, segúnt después se paresçió’. During her exequies, ‘fue asaz llo-
rada y plañida por todos en general’.

Appendix

[1390–94], 8 January, Avignon; letter of of condolence written by Pope Clement VII

to Catalina of Lancaster: A.G.S., Estado, leg. 847, 55.
Clemens, etc. Carissima in Christo filia. Casu lugubri clare memorie genitoris tui displi-
center salva semper disposicione divina nuper audito, serenitatem tuam obvixe roga-
mus hortantes ut luctu remoto, qui nulli prodesse valet, cum naturalis sit hominibus
semel mortis nec sit qui voluntati supreme valeat contrarie tam ope [illegible] fortis et
prudens consolens in illo qui est omnium vera salvus. Ceterim filia peramantissima sta-
tum tue persone quem prospevit faciat ipse Deus fare firmis desideriis affectantes quis ut
illum nobis frequenter significare velis quociens occurret copia nunciorum. Et fide nos-
tro libeat certos audite rumores dum presentes ordite fuerunt celesti favente gracia
plena favebamur corporea sospitate. Prout explicare celsitudini reginali poterunt
ambaxiatores carissimi in Christi filii Caroli regis francorum illustris principum porta-
tores quos benigne suscipe et recommendatos habere velit reginalis celsitudo prefata.
104 Medieval Spain

Que confidenter nobis semper significet quecunque fuissent sibi grata. Data Avinioni,
octavum die Januarii.
On dorse: Carissime in Christo filie regine Castelle illustre.

1388, 5 August, Catalina of Lancaster’s oath of adherence to the Treaty of Bayonne:

AGS, Patronato Real, leg. 52, 4. Parchment. Paper copies in leg. 7, 156; leg. 49, 2.
In nomine Domini. Amen. Novint universis presens instrumentum publicum inspec-
turis, quod cum post graves guerrarum strepitus inter serenisimum [sic] principem
dominum Johanem Castelle regem ex parte una, et illustres dominos Iohanem ducem
Lancastriae et Constantiam ducissam eius uxorem, filiam primogenitam domini Petri
quondam regis Castelle et Legionis illustris ex parte alia super iure et dominio regnorum
Castelle, Legionis, Toleti, Gallitie, Sibilie, Cordube, Murcie, Gienii, Algarbii, Algecirie ac
dominiorum Lare et Viscaye et Moline quod dicti domini dux et ducissa dicebant ad se
pertinere gratia operante, divina omnia inter eos sinistre contentionis mala fuissent cer-
tis conventionibus, tractatibus, transationibus et pactis ac amicabili compositioni seda-
ta. Quia per tractatus dicte transationis et conpositionis predicti domini dux et ducisa
me Catherina filia eorundem legitimam jam adultam ad matrimonium contrahendum
cum primogenito dicti domini regis Castelle infante domino Enrico necnon ad ratifi-
candum aceptandum, aprobandum, tenendum et confirmandum omnia et singula in
dictis tractatibus transationis et amicabilis compositionis contenta, obligarunt idcirco
ut quenadmodum naturali federis jura eisdem me constituunt filiali idemptitate con-
junctam ita me probent in affectus religione devotam. Ego dicta Catherina, prefatorum
dominorum ducis et ducisse fillia, de consensu et auctoritate dicti domini ducis patris
mei, in presentia notariis infrascriptis per me petitis et obtentis, non vi aut metu induc-
ta nec dolo vel fraude aut alias quomodolibet circumventa, sed mea pura, mera, spon-
tanea et libera voluntate ac libero arbitrio in verbo fidei veritatis promitto et ad
sacrosancta evangelia michi prepossita manu mea juro quod si et quando per dictum
dominum Iohanem regem Castelle illum vel illos quorum seu cujus interfuerit, vel
alium seu alios pro parte sua vel illorum, vel illius cujus interfuerit fuero requisita, tam
in regno Castelle quam extra cum juramento aprobabo, ratificabo, laudabo et firmabo,
omnia et singula in dictis tractatibus transationis et amicabilis compositionis contenta,
et per dictos dominos ducem et ducissam parentes meos concordata et ordinata et fir-
mata, et jurabo facere et perficere illa quo in dictis tractatibus respicint me facturam. Et
jurabo et pactum faciam nunquam contra predicta vel eorum alique venire de jure vel
de facto, vel venire procurare in toto nec in parte jure successionis vel alia quaris causa
seu occasione; et etiam non petere nec petisse per me nec per alium seu alios relax-
ationem, dispensationem seu absolutionem dictorum juramentorum per me pre-
standorum vel alicujus eorum vel relaxatione, dispensatione seu absolutione absque
mea procuratione petitione per quemcumque michi impetratis seu concessis impetran-
dis, seu concedendis isti modo quolibet, vel ratione que predicta similiter super jura-
mento hic per me prestito, juro per Deum omnipotentem me facturam et observaturam
ad ejus majoris roboris firmitatem de quibus omnibus et singulis supradictis vos notar-
ios publicos infrascriptos, ego predicta Catherina requissivi et requiro facere seu confi-
cere publicum seu publica instrumentum seu instrumenta. Acta sunt hec Bayone in
monasterium fratrum minorum in camara parlamenti dicti domini ducis, quinta die
mensis augusti anno a nativitate Domini millesimo tricentesimo octuagesimo octavo,
in dictione undecima, presentibus domino Johane episcopo Aquensis et domino
Thoma de Parr camerario et domino Guilermo Raymundi de Podio judice superioritatis
Aquitenia et Johane frayli et Luppo Gometii millitibus et Alfonso Santii de Vera et mag-
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 105

istro Lodovico medico dicti domini ducis testibus ad premisa et eorum singula vocatis
specialiter et rogatis. Ego Carolus de Lampali publicus apostolica et imperiali auctoritate
notarius prefactio iuramentis prestationi et omnibus aliis premissis una cum prenomi-
natis testibus et notariis hic signatis presens fui et requisitus pro parte dictorum regis et
domine Catherine una cum aliis me subcripsi signum quod meum apposui consuetum
in testimonium premissorum. Constat michi de rasura prout sequens notarius attestat,
quod scripsi scripsi. Et ego Johanes Roderici de Villaycam clericus burgensi diocesis pub-
licus apostolica et imperiali auctoritate notarius, prefacti juramenti prestationi
omnibusque aliis et singulis supra dictis una cum testibus et notariis hic ascriptis pre-
sens fui, eaque sic fieri, vidi et audivi et pro parte dicti domini regis et per dictam domi-
nam Catherinam cum aliis requisitus hoc instrumentum per alium fideliter scriptum
signo meo signavi solito et consueto in testimonium omnium premissorum. Constat
mihi de rasuris in decima linea, ubi dicitur supradictis vos notarios publicos infrascrip-
tos ego predicta Catherina requisivi et requiro, errore et non vitio factis ideo approbo in
testimonium omnium premissorum. Jo. bu. d. Et ego Thomas de vicus Lincolliensis dio-
cesis publicus apostolica et inperiali auctoritate notarius premissus juramentis presta-
tioni ceterisque omnibus supradictis una cum testibus ante factis et notariis hic ascriptis
presens fui eaque fieri vidi et audivi ac pro parte dicti domini regis et per prefactam dom-
inam Catherinam cum aliis requisitus hic me subscripsi ac signum meum apposui soli-
tum et consuetum in testimonium premissorum. Constat etiam michi de rasuris
superius factis in decima linea a capite huius instrumenti conputando de quaquidem
resura mentionem facit Johanes roderici notarius hic ascriptus. Pays. Et ego Petrus de
Birono clericus Bayonensi auctoritate inperiali notarius prefati juramenti prestationi
omnibusque aliis et singulis supradictis una cum testibus et notariis hic ascriptis presens
fui, eaque sic fieri, vidi et audivi et pro parte dicti domini regis et per dictam dominam
Catherinam cum aliis requisitus hoc instrumentum per alium fideliter scriptum, signo
meo solito signavi in testimonium omnium et premissorum.

1404, 3 September, Madrid; Enrique III of Castile orders his subjects to

help prioress doña Teresa and doña Maria de Ayala while travelling in his realms:
Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.:
García Rey, Verardo: La famosa priora doña Teresa de Ayala Madrid, 1930,
pp. 58–9.
Don Enrique por la gracia de Dios Rey de Castiella . . . salut e graçia. Sepades que donna
Teresa priora del monasterio de Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo, e donna María su fija,
van por algunas partes de los mis regnos. Porque vos mando a todos e a cada uno de vos
que cada que ellas e los que con ellas fueren se acaesçieren en qualquier de vuestros log-
ares que las acojades en ellos e les dedes e fagades dar buenas posadas que non sean
mesones indinnos, e viandas e todas las otras cosas que mester ovieren por sus dineros,
e non consintades que alguno nin algunos les fagan mal ni enojo ni desaguisado
alguno. Et si alguno lo fesiere o quisiere faser estamieran de cuanto por tal manera que
a osado sea castigo. Otrosi vos mando que si vos dixieren que han menester algunas
mulas o asemilas o otras bestias, que quantas dedes e fagades dar luego pagandovos por
ellas el alquiler que rasonable fuere, et si por quenta se resçibiere de algún camino o
logar peligroso, que le dedes e fagades dar companna que las ponga en salvo de un lugar
en otro, e de una villa en otra. Et los unos e los otros non fagades ende al por alguna
manera so pena de la mi maldiçion e de dos . . . Dada en Madrid tres días de setienbre
anno 1404. Yo Iohan Martines, chançiller del Rey la fise escreuir por su mandado. Yo el
Rey.
106 Medieval Spain

[1404], 3 September, Madrid; Enrique III’s letter to Queen Catalina of Lancaster:

Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.:
García Rey, Verardo: La famosa priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930,
pp. 59–60.
[Cruz.] Reyna: yo el Rey vos enbio mucho saludar como aquella que amo como a mi
coraçon. Fago vos saber que yo, considerando el estado en que vos agora estades, et por
que tengades ay con vos quien vos faga todo plaser e vos quite de algunos enojos, he acor-
dado enbiar por donna Teresa, priora del monesterio de Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo
para la enbiar a vos que este conbusco, porque es tal persona con la que vos abredes mucho
plaser más que con otra persona alguna, et que vos fara todavia quantos serviçios e
plaçeres ella pudiere. Et por quanto ella non puede salir del dicho monesterio sin liçençia
de sus mayores et a mi es dicho que vos tenedes poder del provinçial de la dicha orden para
que quando yo o vos ovieremos menester a la dicha priora o a donna Maria vuestra tya,
que les podades dar liçençia que puedan salir del dicho monesterio e yr a do les mandare-
mos. Ruego vos que luego como esta mi carta ovieredes, me enbiedes vuestra carta para la
dicha priora en que le dedes liçençia para que pueda salir del dicho monesterio et venir
aqui por que la yo enbie luego para vos, et este ay conbusco el tienpo que cunpliere. Et
eso mesmo me enbiad el poder que tenedes del dicho provinçial que tanto que lo aya
mostrado a la dicha priora, luego vos lo enbiare. Dada en Segovia, tres días de setienbre. Yo
el Rey.

[1404],16 September, Segovia; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala ordering
her to to travel to Segovia to attend the Queen: Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo
Domingo e Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.: Garcia Rey, Verardo: La famosa priora
doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, p. 56. The date 1401 is wrong.
Yo el Rey, enbio mucho saludar a vos donna Teresa, priora del monesterio de Santo
Domingo el Real de Toledo. Bien sabedes en como vos enbie rrogar que viniésedes aqui a
Segovia por algunas cosas que cunplia mucho a mi serviçio, sobre lo qual me enbiastes
desir que vos plasia aviendo liçençia para ello del vuestro mayor o de la Reyna mi muger,
que tenia liçençia del provinçial de vuestra orden segund nos era dicho. Sobre lo qual yo
escrevi a la Reyna, et enbiome desir que abia enbiado alla el dicho poder e liçençia para
vos. Porque vos ruego, si plaser e seruiçio me avedes de faser, que pues tenedes la dicha
liçençia, que luego en punto partades de alla quanto ayades esta mi carta, e vos vengades
para mi, aqui a Segovia, et que lo non pongades en luenga, por quanto es cosa que
cumple mucho a mi serviçio. Et yo enbio mandar a Iohan Garsia de Paredes que vos de
luego dose mill maravedis para vuestro mantenimiento e para las otras cosas que oviere-
des menester para vuestra venida. Dada en Segouia dies e seys dias de setienbre. Yo Iohan
Martines chançeller del Rey la escrevi por su mandado. Yo el Rey.

[1404], 29 December, Segovia; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala thanking
her for news about Queen Catalina: Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo Domingo el
Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.: García Rey, Verardo: La famosa priora doña
Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, p. 56. The date 1401 is wrong.
Yo, el Rey, enbio mucho saludar a vos donna Teresa de Ayala, priora del monesterio de
Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo como aquella de quien mucho fio. Fago vos saber que
vy vuestra carta que me enbiastes, por la qual me fisiestes saber de la salud de la Reyna mi
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 107

muger e del buen estado en que esta de su prennez. Sabed que fisiestes muy bien en me lo
enbiar desir et gradesco vos lo e tengo vos lo en seruiço. Dada en Madrid, veynte e nueve
dias de desienbre Yo Iohan Martines chançiller del Rey la escrevi por su mandado. Yo el
Rey.

[1404],12 December, Toro; Queen Catalina of Lancaster writes to doña Teresa de

Ayala about the latter’s arrival: Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo Domingo el Real,
Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.: García Rey, Verardo: La famosa priora doña Teresa de
Ayala. Madrid, 1930, pp. 60–1.
Yo la Reyna, vuestra muy querida e muy deseosa fija, vos enbio mucho saludar como
aquella para quien tanta salud e bida querria quanta vos mesma deseades e quanta yo
para mi mesma querria. Muy cara e muy amada madre: fago bos saber que yo soy bien
sana e bien alegre e en buen estado, gracias aya el nonbre de Dios, lo qual bos enbio
desire porque so çierta que bos e mi tia grant plaser avredes con las tales guenas. Otrosi
muy cara e muy amada madre, bi vna carta que Gonçalo Fernandes de Córdova mi
copero mayor me enbio, por la qual me haçe saber la nuestra pasada [illegible] como
vengades a [Madrid] al Rey mi sennor ver e el buen resçibimiento e gasajado que en el
fallaredes, y de como, loado sea Dios, beniades bien sanas e bien alegres, con lo qual ove
muy grant plaser e consolaçion por ser çierta ainda de todo ello. Et luego que la dicha
carta me llego vos quisiera escrevir salvo porque el domingo que paso, que fueron seis
dias deste mes, el dean de León mi capellan mayor, amanesçio sin fabla, y estudo asi el
domyngo e el lunes fasta el martes de mañana que fino, por lo qual yo ove de tomar
carga para conplir su anima, por quanto fino sin testamento, et en su conplimento he
andado todos estos días ocupada que vos non puedo escrevir. Porque vos rruego que me
enbiedes desir el dia que pasastes de Madrid, e quando e como pasastes el puerto, e que
jornadas traedes, et quando entendedes ser por aqui, Dios queriendo, porque yo lo sepa
todo por menudo, ca en verdat, muy cara e muy amada madre, tanto lo deseo que non
cuydo ver . . . que vea a vos e a mi tia, pero fio en Dios que sera muy çedo, Dios querien-
do. Mi muy cara e muy amada e muy querida madre, la Santa Trinidat vos aya sienpre en
su guarda e encomienda. Escrita en Toro dose dias de desienbre. Yo Ferrand Alfonso la
fise escrevir por mandado de nuestra sennora la Reyna. Yo la Reyna vuestra muy deseosa
fija.

[1405], 9 January, Madrid; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala and Diego
Fernández thanking them for news about the Queen: Archivo de las Religiosas de
Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.: García Rey, Verardo: La famosa
priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, p. 57.
Yo, el Rey, enbio mucho saludar a vos donna Teresa de Ayala, priora del monesterio de
Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo et Diego Fernandes mi mariscal como aquellos de
quien mucho fio. Fago vos saber que vy vuestra carta que me enbiastes et tengo vos en
serviçio porque fisiestes saber de la salud de la Reyna mi muger, e otrosi del buen estado
en que está de su prennes y de su acaesçimiento, et mando vos que todavia me lo fagades
saber, en lo qual me faredes plaser e serviçio. Otrossi a lo que me enbiastes desir en rrason
de la provision que era menester de faser de las amas; sabed que yo quiero tomar la carga
desto et yo las mandare catar que les entendiere que cumplen. Dada en Madrid, nueve
dias de enero. Yo Iohan Martines, chançeller del Rey la escrevi por su mandado. Yo el
Rey.
108 Medieval Spain

[1405],14 February, Madrid; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala and Diego
Fernández informing them of the arrival of his own physician: Archivo de las
Religiosas de Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos: ed.: García Rey,
Verardo: La famosa priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, p. 61.
Yo el Rey envio mucho saludar a vos soror donna Theresa priora de Santo Domingo el
Real de Toledo e Diego Fernandes mi mariscal como aquellos de quien mucho fio. Fago
vos saber que enbio alla a maestre Iohan mi fisico para que este con la Reyna mi muger al
tiempo de su encaesçimiento. Dada en Madrid, catorse dias de febrero. Yo Iohan
Martines chançiller del Rey la escrevi por su mandado. Yo el Rey.

[1405], 26 February, Segovia; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala and Diego
Fernández about prince Juan’s wet-nurses: Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo
Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.: García Rey, Verardo: La famosa
priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, p. 62.
Yo el Rey envio mucho saludar a vos soror donna Theresa priora de Santo Domingo el
Real de Toledo e Diego Fernandes mi mariscal como aquellos de quien mucho fio. Fago
vos saber que vy vuestra carta que me enbiasteis et entendi lo que por ella me escrevisteis
en rrason de las amas que fasiades catar. Sabed que lo que cunple a mi serviçio que
sobrello fagades es que catedes las veynte mujeres que por vuestra carta me escrevisteis,
las quales ayan estas condiçiones: la primera, que sean de hedad de fasta veynte fasta
treinta annos e que sean bien conplesionadas e de buenas colores e bien carnudas.
Otrossi que esten paridas de dos fasta quatro meses e que sean de finas febras si ser
pudiere. Otrossi que tengan las criaturas bien mantenidas e criadas e que tengan buena
leche en quantidad e en color e en sustançia e que sean de las mejores maneras e
condiçiones que pudieren ser, que sean fijas dalgo que ser non, et que non sea ninguna
dellas muger de estrangero Et desque asi que las ovieredes catado e escogido, que luego
en punto me enbiedes desir los nonbres de sus maridos e de donde son para que yo vos
enbie mandar como sobrello fagades. Dada en la casa de la rribera çerca de Segovia a
beynte e seis dias de febrero. Yo Joan Martines chançiller del Rey la escrivi por su manda-
do. Yo el Rey.

[1405], 4 March. Segovia; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala and Diego
Fernández about prince Juan’s wet-nurses: Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo
Domingo el Real, Toledo, Papeles sueltos; ed.: García Rey, Verardo: La famosa
priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, pp. 63–4.
[Cruz.] Yo el Rey envio mucho saludar a vos soror donna Theresa priora de Santo
Domingo el Real de Toledo e Diego Fernandes mi mariscal como aquellos de quien
mucho fio. Fago vos saber que vy vuestra carta que vos la priora e mariscal me enbi-
asteis en rason de las amas que nos enbie mandar que cataredes alla e un escripto que
dentro en ella vinia, el qual yo mande veer a los mis fisicos que aqui estan. Et yo e ellos
escogimos una de las seys que en el vinian nombradas, que fallamos mas
perteneçiente, la qual es Aldonça Gomes de las Ruelas muger de Rodrigo Alvares de
Santoyo, escudero del adelantado de Castilla, la cual cunple a mi serviçio que sea ama
agora e non otra alguna e que non aya en ello mudamiento alguno e asi lo enbio a
desire a la Reina que lo faga. Otrossi bien sabedes en como quando naçió la infanta mi
fija [doña María], fue escogida para su ama la muger de Fernando Lopes de Astunniga
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 109

mi alcayde del castillo de Burgos porque se fallo bien perteneçiente para ello, e otrossi
porque el Fernando Lopes es ome de quien yo fio e que ama bien mi serviçio, la qual me
dixeron que esta agora de poco tienpo parida. E por ende enbio la madre que luego se
vaya con ella para yr a Toro para que sea ama ella y esta otra pero desto non enbio desir
cosa alguna a la Reina porque non se si le plasera, ni cunple que ella sepa que va alla
para esto, fasta que sea encaesçida, e yo este con ella sobrello, salvo que fue alla por se
acaesçer alli a este tienpo. Mas cunple que tengades con ella las mejores maneras que
vosotros vieredes e entendieredes que cunple porque le plega que ella sea ama como la
otra pues que es bien preferente e sufiçiente para ello. Dada en Segovia, cuatro dias de
marzo. Yo el Rey.

[1405], 8 March Segovia; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala and Diego
Fernández about prince Juan’s wet-nurses: Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo
Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.: García Rey, Verardo: La famosa
priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930, pp. 64–5.
Yo el Rey envio mucho saludar a vos soror donna Theresa priora de Santo Domingo el
Real de Toledo e Diego Fernandes mi mariscal como aquellos de quien mucho fio. Fago
vos saber que vy vuestra carta que Diego el mariscal a nos me enbiasteis et grand deseo
vos e tengo vos en serviçio, por que me ficisteis saber de la salud de la Reyna mi muger e
del infante mi fijo. Et mando vos que asi lo fagades de aqui adelante. Otrossi sabed quel
maestro Iohan mi fisico me enbio desir que era muy neçessario e conplidero a la salud
del dicho infante de aver otra ama, con esa otra que yo enbie mandar que ende estud-
iese. Sabed que yo avia enbiado mandar a Ferrand Lopes de Astunniga que enbiase
luego alla a su muger para ser ama, et bien creo que ella sea alla muy en breve. Por en
tanto que aquella viene es mi merçed que tomedes a la de Toledo que me enbiasteis
nonbrada en el escripto de las seis amas que escogisteis para que de leche al dicho
infante, a los tienpos que los fisicos dixieren que cunple, porque por el trabajo que la
otra recibiere e las beladas non reciba daño la leche. Dada en Segovia a ocho días de
marzo. Yo el Rey.

[1405], 13 March, Coria; Enrique III’s letter to doña Teresa de Ayala and doña
Maria forbidding Queen Catalina to appoint members of prince Juan’s chamber:
Archivo de las Religiosas de Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo. Papeles sueltos; ed.:
García Rey, Verardo: La famosa priora doña Teresa de Ayala. Madrid, 1930,
p. 65.
Yo el Rey envio mucho saludar a vos soror donna Teresa de Ayala e soror donna Maria
como aquellas para quien mucha onrra e buena ventura querria. Fago vos saber que a mi
es fecho entender que la Reyna a puesto e ordena de poner algunas mugeres cerca del
infante mi fijo en ofiçios de camarera e de veladeras e otros ofiçios, de lo qual yo soy
mucho maravillado en lo que ella asi fase, que yo devo ordenar los ofiçiales e las otras
cosas que perteneçen a la camara del dicho infante. Porque nos rruego e mando, si plaser
e serviçio me habedes de faser, que digades a la Reyna que se non entremeta en ninguna
cosa destas nin faga en ellas cosa alguna, et sea bien çierta que me fara en ello enojo e
non lo consintire en ninguna manera. Et demas desto que por donde piensa que lo fase
bien que sea por lo contrario et sea ocasion por donde non aya en casa del dicho infante
estos ofiçios nin otros algunos et aun los que piensen que ella faga estas cosas faran
grand mal e daño a si mesmos. Dada en Coria, trese dias de marso. Yo Iohan Martines
chançeller del Rey la escrevi por su mandado. Yo el Rey.
110 Medieval Spain

1405, 6 March Toro; Catalina of Lancaster writes to the city of Murcia to inform the
council of prince Juan’s birth: ed.: Flórez de Setién y Huidobro, Enrique: Memorias de
las reynas catholicas: historia genealógica de la Casa Real de Castilla y León.
Madrid, 1790, vol. II, pp. 718–19.
Yo la reyna de Castilla y de Leon os envio mucho a saludar a vos el concejo, caballeros,
escuderos, alguacil y regidores, oficiales y hombres buenos de la ciudad de Murcia, como
aquellos que mucho precio y de quien mucho fio, y para quien mucha honra y buena
ventura querria.
Fagovos saber que, loado sea el nombre de Dios, yo fui alumbrada y encaeçida de un
infante oy viernes, que fueron seis dias deste mes de marzo. Lo qual acorde de vos facer
saber, siendo bien çierta de vosotros, que avredes muy gran placer con tales nuevas.
Porque vos ruego e mando, si placer e serviçio me abedes de facer, que fagades alegrias y
procesiones por esta ciudad segun que es costumbre, y roguedes a Dios muy devota-
mente que quiera alzar y encimar para bien al dicho infante, segun El sabe que cumple a
su servicio y a pro y bien de todo el reyno. Otrosí sabed que yo fice merced de las albri-
cias del dicho infante a este escudero, mio criado, que vos dara esta mi carta, al qual os
ruego que ayades por recomendado y le dedes buenas albricias, segun es razon y
pertenece al estado desa ciudad. En lo qual sed ciertos que me faredes muy gran placer y
servicio, y sera cosa que mucho vos agradecere. Dada en la villa de Toro, seis dias de
marzo. Yo, Fernan Alfonso la fiz escribir por mandado de nuestra señora la reyna. Yo, la
reyna.

1407, 15 January, Segovia;, Catalina of Lancaster and Infante don Fernando’s oath
as tutors of Juan II: A.H.N. (Nobleza) Osuna, leg. 3483, n. 3; ed.: Summary in
García de Santa Maria, Alvar: Crónica de Juan II de Castilla (ed. J. de M. Carriazo),
Madrid, 1982, pp. 44–8.
En la çibdat de Segovia, en los palaçios del obispo dela dicha çibdat, sabado quinse dias
del mes de enero, anno del nasçimiento de nuestro sennor Ihesuchristo de mill e qua-
troçientos e siete annos, en presençia de mi Iohan Martines chançeller de nuestro sen-
nor el Rey don Iohan del sello de la poridat e escrivano de camara del dicho sennor Rey e
notario publico en la su corte e en todos los sus Reynos e de los testigos de yuso escriptos,
seyendo presentes la muy esclareçida sennora Reyna de Castiella e de Leon donna
Catalina, madre del dicho sennor Rey; e el muy excellente sennor infante don
Fernando, tio del dicho sennor Rey, amos a dos tutores del dicho sennor Rey e regidores
de sus regnos. E los reverendos padres en Dios e sennores don Iohan obispo de Cuenca, e
don Iohan obispo de Siguenza, oydor de la Audiençia del dicho sennor Rey, e don Pedro
obispo de Orense, chançeller mayor de la dicha sennora, oydor de la dicha Audiençia, e
don Iohan obispo de Segovia, e don Sancho obispo de Palençia, oydor de la dicha
Audiençia, e don Pablo obispo de Cartagena, chançeller mayor del dicho señor Rey, e
don fray Alfonso, obispo de León; e los sennores e nobles varones don Ruy Lopes de
Davalos, condestable del dicho sennor Rey, e don Fraderique, conde de Trastamara, e el
conde don Enrrique Manoel, e Iohan de Velasco, camarero mayor del dicho sennor Rey,
e Diego Lopes de Astuniga, justiçia mayor del dicho sennor Rey, e Gomes Manrrique,
adelantado mayor de Castilla, e don Pero Veles de Guevara, e Iohan Furtado de
Mendoça, mayordomo del dicho sennor Rey, e Garçi Fernandes Manrrique, e Carlos de
Arellano, e Diego Fernandes de Quinnones, meryno mayor de Asturias, e Pero Nunnes
de Gusman, e don Diego Remires de Gusman, arçediano de Toledo, e Iohan Rodrigues
de Villayçan, abad de Santa Leocadia, procuradores del dean e cabildo de la eglesia de
Toledo, e Diego Martines, bachiller en leyes, procurador de don Viçente Arias, obispo de
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 111

Plasençia, oydor de la dicha Audiençia, e otros procuradores de los sennores perlados

que eran absentes; e los sabios varones Pero Sánchez, doctor en leyes, oydor de la dicha
Audiençia e contador de la casa del dicho sennor Rey, e su referendario, e Per Yannes,
doctor en leyes, oydor de la Audiençia del dicho sennor Rey e su referendario. E otrosy
siendo presentes los procuradores de las çibdades e villas e lugares de los reinos e senno-
rios del dicho sennor Rey, e otros muchos cavalleros e escuderos, fijosdalgo e çibdadanos
de los dichos reynos e sennorios, los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante dixeron en
commo ellos e cada uno dellos, por virtud del testamento e postrimera voluntad que
nuestro sennor el Rey don Enrrique, a quien Dios de Santo Parayso, padre del dicho sen-
nor Rey, fisiera e ordenara e dexara al tiempo de su finamiento, que tomaven e açepta-
van la tutela del dicho sennor Rey e regimiento de sus Regnos. E que querían por virtud
del dicho testamento e postrimera voluntad seer tutores del dicho sennor Rey e regi-
dores de sus Regnos.
E luego por el dicho sennor obispo de Palençia fue leyda una forma de juramento que
es contenida en la Segunda Partida, el tenor de la qual de palabra a palabra, es este que se
sigue: ‘Que guarden al Rey su vida e su salud, e alleguen pro e onrra dél e de su tierra en
todas las maneras que pudieren, e las cosas que fueren a su mal e a su danno que las
desvíen e las tuelgan a todas guysas, e que el sennorio guarden que sea uno, e que lo non
dexen partir nin enajenar en ninguna manera, mas que lo acreçienten quanto pudieren
por Derecho. E que lo tengan en pas e en justiçia fasta que el Rey sea de quatorçe annos.’
E luego, acabada de leer la forma del dicho juramento, fue leyda por mi el dicho Iohan
Martines chançeller, una clausula en el dicho testamento contenida, la qual contiene en
sy lo que han de jurar los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante, de la qual clausula su tenor es
este que se sigue: ‘Los quales dichos tutores juraran sobre la Crus e los Santos Evangelios,
e el dicho Infante fara pleyto e omenage que bien e lealmente a todo su poder e su buen
entender, governaran e regiran los dichos reynos e sennorios, e guardaran seruiçio del
dicho Prinçipe, entonçe Rey, e provecho e onrra de los dichos reynos e sennorios; e que
los non partiran ni consentiran partir nin enagenar, e de guardar e conplir e faser conplir
todo lo contenido en este /f. 1v/ mi testamento’.
E luego acabada de leer por mi el dicho chançeller la dicha clausula, el dicho don
Iohan obispo de Siguença, tomo un libro en las manos, en el qual estava la sennal de la
Cruz con su cruçifixo, e escritas las palabras de los Santos Evangelios, e dixo en vos asas
alta a los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante que les ploguyese de querer poner sus manos
sobre la dicha sennal de Crus e los Santos Evangelios. Et ellos e cada uno dellos pusieron-
lo por obra e fisieronlo asi. Et el dicho don Iohan obispo de Siguença, fablando asas alto
asy e por tal manera que los que eran presentes lo podian bien oyr e entender, dixo asy a
los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante: ‘Sennores, vosotros e cada uno de vos jurades a
Dios Todopoderoso, e a esta sennal de Crus, e a las palabras de los Santos Evangelios, que
con vuestras manos corporalmente avedes tannido e tannedes, de bien e leal e ver-
daderamente, syn arte e syn enganno alguno, tener e guardar e fielmente conplir e faser
conplir todas las cosas e cada una dellas contenidas en la forma del juramento de la ley
de la Partida que aqui vos fue leyda por el dicho sennor obispo de Palençia, e otrosi en la
clausula del dicho testamento que vos fue leyda por el dicho Iohan Martines chançeller,
e de tener e guardar e faser conplir el dicho testamento e todo lo en el contenido e cada
parte dello, e de non yr nin venir, nin faser por vos nin por otra persona por vos contra
ello nin contra parte dello, en publico nin en escondido, en algunt tienpo nin por algu-
na manera, non enbargante qualquier otro juramento que en contrario deste antes
deste, tengades fecho.’
E luego los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante respondieron cada vno por si. La dicha
sennora Reyna respondio que jurava e prometia, asy como tutris del dicho sennor Rey e
112 Medieval Spain

regidora de sus regnos, todo lo contenido en las clausulas de la dicha ley e testamento,
por la orden que fueron leydas e resadas, conviene a saber, primeramente la clausula de
la dicha ley de la Partida, e despues la clausula del dicho testamento, e por la orden de las
palabras en cada una dellas contenidas. E el dicho sennor Infante respondio que jurava e
prometia, asy como tutor del dicho sennor rey e regidor de sus regnos lo contenido en
las clausulas de la dicha ley e testamento, por la orden que fueron leydas e resadas, con-
viene a saber primeramente la clausula de la dicha ley de la Partida, e despues la clausula
del dicho testamento e por la orden de las palabras en cada una dellas contenidas. E
luego el dicho sennor Infante fiso pleyto e omenage una e dos e tres veses, en manos del
conde don Enrrique Manoel, tomando e reçibiendolo dél el dicho conde, que bien e leal
e verdaderamente guardaria e conpliria todas las cosas contenidas en la clausula del
dicho testamento, por la orden de palabras en la dicha clausula contenidas.
E luego el dicho obispo de Siguença dixo a los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante que sy
asy lo fisiesen, guardasen e conpliesen, e fisiesen guardar e conplir, que Dios
Todopoderoso les guardase e adereçase, e acreçentase sus vidas e sus estados por luengos
tiempos. E si el contrario fisiesen, que El gelo demandase caramente en este mundo e en
el otro, donde mas avian de durar.
E luego el dicho obispo de Siguença, en nombre de los sennores perlados que ay esta-
van presentes e por sy, et en nombre de la eglesia de Toledo pidio e rogo e requirio a mi el
dicho chançeller que le diesse signado en commo los dichos sennores fasian e avian
fecho el dicho juramento para guarda de su derecho e para lo mostrar e notificar a los
otros sennores perlados, e rogo a los presentes que fuesen dello testigos. Et luego el dicho
sennor Infante asy commo sennor de Lara en nonbre de los fiios dalgo levantose e dixo
que el que reçibia por tutores del dicho sennor Rey e regidores de sus regnos a la dicha
sennora Reyna e a sy mesmo. E luego despues desto el dicho obispo de Siguença en non-
bre /f. 2r/ de los sennores perlados que estavan presentes e cada uno dellos por si, et en
nonbre de los otros perlados que estavan absentes e por si, e en nonbre de la eglesia de
Toledo e en nonbre de las ordenes, dixo que reçibia e tomava por virtud del dicho testa-
mento por tutores del dicho sennor rey e regidores de sus regnos a los dichos sennores
Reyna e Infante e que consentian, loavan e aprovaban que lo fuesen e les plasia que
usasen de la dicha tutela e administraçion. E luego despues desto el dicho obispo de
Siguença tomo el dicho libro e pusolo delante de los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante e
pidioles por merçet que pusiesen sus manos sobre la sennal de la crus e los Santos
Evangelios que estavan en el dicho libro, e fisieronlo asy. E el dicho obispo tomoles jura-
mento disiendo a alta vos: ‘Vos, sennores e cada uno de vos jurades a Dios e a esta sennal
de la crus e a las palabras de los Santos Evangelios que con vuestras manos corporal-
mente avedes tannido e tannedes, que bien e leal e verdaderamente guardaredes a las
eglesias e perlados e clerigos e ordenes e monesterios; e a los sennores condes, ricos
omes, caualleros e escuderos, fiiosdalgo; e a las çibdades e villas e lugares de los regnos e
sennorios del dicho sennor Rey, e a las singulares personas dellos, todas las franquesas,
previllegios e libertades, buenos usos e buenas costunbres e fueros que han e tienen, e
que non yredes nin vernedes nin faredes nin pasaredes contra ellos nin contra parte del-
los en algunt tienpo nin por alguna manera.’
E los dichos sennores Reyna e Infante respondieron que juravan de los tener e guardar
e conplir, e de non yr nin venir contra ellos nin contra parte dellos en algunt tienpo nin
por alguna manera, en quanto son tenidos de lo guardar de derecho.
E desto en commo paso el dicho obispo de Siguença por sy e en nombre de todos e
quales quier personas a quien esto pertenesçe e atanne e perteneçer puede en qualquier
manera, pidio e rogo e requirio a mi el dicho chançeller que gelo diese signado en publi-
ca forma, e rogo a los presentes que fuesen dello testigos, los quales son estos: don Pedro
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 113

obispo de Orense chançeller mayor de la Reyna, e don frey Alfonso obispo de Leon, e
Iohan Furtado de Mendoça mayordomo del Rey, e Diego Fernandes de Quinnones
meryno mayor de Asturias, e don Diego Ramires de Gusman, arçidiano de Toledo, e frey
Fernando de Ylliescas e frey Iohan Anrriques ministro de la orden de los frayres
menores, e los doctores Pero Sanches e Per Yannes oydores e referendarios del Rey, e
Iohan Remires de Gusman comendador de Otos, e Iohan Manso contador mayor del
Rey de las sus cuentas, e el abad de Salas, e Fernando Beltran de Guadalfaiara e Ferrant
Yvanes de Varrio Nuevo vesino de Soria e Garsia Peres de Santo Domingo de la Calçada e
Pero Fernandes de la Guarda, escrivano de latin e Garsia Alvares de Viana.
Va escripto sobre raydo a do dise ‘e su’ e a do dise ‘et’. Et yo Iohan Martines chançeller
de nuestro sennor el Rey del su sello de la poridat et su notario publico en la su corte et en
todos los sus regnos fuy presente a todas las cosas de suso en este instrumento con-
tenidas, et a cada una parte e capitulo dellas en la manera e forma que aquí van escriptas
e declaradas en presençia de los dichos testigos, las quales fise escribir en esta foja e
media de papel con esta en que va mi soscripçion, e en cada plana puse mi nonbre e fise
aquí este mio signo [signo] en testimonio.
[Signature on every page:] Iohan Martines, chançeller.

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Notes
*This article has been written as a part of a research project funded by a Postdoctoral
Scholarship of the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid.
1 A. Goodman, John of Gaunt. The exercise of princely power in fourteenth-century Europe
(New York, 1992), pp. 47–9.
2 For a full account of the international involvement in the Castilian succession, see P.
E. Russell, The English intervention in Spain and Portugal in the time of Edward III and
Richard II (Oxford, 1955); J. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 419–27, 523–48;
L. Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámaras de Castilla y Aragón en el s. XV. Historia de
España, dir. R. Menéndez Pidal, vol. 15 (Madrid, 1964) and by the same author and J.
Reglá Campistol, La crisis de la Reconquista (circa 1350–circa 1410). Historia de España,
dir. R. Menéndez Pidal, vol. 14 (Madrid, 1976).
3 On that date, her father calls Ilote, the midwife who had already attended the deliv-
eries of his former wife, Blanche of Lancaster. A. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 50.
4 On the role played by royal mothers in their children’s education, see J. C. Parsons,
‘Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150–1500’, in
Medieval Queenship (New York, 1993), pp. 73–5.
5 A. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 321. John of Gaunt’s Register, 1372–76 (ed. S. Armitage-
Smith), Camden, 3rd ser. XX–XXI (London, 1911), n. 1611.
6 John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–83 (ed. E. C. Lodge y R, Somerville) Camden Society, 3rd
ser. LVI–LVII (London, 1937), n. 524.
7 In January and June. John of Gaunt’s Register, 1372–76, n. 670, 699.
8 John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–83, n. 327. The goldsmith Herman Goldesmyth, made
several jewels for the elder princesses, but not for Catalina, perhaps due to her tender
age.
9 John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–83, n. 557.
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 117

10 John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–83, n. 715, dated 6 May 1381, Westminster. See A. de
Silva-Vigier, This Moste Highe Prince . . . John of Gaunt, 1340–1399 (Edinburgh, 1992),
pp. 164–5.
11 Silva-Vigier, Anil de, This Moste Highe Prince, p. 151.
12 G. Mathew, The Court of Richard II (New York, 1968), pp. 28, 34.
13 A. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 293.
14 Joan Burghershe, ‘nostre tresame la dame de Mohun’ received a valuable enamelled
golden ‘tablet’. John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–83, n. 327.
15 I will be following the account of J. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, pp.
528–31.
16 John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–83, n. 524.
17 P. E. Russell, The English intervention, pp. 402–3. For the preparations, see pp.
404–17.
18 F. Lopes, Crónica de D. João I, (Barcelós, 1990), II, pp. 195–6.
19 On the consequences of the treaty for Portugal, see L. A. da Fonseca, O essencial sobre
o Tratado de Windsor (Lisbon, 1986).
20 For the development of this campaign, P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey don Juan I,
in Crónicas de los Reyes de Castilla, II (ed. C. Rosell) (Madrid, 1953), pp. 109–17; P. E.
Russell, The English intervention, pp. 302–27; A. H. de Oliveira Marques, Portugal na
crise dos séculos XIV e XV, Nova Historia de Portugal vol. 4 (Lisbon, 1986), pp. 532–5,
and L. Suárez Fernández, Historia del reinado de Juan I de Castilla (Madrid, 1977),
pp. 249–59.
21 J. de Wavrin, Chroniques d’Angleterre, British Library, Royal Ms. 14 E IV, f. 246. Cf.
T.W.E.Roche, Philippa: Dona Philippa of Portugal (London, 1971), p. 50. On this atti-
tude towards early marriage, see J. C. Parsons, ‘Mothers, Daughters, Marriage,
Power’, p. 69.
22 P. E. Russell, The English intervention, pp. 449–51; A. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 123.
23 J. de Wavrin, Chroniques d’Angleterre, f. 286–7; Cf. T.W.E.Roche, Philippa: Dona
Philippa of Portugal, pp. 60–1.
24 F. Lopes, Crónica de D. João I, II, pp. 228–9.
25 P. E. Russell, The English intervention, pp.485–91.
26 J. J. N. Palmer and B. Powell, The Treaty of Bayonne (1388) with Preliminary Treaty of
Trancoso (1387), Exeter, 1988, pp. XI–XIV; P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey D. Juan I,
pp. 118–20.
27 J. J. N. Palmer and B. Powell, The Treaty of Bayonne, pp. 8–15, 26–7, 29–33, 36–43,
49–56. P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey D. Juan I, p. 118.
28 AGS, Patronato Real, leg. 52, 4. See Appendix. The date of her arrival is specified in
the summons for the Cortes, A.M. Burgos, Actas de 1388, f. 40r. Cf. L. Suárez
Fernández, Historia del reinado, I, p. 296.
29 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, p. 3; J. J. N. Palmer and B. Powell, The Treaty of
Bayonne, pp. 8, 26, 37, 49.
30 I. Beceiro Pita, ‘La mujer noble en la Edad Media castellana’, in La condición de la
mujer en la Edad Media (Madrid, 1986), p. 291.
31 Given to the Great Steward Juan Hurtado de Mendoza in 1395. P. López de Ayala,
Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero, p. 233.
32 D. Sánchez Portocarrero, Historia del noble y muy leal señorio de Molina. Segunda parte
(Hinojosa, c. 1650), B.N., Mss. 1556–58, III, f. 114r-v.
33 J. J. N. Palmer and B. Powell, The Treaty of Bayonne, pp. xii–xiii; P. López de Ayala,
Crónica del rey D. Juan I, p. 117, 120.
118 Medieval Spain

34 AGS, Cámara de Castilla, Diversos, leg. 41, 2. Published by P. E. Russell, The English
intervention, pp. 575–9.
35 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey D. Juan I, p. 130 and Crónica del Rey don Enrique ter-
cero, p. 190, 194.
36 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida y hechos del rey don Henrique III (Madrid, 1638),
p. 3.
37 A. Goodman, John of Gaunt, pp. 131–2.
38 P. Salazar de Mendoza, Origen de las dignidades seglares de Castilla y León. Toledo,
1618, f. 134r.
39 E. Flórez, Memorias de las reynas catholicas: historia genealógica de la Casa Real de
Castilla y León (Madrid, 1790), II, p. 711.
40 As Russell maintains in his article ‘The war in Spain and Portugal’ in Froissart:
Historian, ed. J.J.N. Palmer (Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 87–8, 98.
41 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, p. 4.
42 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey D. Juan I, pp. 120–2. The record of the formalities
for duchess Constanza’s proxies to take possession of Guadalajara, Medina, and
Olmedo was published by P. E. Russell, The English intervention, pp. 575–9. It is well
worth noting that the two men were Catalina’s high steward (mayordomo mayor)
Juan Alfonso de Mayorga and her chancellor, bishop Juan Gutierrez of Aques, so
that control would be organized from Catalina’s own household. AGS, Cámara de
Castilla, Diversos, leg. 41, 2.
43 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey D. Juan I, p. 143.
44 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero de Castilla e de León, in Crónicas
de los reyes de Castilla, ed. C. Rosell (Madrid, 1953), II, p. 162.
45 For a study of their consequences, see A. I. K. MacKay, ‘Popular Movements and
Pogroms in Fifteenth-Century Castile’, Past and Present, 55 (1972), pp. 33–67.
46 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero de Castilla e de León, in Crónicas
de los reyes de Castilla ed. C. Rosell (Madrid, 1953), II; Corónica de Enrique III, ed. C. L.
and H. M. Wilkins (Madison, 1992); Cortes de los antiguos Reinos de León y de Castilla.
Real Academia de la Historia (ed.), (Madrid, 1866), II, pp. 483–523. Also in L. Suárez
Fernández and J. Reglá Campistol, La crisis de la Reconquista, pp. 303–24. A good
abstract in M. C. Gerbet, Las noblezas españolas en la Edad Media, siglos XI–XV
(Madrid 1997), pp. 182–6.
47 Johannis de Trokelowe et Henrici de Blaneforde . . . Chronica et Annales, ed. T. Riley
(London, 1866), pp. 162–3.
48 AGS, Estado, leg. 847, 55. See Appendix.
49 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero, p. 170; Corónica de Enrique III, p. 19.
50 Cortes de los antiguos Reinos, II, pp. 524–32.
51 F. Gómez Redondo, Historia de la prosa medieval castellana (Madrid, 1999), II, p. 1787.
52 By means of Constable López Dávalos. E. Flórez, Memorias de las reynas catholicas, I, p.
724. All constructions are mentioned in G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, p. 186.
53 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, pp. 11–12.
54 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, p. 131.
55 ‘Vinieron los reyes don Henrique y doña Catalina y visitaron esta santa ermita, ani-
mando con su exenplo la devoción de sus pueblos. La Reyna prometio edificaria un
gran templo donde fuesse on mayor culto servida esta señora y la cumplió’, G.
González Dávila, Historia de la vida, pp. 152–3. See A. I. K. MacKay, ‘Don Fernando
de Antequera y la Virgen Santa María’, in Homenaje a Juan Torres Fontes, Murcia,
1987, II, pp. 949–57.
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 119

56 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, pp. 160–1. A. Sánchez Sierra, El monasterio de

Santa Maria la Real de Nieva (Segovia, 1992), pp. 25–43.
57 A. Sánchez Sierra, El monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de Nieva, pp. 81–130.
58 AHN, Clero, carp. 1951–53.
59 I. Beceiro Pita, ‘La mujer noble en la Edad Media castellana’, p. 308.
60 E. Flórez, Memorias de las reynas catholicas, I, p. 726.
61 J. C. Parsons, Medieval Queenship (New York, 1993), pp. 9–10.
62 V. García Rey, La famosa priora doña Teresa de Ayala (Madrid, 1930), pp. 59–60.
See Appendix. These records are missing from the AHN despite the important
corpus coming from St. Dominic of Toledo.
63 V. García Rey, La famosa priora, p. 28.
64 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, pp. 165–73.
65 A. García de Santa María, Crónica de Juan II de Castilla, p. 278. E. Flórez, Memorias de
las reynas catholicas, I, pp. 715–17; V. García Rey, La famosa priora, pp. 63–4.
66 AHN, Clero, libro 19311.
67 L. Suárez Fernández and J. Reglá Campistol, La crisis de la Reconquista, p. 363.
68 V. García Rey, La famosa priora, p. 59. See Appendix.
69 In some cases of particularly influential queens, they assume this task personally.
See D. Bratsch-Prince, ‘A Queen’s Task: Violant de Bar and the experience of royal
motherhood in fourteenth-century Aragón’, La Corónica 27.1 (1998), p. 27.
70 V. García Rey, La famosa priora, p. 62. See Appendix.
71 V. García Rey, La famosa priora, pp. 64–5. See Appendix.
72 At least in the Crown of Aragón, where Violante de Bar’s correspondence is kept. D.
Bratsch-Prince, ‘A Queen’s Task’, La Corónica 27.1 (1998), p. 28. For Catalina’s letter,
see E. Flórez: Memorias de las reynas catholicas, II, pp. 718–19, and Appendix.
73 V. García Rey, La famosa priora, p. 65. See Appendix.
74 Transcribed in P. Salazar de Mendoza, Origen de las dignidades seglares, f. 136r–137v.
75 For a description of those roles, see T. Evergates, Aristocratic Women in Medieval
France (Philadelphia, 1999), p. 5.
76 P. E. Russell, ‘Una alianza frustrada: las bodas de Pedro I de Castilla y Juana
Plantagenet’, AEM, 2 (1965), p. 318.
77 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero, p. 219.
78 On Catalina’s circle and favourites, see bibliography cited in R. Mérida Jiménez, ‘La
imagen de la mujer en la literatura castellana medieval: hacia un laberinto bibli-
ográfico de mudable fortuna (1986–96)’, Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia,
19 (1998), pp. 403–31. I thank Prof. M. Rivera Garretas for providing me with a copy
of ‘La mediación de la lado: la relación de la reina Catalina de Lancaster con sus val-
idas siglo XV)’, Actas del Encuentro Internacional de Historia de las Mujeres held in May
1999 (forthcoming).
79 P. E. Russell, The Spanish Intervention, p. 541.
80 See his article on ‘Catalina of Lancaster’, New Dictionary of National Biography, forth-
coming.
81 Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II ed. E. Perroy, Camden Society 3rd ser., XLVIII
(London, 1933), pp. 117–19, 128.
82 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero, pp. 209–10. L. Suárez
Fernández, and J. Reglá Campistol, La crisis de la Reconquista, p. 325; P. E. Russell,
The Spanish Intervention, pp. 538–9. Another embassy had arrived in 1391, convey-
ing John of Gaunt’s expression of condolence and his wish to confirm the settle-
ment of Bayonne. P. López de Ayala, Crónica del Rey don Enrique tercero, p. 176.
83 A. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 134.
120 Medieval Spain

84 T. E. Roche, Philippa: Dona Philippa of Portugal, p. 73.

85 A. de Silva-Vigier, This Moste Highe Prince, pp. 371–4.
86 P. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey don Juan I, p. 130.
87 A. de Silva-Vigier, This Moste Highe Prince, pp. 371–4.
88 L. Suárez Fernández. and J. Reglá Campistol, La crisis de la Reconquista, p. 347.
89 T. E. Roche, Philippa: Dona Phillippa of Portugal, p. 74.
90 ‘Rex, per literas suas patentes, usque ad festum Sancti Michaelis proximo futurum
duraturas, suscepit in salvum et securum conductum regis, ac in protectionem,
tuitionem et defensionem regis speciales Ferandum Damassen de Ispania
Armigerum, qui infra regnum regis Angliae penes personam regis, in nuncium,
carissimae sororis regis Katerinae reginae Ispaniae, cum quibusdam literis, eius-
dem reginae regi directis, iam noviter veniebat penes praesentiam regis, cum uno
famulo in comitiva sua, per dominium et potestatem regis, ex causa predicta,
veniendo, ibidem morando, et exinde ad propria redeundo, necnon equos, bona,
res, de hernesia sua quaecumque. Teste me ipso apud Westmonasterium, tricesimo
die Julii’. Foedera, vol. III, part IV, p. 188.
91 Foedera, IV, part I, pp. 156, 165–8, 180, 198; part II, p. 25, 57, 67–9, 78–9, 83.
92 Calendar of Signet letters of Henry IV and Henry V, 1399–1422, (ed. J. L. Kirby),
London, 1978. Dated 27 March and 6 June 1409.
93 Calendar of the Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Henry IV (London,
1932), IV, pp. 377–8, 381.
94 Calendar of the Close Rolls, pp. 244–5, 252. The vessel was loaded in November
1411.
95 W. Childs, Anglo-Castilian Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester, 1978), p. 162.
96 Foedera, IV, part II, p. 96.
97 ‘Esta Rainha dona Caterina, semdo seu marido vivo, trabalhava muito com elle
que ouvese boa paaz e amizade com dom Joham rey de Purtuguall, casado com sua
irmaã, ffazemdolhe palavras dos gramdes dividos que todos de consum aviam e
todallas boas rezó´ees que a seu preposito acarretar podia, perque a esto o podese
remover. . . . A Rainha dizia que nam era a elle mimguoa algua, ca elle nem seu
padre nam fazia tall guerra, sallvo por parte da Rainha dona Briatiz, e que ella ouvi-
ra dyzer a leteraados que seu padre se ouvera tam maall acerqua dos trautos que
sobre tall sobcesam forã feitas que seu direito era mui dovidoso e que portamto era
bem aver paaz.’ F. Lopes, Crónica de João I, p. 412.
98 G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, pp. 124–5, 127, 130, 143–6. L. Suárez
Fernández and J. Reglá Campistol, La crisis de la Reconquista, pp. 352–8.
99 F. Pérez de Guzmán, Crónica del serenísimo principe don Juan, p. 335.
100 A. García de Santa María, Crónica de Juan II de Castilla, p. 55.
101 L. Suárez Fernández, Relaciones entre Portugal y Castilla en la época del infante don
Enrique (Madrid, 1960), pp. 169–75.
102 L. Suárez Fernández, Relaciones entre Portugal y Castilla, pp. 35–6.
103 F. Lopes, Crónica de João I, pp. 413–28.
104 A. García de Santa María, Crónica de Juan II de Castilla, pp. 276–80. L. Suárez
Fernández, Relaciones entre Portugal y Castilla, p. 35.
105 F. Lopes, Crónica de João I, pp. 430–9.
106 The text has survived in Juan II’s ratification of the treaty in 1423. Archivo
Nacional da Torre do Tombo, gaveta 18, maço 11, n. 4, published in Monumenta
Henricina, II, n˚ 5, pp. 7–32.
107 L. Suárez Fernández, Relaciones entre Portugal y Castilla, p. 37.
108 F. Lopes, Crónica de João I, p. 436.
 Catalina of Lancaster and the Castilian Monarchy 121

109 Archivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, gaveta 18, maço 11, n. 4, f. 1v.
110 F. Lopes, Crónica de João I, p. 446.
111 J. C. Parsons, ‘Mothers, daughters, marriage, power’, in Medieval Queenship, pp.
63–5.
112 F. Pérez de Guzmán, Crónica del serenísimo principe don Juan, p. 376.
113 A. García de Santa María, Crónica de Juan II de Castilla, pp. 23–55; F. Pérez de
Guzmán, Crónica del serenísimo principe don Juan, p. 278; R. Sánchez de Arévalo,
Compendiosa historia hispanica, f. 151 v. Compare this role to that of lugarteniente in
Aragon, exercised by her daughter María, according to T. Earenfight, ‘Maria of
Castile: Ruler or Figurehead? Preliminary Study in Aragonese Queenship’,
Mediterranean Studies, 4 (1994), pp. 45–61.
114 Studied in detail by J. Torres Fontes, Dos divisiones politico-administratives en la
minoria de Juan II de Castilla, Murcia, 1947. Unfortunately, I have not been able to
see this work yet.
115 L. Suárez Fernández, Los Trastámaras de Castilla y Aragón, p. 33.
116 J. Torres Fontes, ‘La regencia de don Fernando de Antequera’, AEM, 1 (1964),
pp. 388–402.
117 Library of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Mss. Z-I-6 and O-I-16.
Published by F. Fernández y González, Estado social y politico de los mudéjares de
Castilla. Madrid, 1866/1985, pp. 397–9, 400–5. Also in M. V. Vilaplana Gisbert,
Documentos de la minoria de Juan II. La regencia de don Fernando de Antequera,
CODOM XV (Murcia, 1993), pp. 345–9.
118 Jews had been the object of a more extensive ordinance promulgated in the Cortes
of Valladolid, in 1405, which paradoxically did not include regulations for
Muslims’ clothes. See Cortes de los reinos, pp. 552–3.
119 L. Barrientos, Refundición de la Crónica del Halconero (ed. J. de M. Carriazo),
Madrid, 1946, pp. 80–1; F. Pérez de Guzmán, Crónica del serenísimo príncipe don Juan,
p. 340. See also P. A. Porras Arboledas, Juan II. 1406–1454 (Burgos 1995), p. 58.
120 For a comparative approach to the ordinances of Murcia and Valladolid, see J.
Torres Fontes, ‘Moros, judíos y conversos en la regencia de Fernando de
Antequera’, Cuadernos de Historia de España, 31–32 (1960), pp. 63–70.
121 ‘Política y religión frente al Islam: la evolución de la legislación real castellana
sobre musulmanes en el siglo xv’, Qurtuba, 4, 1999, pp. 45–72. It was first noted by
A. MacKay, ‘Popular Movements’, Past and Present, 55 (1972), p. 40.
122 A. H. de Oliveira Marques, Portugal na crise dos séculos XIV e XV, p. 541.
123 Coimbra, 1792; facs. Lisbon, 1984. Book II, Titles CII–CXV.
124 Ordenaçoes Afonsinas, tit. CVII. A good study of the origins of these concerns in
Christianity and Judaism is in D. Nirenberg, Communities of violence (Princeton,
1996), pp. 127–38.
125 M. A. Ladero Quesada, ‘Los mudéjares en los reinos de la Corona de Castilla. Estado
actual de su estudio’, Actas del III Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo (Teruel,
1986), p. 14.
126 F. Fernández y González, Estado social y político de los mudéjares, p. 404. This prohi-
bition had a precedent in one made in the Cortes of Briviesca in 1387. See Cortes de
los reinos, p. 369.
127 R. I. Burns and P. Chevedden, Negotiating Cultures. Bilingual Surrender Treaties in
Muslim–Crusader Spain (Leiden, 1999), p. 233.
128 J. Torres Fontes, ‘El alcalde mayor de las aljamas de moros del reino de Castilla’,
Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 1962, pp. 131–82.
122 Medieval Spain

129 G. Wiegers, Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado. Yça of Segovia, his
Antecedents and Successors (Leiden, 1994), pp. 58–9.
130 L. García de Valdeavellano, Historia de las instituciones españolas (Madrid, 1984), p.
312.
131 Dated 26 January 1412, in Cuenca. M. V. Vilaplana Gisbert, Documentos de la
minoría de Juan II, pp. 336–7.
132 F. Pérez de Guzmán, Crónica del serenísimo príncipe don Juan, p. 371.
133 G. de la Hinojosa, ‘Continuación de la Crónica de España del obispo Jiménez de
Rada’, CODOIN, CVI, p. 111.
134 F. Pérez de Guzmán, Generaciones y semblanzas, Buenos Aires, 1947, p. 19. Trans. A.
Goodman. G. González Dávila, Historia de la vida, pp. 220–1.
135 F. Pérez de Guzmán, Crónica del serenísimo príncipe don Juan, p. 372.
136 R. Sánchez de Arévalo, Compendiosa historia hispanica, f. 153r. This view was still
held in the eighteenth century, when E. Flórez quoted it in his study Memorias de
las reynas catholicas, p. 722.
137 L. Barrientos, Refundición, p. 27; G. Chacón, Crónica de Don Álvaro de Luna, p. 27.
6
Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Séneca:
Disentangling the Manuscript
Tradition
Nicholas G. Round

The series of Senecan translations produced within a few years of 1430 by

Alonso de Cartagena, Bishop of Burgos, marked a significant stage in the
emergence (rather late in the day) of a Spanish interest in Seneca. In this and
other ways, they are important sources for the cultural history of the reign of
Juan II of Castile. Their status as such is confirmed by the existence of seven-
teen manuscripts in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, and something
approaching the same number elsewhere. These copies, which offer texts of
between one and a dozen different works in all manner of different selections
and sequences, provide some explanation too for the lack of any attempt so
far to collate text with text, or to furnish a coherent account of the relations
obtaining among them all. There is rather less excuse for the fact that nobody
in modern times has given us an acceptably scholarly edition of Cartagena’s
Senecan output as a whole, or indeed of any significant part of it.
Ramón Pousa in 1943 did reproduce the text of one short treatise, De remediis
fortuitorum from a single Salamanca University manuscript.1 He describes this
copy as ‘hermosísimo’ – which it certainly is – and as ‘el códice más completo’
of Cartagena’s translations – which, just as certainly, it is not. It is a copy which
omits all the translator’s extensive glosses, making it a very odd choice indeed
for an edition. Pousa’s editorial attempt, however, remained the best available
until González Rolán and Saquero (1987–88) applied a more authentically crit-
ical treatment to the Dichos de Séneca en el acto de la caballería – itself a very mar-
ginal text in the series. Evaluative studies of Cartagena have had to make what
shift they could in default of anything wider-ranging or more satisfactory.
Since 1969 Karl Alfred Blüher’s admirable Séneca en España has provided a
very full though necessarily schematic listing of known manuscripts and their
contents.2 But this invaluable exercise in setting out the problem (to which
my own debt will be very clear) scarcely addresses the business of identifying a
solution: Blüher himself, when quoting Cartagena, does so mainly from
Miguel de Eguía’s early sixteenth-century printing. Olga Tudorica Impey in

123
124 Medieval Spain

the early 1970s looked at the half-dozen Escorial manuscripts and a handful of
those in the Biblioteca Nacional, and ventured some preliminary judgements
of her own on how they might be related to one another.3 Her choice of
Escorial N II 6 as a text for citation is a defensible one, also followed by Carlos
Cabrera in an independent study, published in 1987. Similarly defensible was
my own use of Escorial T III 6 when discussing Cartagena’s version of De
clementia in 1991.4 By far the commonest practice, however, has been to rely
on the editio princeps of Cartagena’s Cinco libros de Séneca, which Meinhard
Ungut and Stanislao Polono published in 1491 in Seville. Some very fine
scholars–they include, for example, Jeremy Lawrance and the late Louise
Fothergill-Payne – have made that choice.5 Indeed it works reasonably well as
long as the translation under discussion happens to be one of those five. Yet it
still begs a good many questions.
All that notwithstanding, if addressing those questions has to wait upon the
full-scale Lachmannian recension of all those manuscripts, they are likely to
remain unanswered for some considerable time. Whatever might legitimately be
suspected about my own motivations, the names just cited make it very clear that
the reason why no such recension has been attempted is something far removed
from mere evasion. Lawrance in particular has been a powerful defender and
practitioner of the Lachmann method in medieval textual studies.6 Yet applying
that approach in a case of the present kind raises problems which, if they do not
actually impugn its validity, certainly threaten to impair its efficiency.
In the survival of classical texts from ancient times it is often quite a
straightforward matter to winnow out relatively large numbers of codices
recentiores. There are other instances, it is true, in which the work in question
was only rediscovered towards the very end of the medieval period. But in
either case the selection of particular copies for closer scrutiny is fairly readily
achieved. In the case of fifteenth-century vernacular writings all manuscripts
are by definition recentiores, and there may (as in the present example) be large
numbers of them. In general, moreover, texts which were overtly contempor-
ary in their origins were less likely to be envisaged as the witnesses of a stable
and enduring system of authority–scriptural, patristic, classical. So too, in
principle, were vernacular texts as compared with Latin ones, and more par-
ticularly still, translations as against their originals. Readers of Seneca in Latin
would have expected to get the words of Seneca – impaired, no doubt, by scrib-
al fallibility and perhaps enhanced by glossing, but still importantly a con-
stant element and still his. Readers in translation would have expected access
to the sense (and to some degree perhaps the character) of Seneca’s writings;
whether or not they were reading the words of the Bishop of Burgos might
have mattered to them rather less. Contemporary, vernacular, and translated
texts, then, were all rather more accessible and amenable to processes of revi-
sion and accretion, disruptive in principle of the ideal Lachmannian model.
The assumption underlying that model – that an error, once introduced
into a textual tradition, will by and large stay there so that instances of correc-
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 125

tion can be treated as atypical interferences – clearly remains valid for most
Latin texts. But the linguistic conditions under which vernacular manuscripts
were produced tend of themselves to limit its validity. It is, of course, very far
from unknown for vernacular scribes to copy what makes less than sense, but
their natural scope for correction or contamination is very much wider – the
former because they actually know more about the language involved; the lat-
ter because they think they do. Identifying those errors which matter in those
texts which matter becomes, therefore, a much less clear and much less objec-
tive business. The risks of subjectivity inherent in the Lachmann method, to
which Bédier long ago drew attention, are correspondingly heightened.7
None of which is to deny that the method can be applied in these cases, and to
good purpose: irreducible common errors, incapable of alternative explan-
ation, will represent a bedrock of irreducible fact to which any view of textual
relationships must conform. But we might well be led legitimately to question
whether the exhaustive pursuit of such errors in an instance like that of
Cartagena’s Séneca would be the most profitable use of our time.
Yet if this were to exclude our forming any kind of specific view of the
manuscript tradition and its likely shape, the loss to understanding would be
serious indeed. We would be doomed to regard any one manuscript as being in
principle, more or less equivalent in value to any other.8 Yet we know very well
in practice that this is not the case: we may properly come to regard each and
every witness as having some inherent value, but when it comes to finding out
what has happened to texts over time, not all the values thus assigned will be
equivalent. Without that diachronic dimension our understanding of how
these texts were received and regarded is manifestly impaired. The present
study, therefore, seeks to explore some intermediate levels of analysis, short of
the word-by-word collation of thirty or more texts, which might reliably take
us further towards a view of the tradition as a whole.
In a case like that of Cartagena’s Libros de Séneca, where we are dealing with a
dozen identifiable textual sub-units, one obvious field for enquiry is the broad
analysis of which titles any given manuscript contains. It is to this aspect that
most attention will be given here. But these data need to be read in the light of
background and bibliographical information, and the conclusions that they
inform will, in their turn, be subject to revision in the light of more detailed
analyses. At least a token attempt will be made, then, to carry the process
down to the level of contrasting the contents of particular Senecan works in
their different manuscript copies. It will not take us as far as detailed textual
criticism of a traditional kind, or indeed anywhere near it, but it may begin to
suggest what kinds of modification a shift to that level could be expected to
produce. The exercise will be one of what Germán Orduna (1982) and others
refer to as collatio externa – though it will inevitably be less systematic and
more impressionistic than Orduna’s own application of that method to López
de Ayala’s chronicles.9 It may, even so, have things to tell us about Alonso de
Cartagena.
126 Medieval Spain

Cartagena’s Senecan versions form the larger of two nuclei of translations

purporting to be from Seneca that were commissioned by King Juan II of
Castile.10 The smaller, later, and less authentic nucleus, for which the
Chancery judge Pero Díaz de Toledo was responsible, consisted of two pseudo-
Senecan works – Proverbia and De moribus – togther with the Aristotelian sen-
tence-collection sometimes known as Summa Alexandrinorum. This ill-assorted
trio are also found together in MS Escorial Q I 8, a fourteenth-century Latin cor-
pus of the works of Seneca, with just this one Aristotelian intrusion. Q I 8 is
French in its ultimate textual tradition (or so L. D. Reynolds concluded with
regard to its text of the Letters), and Italian in provenance: various marginal jot-
tings confirm that it was still in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. It
would seem, then, that this cannot have been Juan II’s own Latin manuscript
of Seneca, but that he probably owned one very like it, with the distinctive
addition of the Aristotelian sentences. His copy would also appear to have had
features in common with Biblioteca Nacional 10238, another Latin corpus of
Senecan works, imported from Italy, and forming part of the Osuna collection,
which included the Marqués de Santillana’s library. Of similar tradition to Q I
8, this text contains no Aristotelian matter, but it does end with the so-called
De legalibus institutis, a pseudo-Senecan florilegium, rare in Latin, but translated
by Cartagena under the title Amonestamientos e doctrinas. If we suppose Juan II
to have owned a Latin Seneca similar to these two manuscripts, but embodying
the distinctive extra items of both, this would offer us a source for all Pero
Díaz’s translations, and for almost all of Cartagena’s.
The main exception in the latter case would be the work that he calls the
Copilación – a selection from the much longer Compilatio secundum alphabetam
by the fourteenth-century Italian Bishop Luca Manelli of Citò. This had long
been known in the Peninsula: the Antipope Pedro de Luna had brought it to
Peñíscola, and had presented a copy to Martin the Humane of Aragon. Since
Senecan manuscripts of the Q I 8 type also have associations with the papal
court of Avignon, it is a reasonable though unsupported conjecture that
copies of both the Compilatio and the Senecan corpus reached Juan II after
Pedro de Luna’s death and the subsequent dispersal of the Peñíscola library. It
is worth noting that Cardinal Foix, to whom most of that collection had
passed, was involved in negotiations to try to end the Castilian–Aragonese
war in mid 1429, and that the first of Cartagena’s Senecan efforts (extracts
from the Compilatio) belong to 1431 or a little earlier. Pero Díaz’s commission
to translate, of course, did not come about until the following decade. 1443 or
a little earlier would be a likely enough date.11
That much by way of background: the next task must be to establish exactly
which Senecan works Cartagena did translate. His pupil Diego Rodríguez de
Almela records in his Valerio de las historias that Don Alonso ‘tornó de Latín en
nuestra lengua vulgar doce libros de Séneca, y glossólos en los lugares que con-
venía.’12 Elsewhere in the same work he gives the following list of Seneca’s
own writings:
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 127

. . . dos libros de Providencia, y . . . otros dos de Clemencia, uno de las Siete

Artes Liberales, y otro de la vida Bienaventurada, uno de Remedios contra
fortuna, y otro de Amonestamientos y Doctrina, y otro libro de diversos y
muchos Tractados, otro libro llamado las Tragedias, otros de las Declinaciones
[sic], y más trescientos cinco [sic] Proverbios, y quatro libros sobre Titolibio
de las Historias Romanas, y en fin las Epístolas que embió a Sant Pablo, y
otras muchas que embió a Lucilo, su amigo y a otros.

The first eight of these (down to Amonestamientos e doctrinas) were all translat-
ed by Cartagena, and follow a similar – though not quite identical – order
in many manuscripts. The ‘libro de diversos y muchos Tractados’ is, transpar-
ently, the Copilación, and the Declinaciones, just as patently, an error for
Declamaciones, from which Cartagena also rendered a set of excerpts. Nobody
in the fifteenth century, however, credited Cartagena with the translation of
the Proverbia, Tragedies, or Letters, let alone any commentaries on Livy. So
unless the missing two are to be found among the ‘many other books and
diverse treatises’ that Almela says Seneca also wrote, we have here a list of ten
books (not twelve) whose versions are attributable to Cartagena. We might
reasonably deduce that Almela had seen a manuscript with the ten books
named, but that he also knew of a tradition that the Bishop had translated a
full dozen.
That would be compatible enough with the list of translations which are
either directly atttributed to Cartagena in manuscripts or copied without dif-
ferentiation from others so attributed. There are fourteen such items to be
considered, divisible into four categories, as follows:13

A. Authentic works of Seneca, correctly identified by their titles: Libro primero

de la providencia de Dios [De providentia, I]; Libro primero de la clemencia; Libro
segundo de la clemencia [De clementia, I and II]. Cited hereafter as DPD I, DC I,
DC II.
B. Authentic works of Seneca, but incorrectly titled: Libro segundo de la provid-
encia de Dios [= De constantia sapientis]; Libro de la vida bienaventurada [= De
vita beata, but followed without a break by a version of De otio sapientis];
Libro de las siete artes liberales [= Epistulae morales, lxxxviii]. Cited as DPD II,
DVB, AL
C. Pseudo-Senecan works: Libro de los remedios contra la fortuna [= De remediis
fortuitorum, very commonly ascribed to Seneca]; Libro de las quatro virtudes
[= Martin of Braga, Formula honestae vitae, identified throughout most of
the medieval period as Seneca, De quatuor virtutibus]; Amonestamientos e
doctrinas [= De legalibus institutis, a sentence-collection whose sources
include the pseudo-Senecan Proverbia and De moribus and the De nugis
philosophorum of Caecilius Balbus];14 Dichos de Séneca en el fecho de la
cavallería [excerpts from Vegetius, De re militari]. Cited as DRF, DQV, AyD,
Cav.
128 Medieval Spain

D. Items related to Luca Manelli’s Senecan Compilatio secundum ordinem alpha-

beti: the Copilación [an extensive selection of excerpts from Manelli]; Libro
de las declamaciones [excerpts from the Controversiae of Seneca the Elder,
similarly presented]; Títolo de la amistança e del amigo [a fragmentary
attempt at a fuller version of Manelli]; ‘En qué manera los poetas fingieron
tres hermanas vírgenes. . . ’ [a brief paraphrase of the famous ‘Three Graces’
chapter from Seneca, De beneficiis, I, iii].15 Cited as Cop, DCop, Am, THV.

Table 6.1 Manuscripts of Alonso de Cartagena: Libros de Séneca

A Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 817

B Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 1615
C Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 5568 sc. before July 1454
D Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 6765 sc. before July 1454
E Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 6962 sc. before July 1454
F Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 8188
G Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 8241 sc. before July 1454
H Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 8830 after July 1454
I Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 9180 sc. before July 1454
J Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 10139 sc. before July 1454
K Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 10155
L Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 10199
M Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 12172 16th century
N Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 17798
O Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 17803
P Madrid, Biblioteca del Palacio 11.561
Q Madrid, Biblioteca del Palacio 11.3072 sc. before July 1454
R Escorial, B. del Monasterio L II 15 late 15th century
S Escorial, B. del Monasterio N II 6 1476
T Escorial, B. del Monasterio T III 4
U Escorial, B. del Monasterio T III 5
V Escorial, B. del Monasterio T III 6 1447
W Escorial, B. del Monasterio T III 7 sc. before July 1454*
X Salamanca, B. Universitaria 11.201
Y Salamanca, B. Universitaria 11.318
Z Salamanca, B. Universitaria 11.928
AA Salamanca, B. Universitaria 11.1225
BB Santander, B. Menéndez y Pelayo, 38 sc. before July 1454
CC Sevilla, B. Colombina-Capitular 83-6-10
DD Aix-en Provence, Bibliothèque Méjanes, 1524
EE Lisboa, Biblioteca da Ajuda 46-VIII-1
FF Valladolid: Biblioteca de Santa Cruz, 338

*possibly before 1436

List derived from Karl-Alfred Blüher, Séneca en España; the sigla, used in all subsequent references
here, are my own. Datings are based on internal MS evidence, mainly rubrics referring to Juan II
either as king or as deceased.
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 129

These items occur, variously grouped – just how variously will appear in the
course of this study – in a considerable number of MSS, as well as the succes-
sive editions of the Cinco libros de Séneca printed from 1491 onwards. The list
of thirty-two such copies provided by Blüher and set out in Table 6.1 could
almost certainly be augmented, but it will serve well enough as a basis for sys-
tematizing our knowledge of Cartagena’s Senecan output.16
From rubrics, glosses and prologues in the manuscripts, a point-by-point
reconstruction of much of the history of these versions becomes possible:17

(i) The prologue to DPD I states that Juan II asked for the version of select-
ed excerpts from Manelli’s Compilatio to be made before those of the
other treatises. Cop was unsystematically undertaken, with the selec-
tions appearing ‘non por la horden que ellos estavan escriptos, mas
como a caso vinieron’ (MS D, fol. 2v).
(ii) The colophon following Cop explains that the king also asked Cartagena
to make various additions to Manelli’s glosses. In some manuscripts (A,
D and G, for example) these new glosses are marked with the word
‘Adición’.
(iii) One of the later glosses to Cop – clearly by Cartagena himself, though
not marked as such – refers to the effect of perspective created by the
columns in the cathedral at Córdoba. Juan II and his court spent
almost a month (20 July to 16 August) in that city in 1431, following
the king’s return from the war with Granada.
(iv) A quotation in the gloss to DPD I, vi indicates that Cop with its addition-
al glosses was, by the time this gloss was composed, available to the king.
(v) The prologue to DPD I states that this was the first Senecan treatise
which the king asked Cartagena to translate.
(vi) The same source asserts that Juan II’s military campaigns were ‘noto-
rias a toda Europa e aún a grand parte de África’. Work on this treatise
was finished, then, after the battle of La Higueruela in the Granadine
vega in the spring of 1431.
(vii) In the prologue to DC I, Cartagena refers to the war of 1429 against
Aragon as something which happened ‘poco tiempo ha’.
(viii) Introducing the same work, he explains that since Seneca actually
defines clemency in De clementia, Book II, this latter was the book
which he translated first, leaving DC I (a mere exhortation to virtue)
until later. This order is confirmed by several of the glosses to DC I,
which refer to passages in the text of DC II.
(ix) Another gloss to DC I refers to ‘un cavallero deste regno que solía citar a
Vejecio en latín’, and who ‘poco tiempo ha’ tried to justify an act of
rebellion in those terms: ‘Cuidólo poner en plática, e fallóse mal dello.’
This looks very like a reference to Fernán Pérez de Guzmán (one of the
few Castilian gentry capable of such a quotation), who was arrested on
suspicion of conspiracy on 7 February 1432.
130 Medieval Spain

(x) One of the glosses to DPD II quotes from a gloss to DC II, making the
former translation subsequent at least to DC II, and possibly to DC I as
well. Yet Cartagena seems to have aimed at presenting the DPD and DC
texts as if each pair had been an integrated assignment: in each case, a
single translator’s prologue is followed by the two books, each with its
own thematic introduction. It seems reasonable to conclude that all
four are fairly close in date, and that Don Alonso may have worked
under some day-to-day pressure from his patron as to which book he
should tackle next.
(xi) Similar pressure may have led to the translation of DCop, whose gloss
quotes from ‘vuestro libro de la providencia’ (MS D, fol. 211v). DCop,
then, must have been undertaken as a separate exercise from the earlier
Cop, at a date later than that of DPD I (though possibly earlier than DPD II).
(xii) The prologue to AL mentions that Prince Enrique, still in his niñez, is
studying the Seven Arts. Enrique was born in 1425: this book, then,
can hardly have been translated much earlier than 1434.
(xiii) The gloss to AL quotes from DPD. II: AL must be later.
(xiv) The gloss to DVB quotes from AL: DVB must be later.
(xv) In manuscripts H, P and W the rubric to DVB calls the translator ‘deán
de Santiago, fijo del obispo de Burgos’. The translation must thus be
earlier than July 1435, when don Alonso succeeded his father Pablo de
Santa María in that see.18
(xvi) In May 1434 Cartagena left for Basle as one of the Castilian delegates to
the General Council of the Church.19 His Senecan versions, most of
which appear to belong to a period of day-to-day contact with the king,
are likely to be earlier than that date.
(xvii) At least one, however, is demonstrably later. In manuscript H, whose
DVB rubric names Cartagena as Dean of Santiago, the rubric to AyD
calls him ‘el reverendo señor don Alfonso, obispo de Burgos’ (fol. 283).
This translation, then, must be later than July 1435.20
(xviii) In the early 1440s (probably in or shortly before 1443) Juan II asked
Pero Díaz de Toledo to translate the Proverbia Senecae and De moribus,
but not their most obvious companion-piece, the De quatuor virtutibus.
By far the likeliest reason for this is that he already had a version.
Cartagena’s DQV, then, is probably of an earlier date. It could be very
much earlier.21
(xix) We have no clues to the dating of DRF or Cav. Only the former of these
is glossed.
(xx) Am could be the outcome of an early attempt, soon abandoned, to
translate Manelli’s Compilatio in full, or of a later project for an expand-
ed version of Cop.22 It is unlikely to have been undertaken between
1434 and 1440, when Cartagena was out of the country.
(xxi) Am cannot be later than 1447, the date of manuscript V, in which it
appears.
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 131

These clues would, in the first instance, give us a firm sequence, beginning
very close indeed to the year 1430: Cop, DPD I, DC II, DCI. Close to the DC
items we need to fit in DCop and DPD II, probably in that order; there follow
AL, DVB, and (at some time after July 1435) AyD. Leaving aside Cop, and prob-
ably DCop too (though this latter could notionally have been translated from
either of the two royal manuscripts of Seneca), we might think of all the other
titles in this list as Juan II’s personal selection from his Senecan corpus of the
Escorial Q I 8 tradition. Cartagena, though, would not have been allowed to
take that precious volume with him to Basle. If he completed AyD there, it
must have been from a copy of his own. Indeed, one of his glosses contrasts a
reading ‘en el vuestro libro’ (that is to say, the king’s) with that of ‘otro libro’
(presumably the one Don Alonso had with him).23 Yet this work has glosses of
much the same type and extent as its predecessors, which suggests that it can-
not be widely separated from them in date, or indeed much later than its
objectively- established terminus a quo.
We cannot be as positive even as this in dating DRF or DQV or Cav. The first-
named, however, appears habitually in Latin copies of the Senecan corpus, and
Cartagena does provide glosses for it, albeit rather sketchy ones. It figures,
moreover, in all the main manuscript families of his Libros de Séneca. It is
scarcely plausible, then, to deny DRF its place among his output of the early
1430s. Possibly his glossing of it was curtailed by his imminent departure for
Basle. By contrast, DQV presents much more of a problem. It too could notion-
ally have been taken from the king’s Senecan corpus. But Cartagena could just
as easily have taken it from elsewhere: copies of this ever-popular pseudo-
Senecan work were anything but hard to come by. His version of it bears no
gloss at all in any surviving manuscript; very possibly it never had one. The
work appears only in the fullest sequence of the Libros de Séneca canon, and
might plausibly be regarded as in some sense marginal to the series. But in
what sense, precisely? If we exclude it from the early sequence of Senecan texts
presented to Juan II in the 1430s, and treat it as a late addition, the extreme
timidity and literalness of the actual translation become hard to explain.
A possible solution might be to regard DQV as one of Cartagena’s juvenilia, pre-
dating any of the versions done for Juan II, but copied with them at a much
later stage – perhaps in the early 1440s.24
Cav, similarly unglossed and with a similar distribution among texts of the
Libros de Séneca, would presumably have been added at the same time. Quite
possibly it was while he was abroad that Cartagena had picked up a copy in
which the rare (and, in truth, rather odd) attribution of these Vegetian dicta to
Seneca caught his eye.25 The effect of these additions would have been to
expand the list of titles from ten to twelve – a number which Cartagena seems
to have valued as an expression of wholeness. We might recall that his
Duodenarium, dedicated to Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, was begun in 1442, at
much the same time that the Senecan series was acquiring its final form.26
With some diffidence, then, but with a good deal of certainty over many
132 Medieval Spain

issues, we might reconstruct the chronology of the Libros de Séneca along the
lines of Table 6.2.
Blüher gives details of manuscript contents for all but one of the thirty-two
copies whose existence he records. I have been able to amplify his description
of the Valladolid Santa Cruz manuscript from Alonso Cortés’ 1976 catalogue
and from information supplied by Jesús Rodríguez Velasco.27 I have myself, at
one time or another, examined about half of the copies in the list, and have
found Blüher’s record of them to be, in the main, extremely accurate. An
analysis of contents based on a combination of his findings and my own
makes it possible to distinguish seven different manuscript types. This more
neutral term seems preferable to any reference to manuscript ‘families’,
though some highly provisional inferences about manuscript filiation might
yet be drawn. The general scheme appears in Fig. 6.1.
The first type to be considered, α, presents ten titles in the following order:
DPD I, DPD II, DC I, DC II, DVB, AL, AyD, DRF, Cop, DCop.
The place of DPD at the head of the list is implicit in Cartagena’s own prologue
to that work. The other items do not adhere to the probable order of composi-
tion in the mid 1430s: the Manelli-related texts, for example, come last here.
Yet even that has a deliberate look about it: this seems very likely to have been
the authoritative order for that ten-book series which Almela knew. We might
even, provisionally, think of it as the order in which, at some time in the late
1430s, that series was formally presented to Juan II.
At all events, it was followed in full by at least two manuscripts, listed here as
D and X. Of these, D is plainly executed, and its rubrics mention Juan II as
though he were still alive. Manuscript X (from which Ramón Pousa edited
DRF) is lavishly illustrated for an affluent but apparently non-royal patron,
and omits all glosses, no doubt for fear of spoiling the decorative effect. Three
other copies offer apparently worn-down versions of the series. S, which is late
Table 6.2 Alonso de Cartagena: Libros de Séneca. Chronology

DQV very early, but included in series in or after 1440.

Cop finished summer 1431.
DPD I end 1431–32.
DCop end 1431–32.
DC II, DC I, DPD II 1432.
AL not much earlier than beginning of 1434.
DVB after AL, but earlier than May 1434.
DRF 1434; perhaps April–May.
AyD begun first half of 1434; finished after July 1435; concludes the
series of ten books originally dedicated to Juan II.
Cav sc. translated between 1435 and 1440; added to series (with
DQV) between 1440 and 1443; completes the twelve-book series,
also dedicated to the king.
Am, THV perhaps contemporary with Cop; probably post-1440.
 TYPE d
12 books DVB first.
THV added TYPE e
Tabla.
TYPE a cf. Type, g DVB, AL, AyD
10 books. DPD first. DQV, Cav added DPD I, Cop etc.
TYPE g 1440-43 "5 Books of
MS for Juan II
Lacks_DVB, DRF. Seneca"
1435-40
AddsAm, THV to Cop. Before 1454
DCop can>Cop.
TYPE b AyD, AL at end. Full series
Full series DC before DPD 1443-47 F H O W FF
Full series TYPE ee
DX Burgos Cathedral
AGNQM Various
changes
Full series, DCop> Cop DQV before Cop TYPE dd of order
E BB Various orders
Lacks DCop C (Maluenda)
No Tabla. DCop> DPD I no. 2
S
Lacks Cav Cop (cf.Type g) B
Lacks Am. K EDITIONS
Lacks Cop, DCop DCop >Cop
I Lacks AyD, DRF, 1491-1551 DPD I no. 2
J
Cop, DQV, Cav Cop etc. no. 3
R U
Lacks AyD, DRF, Am, DCop, Cop, all
Cop, DCop displaced. Lacks DQV, AL. DPD I no. 1
Z DCop, Cop, separated. DRF > AyD. DVB no. 3
V (1447) Cav > DCop, Cop EE
T

AyD, AL Lacks DC I, DC II,

displaced. DRF. AyD > AL>
Cop > DCop DCop, Cop > AyD
DD Y

UNCLASSIFIABLE: L: DVB only P: DVB and Walter Burley CC: DRF only AA: DPD I, DPD II, DC I, DC II, DCop, Cop, AyD, DV

Figure. 6.1 Alonso de Cartagena: Libros de Séneca. Transmission and evolution of the texts.

133
134 Medieval Spain

(1476), omits DCop; final items were always at such risk. In I, written much
earlier for Cartagena’s friend, the ‘good Count’ of Haro, both DCop and Cop
are missing. The Salamanca copy Z omits everything after AL, thus creating a
volume entirely composed of genuine Senecan writings – a notable feat of dis-
crimination, if we could be certain that it was deliberately done.
The distinctive feature of our second manuscript-type β is the sequence: DC
I, DC II, DPD I, DPD II . . . It is represented by a single surviving copy, C, though
we have good evidence that at least one more existed. MS 7432 of the
Biblioteca Nacional, which includes Cartagena’s Genealogia regum Hispaniae,
also provides a late fifteenth-century note on the author’s life and works. This
lists his Senecan translations as follows:

duos libros de clemencia, et duos de preheminencia [sc. providentia], et

unum de vita beata, alium quoque de septem liberalibus artibus, et alium
de proverbiis senece, librum quoque admonitionum, et alium de remediis
contra fortuna, atque vero de diversis tractatibus, qui sunt ix libri in uno
volumine.

After reference to his other writings, the note concludes: ‘Omnia vero predicta
volumina reposita sunt in libraria eclesie burgensis, translata et scripta post
obitum eius.’28
There are, of course, ten books listed, not nine. But Cartagena never did
translate the Proverbia Senecae, and that in the present context is probably no
more than an alternative title for AyD (‘librum quoque admonitionum’). By
contrast, ‘de diversis tractatibus’ here could be meant to cover DCop as well as
Cop (the demarcation between these two is not clearly made in all manu-
scripts). What the note does tell us for certain is that at some time after
Cartagena’s death in 1456 a manuscript with nine (or perhaps all ten) Senecan
versions was copied and deposited in Burgos Cathedral, and that in this copy –
presumably the same which by 1488 someone had stolen from the Capilla de
la Visitación29 – DC I and DC II preceded DPD I and DPD II. Manuscript C con-
tains just these four items in that order. Its owners in the 1490s – and possibly
much earlier, for a rubric here calls Juan II ‘nuestro señor el rrey’ – were the
Maluenda family, distant relatives of the translator.30 There is thus clear evi-
dence of a distinctive textual ordering of the ten-book series, current in the
Burgos area.
The four manuscripts of the γ type follow the α tradition in beginning with
DPD and DC. They depart from it in four distinctive ways. In all four copies
DVB and DRF are omitted; in all of them AyD precedes AL. In three of the four
DCop precedes Cop, and in three again (though not the same three) the
Manelli-derived Am and THV also appear. The ordering of all the titles after
DPD and DC is subject to a good deal of variation. The best-organized and, one
suspects, the original presentation is that of E, an opulently written copy on
vellum, which follows these four opening items with DCop, Cop and the other
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 135

Manelli-related pieces, ending with AyD and AL. If Am was, in fact, a late
attempt to render a section of Manelli’s Compilatio, its appearance in these
manuscripts must be due to someone fairly close to the translator. One
becomes curious, then, to know more about the clearly wealthy but anony-
mous patron who paid for E.
The volume was read attentively: marginal ‘Nota’ marks abound, but the
one overt clue to its ownership is a seventeenth-century signature, ‘Pedro de
Villena’ on fol. 279v. A unique instance in which a word occurring in the body
of the text has been illuminated – the word ‘Príncipe’ in the prologue to DC I
(fol. 65r) – prompts further speculation. Could this book have been made for
Juan II’s heir, Prince Enrique, and passed from him to his favourite, Juan
Pacheco, future Marquis of Villena? A gift of this sort to Enrique would have
made good political sense in 1443–44, when he and Pacheco were being
coaxed into alliance with King Juan against the dominant pro-Aragonese fac-
tion. So would Cartagena’s involvement, for his old associate the king’s
Relator, Fernán Díaz de Toledo, was a key figure in these overtures. By 1445,
though, relations between Enrique and his father were once more under
strain.31 The narrow time- frame thus defined comes at just the right moment.
Cartagena would have had time, following his return from Basle in 1440, to
work once again on Manelli, while leaving long enough for V, whose contents
already reflect some departure from the original γ sequence, to be copied by
the date which it bears (All Hallows Eve 1447). Rubrics in both E and J imply-
ing that both manuscripts were written in Juan II’s lifetime fill out the picture
of a manuscript-type closely concentrated in the decade following 1443.32
The δ manuscript-type may well have been in existence already. Three fea-
tures mark it off from the α group. DVB is now transposed from fifth to first
place, notwithstanding Cartagena’s own clear insistence on the priority of
DPD I. The series of texts is regularly preceded by a fairly detailed table of con-
tents. And at the end, two further treatises now appear: DQV and Cav. It is the
last of these features which bears upon the issue of dating.
If, as suggested above, the presence of DQV among Cartagena’s Senecan ver-
sions was relevant to its omission from Juan II’s request for further Senecan
translations from Pero Díaz de Toledo, then the δ type must have been formed
before that request was made. It need not have happened as early as the initial
rubric of W implies, in presenting the entire collection as ‘los libros e tratados
de seneca que fizo el dean de Santiago’.33 The argument from rubrics for
regarding AyD at least as later than Cartagena’s elevation to the see of Burgos
in July 1435 still stands. Indeed, the contrasting rubrics to that item and to
DVB which are the essential evidence for this are supplied by H, itself a manu-
script of the δ type. The scribe, or more likely the rubricator, of W was probably
misled by a similar rubric to the opening treatise, DVB into thinking that the
‘Dean of Santiago’ reference applied to the whole sequence. We might think,
then, of 1440–43 (less probably, of 1435–43) as the period within which this
arrangement of the translations was formed. Among the δ copies, W and BB
136 Medieval Spain

(on the evidence of their rubrics) would have been written while Juan II
was still alive, though H (again going by rubric evidence) has to be seen as
later.34 But the impression of a close-knit group of copies is confirmed by the
stability of the twelve-book content in all seven manuscripts of the δ group.
Manuscripts F, H, O, W, and FF contain all twelve. So does BB, though it dis-
places DQV; in K eleven items are in place but Cav has been lost from its final
position.
It is not wholly clear whether the three manuscripts grouped together here
as the sub-type δδ actually form such a group, or whether they are merely
examples of δ copies which happen to exhibit further changes of content.
Their relation to the δ series is clear from their habit of putting DVB first, but
all of them differ from it in omitting the table of contents. It is not impos-
sible, of course, that this should have happened independently in three sepa-
rate cases. However, another common feature of these three, the placing of
DCop before Cop, does suggest contamination from the γ type, itself in other
respects closer to the ten-book series. In their other features the δδ manu-
scripts differ quite markedly among themselves. Y omits both books of DC,
together with DRF, reordering some of the other titles. R offers no texts of
AyD, DRF or Cop or of either of the two late additions, DQV and Cav; the result
is a volume– possibly incomplete– of rather adventitiously authentic Senecan
content.
In T the missing items are DQV and AL; there are various changes of order,
and some sentences from Quintus Curtius appear on the final folio. But this is
a copy with other features of interest.35 Impey’s provisional study of textual
variants tended to range it with S, a manuscript of the α type, in contrast with
others of the ε series (A, G, R, U), and even with D and H from the δ group. We
shall find, too, that its version of DRF associates it with the α texts. Its close-
ness to these may also reflect a closer relation with texts made for royal
patrons, for T is annotated– and was thus probably owned– by Isabel the
Catholic. Even so, it has features (DVB in first position; the presence of Cav)
which range it decisively with the twelve-book and not the ten- book series. It
cannot itself be identical with the copy of that series that Isabel’s father, Juan II
possessed; its contents are too disrupted for that. But it might well derive from
such a copy, and its existence does tend to confirm that all twelve books had at
some stage been presented to the king.
The five manuscripts of the ε type offer much more radical changes. The
series is cut to five titles: DVB, AL, AyD, DPD I, and finally (under the title
‘segundo libro de la providencia de Dios’) Cop, running on into DCop and
THV. The last-named (a very short item) is always liable to disappear. But the
main order remains constant in manuscripts A, G, M, N, Q, and all the printed
editions. The title Cinco libros de Séneca, given to the whole collection in its
first printing (Seville: Meinhard Ungut and Stanislao Polono, 1491) reflects
the ε group’s false rubrication. There are various ways in which this manu-
script-type could have originated.
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 137

It could, for example, be related to type β. The Maluenda copy, C, presents

(albeit in an altered order) the first four items of the α series. Let us suppose
that a copyist – perhaps engaged in completing the sequence of texts on the
Maluendas’ behalf – began a separate volume with the items which follow in
α. The first three of these pieces (DVB, AL and AyD) would be those with which
the ε copies begin. The subsequent switch of attention back to DPD I would
come later: it would make sense only when the manuscript thus created, or
one derived from it was copied anew by a scribe who had DPD I to hand from
some other source. Why he should then stray so promptly away from the trad-
itional DPD II is less obvious. Possibly that did not happen until a later copy
still was made. But the process as a whole seems credible enough. On the other
hand, the ε manuscripts could be derived from the δ group, widely copied, and
beginning with DVB. This is the longest of the translated treatises; after finish-
ing it, a copyist might very well have looked for something shorter. The next
really short piece in the δ ordering is, in fact, AL; AyD, similarly brief, follows
after that. Copying this in its turn, our scribe would be faced by DRF, and by
the recollection that there was a much more substantial Senecan work on atti-
tudes to fortune: the text known to him as De la providencia de Dios. It would be
perfectly logical, then, for him to copy from his δ type original the first book so
entitled. It still has to be explained why, after that, he should have turned his
attention to Cop. Had he run out of energy? Was he running short of paper? Or
did he simply judge that an item like this – a handy Senecan anthology – was
what his readers really wanted at this point? The decision seems marginally
less abrupt in such a case than in the alternative account of a scribe who had
just gone to a different manuscript precisely in order to find Seneca on
Providence. But it remains as much of a puzzle as ever. At all events, this was
the item which, in this account of what occurred, our scribe now set himself to
copy.
In either version of events, the final step in the evolution of type ε belongs
to the rubricator. Having supplied the first book on Providence with its title,
nothing could be more natural than to call the book which followed it ‘segun-
do libro de la providencia de Dios’. Whatever form the process took, this final
stage had been completed before Juan II died in July 1454, as the titles given to
the king in rubrics to Q and G confirm.36 From that point of view, an explana-
tion in terms of a single set of scribal moves might be preferable to one which
had to invoke several successive acts of copying. On balance, then, it makes
much sense to regard the ε manuscripts as deriving from the δ series (as shown
in Fig. 6.2 (a)).
Or rather, it would do so but for the presence in ε of the THV fragment. This
little item is not shared with copies of the δ type, but only with those of the γ
group. Yet these cannot have been the source for ε, for they lack DVB altogether.
Notionally this might lead us to think of γ, δ and ε as having a common source,
now lost, perhaps in the form of a single manuscript, which had the following
features:
138 Medieval Spain

(a) DVB as the first text copied;

(b) DQV and Cav, making a twelve-book sequence;
(c) THV (perhaps as a final addition to the Cop/DCop material, rather than a
separate item);
(d) Am (in fairly close association with Cop/DCop.

Of these, as Fig. 6.2 (b) makes clear, the γ group of texts would take over (c) and
(d) only, the δ group (a) and (b), and the ε series (a) and (c). The thing is not
impossible, though the time- frame, following Cartagena’s return from abroad
looks a little narrow. But an explanation along these lines does seem to be at
odds with the stable and authoritative pattern of δ as the standard twelve-
book series, and with the distinctive profile of the γ texts, which would seem
to link them more closely with the ten-book series, α.
There would be nothing very extraordinary about the obvious alternative:
that the ε manuscripts – or, more plausibly, an immediate ancestor of theirs
within the δ tradition – consciously appropriated THV from a γ copy. The
‘Three Graces’ passage had an inexhaustible fascination for early Renaissance
readers, and something of this might have been felt among the Castilian let-
tered minority too. That little piece of textual enterprise, however, would have
to be squared with something else: the supine acceptance of what ε presents as
the ‘segundo libro de la providencia’. Once that misidentification had been
made, nobody seems to have noticed the difference. The ‘five books’ in this
form were copied – and printed – time and time again.
There is little that needs to be added regarding the manuscripts here
assigned to the εε type. They vary the order but not the contents of the ε
series; about other aspects of textual history they remain uninformative.
Much the same might be said of those copies which defy classification
because they contain single treatises only. By contrast, the Salamancan manu-
script AA – an intriguing blend of α and γ elements – could well repay a closer
look.
From the whole array of manuscripts some fairly clear conclusions can be
drawn. Though Cartagena’s originals went back at least to the start of the pre-
vious decade, our earliest datable copies come from the 1440s. We might think
of the α type as being established in its definitive form a little in advance of
that decade, with the twelve-book δ series emerging in the period 1440–43,
and the γ type in the mid 1440s. Type ε would perhaps have developed a little
later, but was in existence by 1454, before either Juan II’s or Cartagena’s death.
Copies continued to be made in all these traditions for several decades there-
after. The editions and the very late manuscript M are evidence of a readership
that extended well beyond 1500.37 We have good grounds for thinking of an
active and widespread interest in Seneca, established among Castilians in the
mid-fifteenth century, sustained for at least two generations after that, and
further prolonged by reissues in print. Any coherent stemma embracing the
thirty-two manuscripts listed here would add appreciably to that number: a
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 139

possible fifty copies would be nothing out of the way. For writings of this kind
in a single country over so short a period that is an impressive figure.
Yet the interest thus reflected was more concerned to consolidate tradition-
al knowledge than to make new discoveries. Those few manuscripts which fil-
ter out apocryphal items to give a more authentic Senecan content may owe
their existence to specific minority concerns, but are likelier to have been the
products of pure chance. The overall effect is, rather, to reinforce that ‘mixed’
character which the image of Seneca had borne throughout the Middle Ages:
known from an alternation of genuine and spurious texts, of complete treatis-
es and anthologies, of florilegium and farrago. It was an image which dove-
tailed readily enough with the continuing didactic preoccupations of
medieval scholarship; only the degree of penetration that it now achieved
among the vernacular-reading laity was new.
Behind that achievement one discerns, at every turn, the impulse furnished
by prestigious patronage. It was royal sponsorship which had set the whole
enterprise in motion (and Queen Isabel’s copy, R, implies some continuity of
interest here). One of our copies (I) was made especially for the Count of Haro;
the Osuna manuscript (K) might be presumed to have links with the Marquis
of Santillana. These, indeed, are names which we might expect to encounter
here. Opulently-worked texts like E and X suggest the involvement of other
magnates. If E was, as has been suggested, a present offered to Prince Enrique
in or around 1443, and passed on by him to Juan Pacheco, the political, cul-
tural and personal narratives of Juan II’s reign are brought momentarily very
close together. By contrast, the fact that X – possibly from aesthetic motives –
was left unglossed reminds us that manuscript owners were not necessarily
manuscript readers: some were simply investing in fine art. In the Burgos area,
Cartagena himself as Bishop and local eminence promoted a lasting concern
for Seneca, some of whose evidences we have seen: Almela, the Maluenda
family, the Cathedral copy and its thief. In this distribution Seneca was some-
thing more than an authority: he was an authority’s authority.
The initial impulse of such sponsorship was towards various models of com-
pleteness. Juan II, pleased at first with generous selection from Manelli,
sought a fuller, ten-book Seneca; Cartagena filled it out to twelve, in which
form again the king was pleased to receive it. That, at least, is the sequence of
events which one deduces as most probable, especially in the light of the pro-
logue to DPD I, and it is illustrated in two possible models in Figs 6.2 (a) and
6.2 (b). (The possibility of a stemma, as in Fig. 6.2 (c), in which existing ten-
book copies derive from an original twelve-book state also remains theoret-
ically open.) In a minor way, even the γ texts reflect an attempt to achieve a
fuller treatment of Manelli. But as time went on, it was incompleteness which
came to prevail. In every manuscript type except the five-book series, there are
volumes whose copyists have opted to omit one or more items. The inclina-
tion of both scribes and readers towards shorter and more manageable vol-
umes is everywhere evident. The family piety of the Maluendas (unless their
140 Medieval Spain

(a) Cartagena in Cartagena in (b) Cartagena in

early 1440s early 1430s Cartagena in
early 1430s
early 1440s

α α
(10 books) (10 books)
(DPD first) (DPD first)

β γ δ β φ
(No DVB; (12 books) (12 books)
THV, Am (DVB first; (DVB first;
DCop > Cop) DQV, Cav) DQV, Cav, THV, Am)

δδ ε δ γ ε
(5 books) (DVB first; (THV, Am; (5 books)
(DVB first; THV) DQV, Cav) no DVB; (DVB first;
DCop > Cop) THV )

Editions εε
δδ Editions εε

(c) Cartagena
1430-1443

µ
(12 books; DVB first;
DQV, Cav, THV, AM)

α δ γ ε
(12 books; (DVB first; (THV, Am; (5 books)
DVB first) DQV, Cav ) no DVB; (DVB first;
DCop >Cop) THV )

β δδ Editions εε

Figure 6.2 Alternatives for the stemma of Alonso de Cartagena, Libros de Séneca (illus-
trating possible relations of manuscript types).
(a) Ten-book series precedes 12 books: repeated contaminations.
This is the pattern most obviously predicated by broad comparisons of manuscript
content, as pursued in the present study.
(b) Ten-book series precedes 12 books: minimal contamination.
This scheme reduces contamination between the various MS types to a single
instance: the input of γ into δδ. It postulates a lost 12-book type, Φ.
(c) Twelve-book series precedes 10 books.
Again this postulates a lost 12-book state of the text (µ). It seems, on balance, the
unlikeliest of the suggested schemes.
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 141

surviving volume was only one of a fuller set copied for them) was content
with just four of their famous relative’s Senecan versions. The γ series regularly
omits two of them. And it was from the most imperfect series of all – the ε type,
with its five books and clumsy mistitling – that the first printers took that ver-
sion of Seneca which would be authoritative for most Castilian readers
throughout most of the sixteenth century.
Few of these conclusions are likely to be overturned by more detailed text-
ual recension. But in order to deploy that process to best effect we need to
identify those points in the overall range of our manuscripts on which it can
most productively be concentrated. To arrive at any such assessment we need
schemes of comparison at a closer level of focus than has so far been exploited.
The Libros de Séneca, indeed, do not leave us short of occasions for such
schemes. There is the whole matter of rubrication, on whose evidence the
present study has drawn in a rather sporadic fashion only. The disposition of
material in Cop (over 120 excerpts, with more than twice that number of gloss-
es), or in DCop (10 extracts; 72 glosses), the nine chapters, 160 or more apho-
risms, and score or so of glosses in AyD all offer rich and complex matrices for
comparing one manuscript version with another.38 Even among the continu-
ously-written treatises, glossing and chapter-divisions afford prima facie classi-
fications in plenty. On the basis of data gathered over many years, and chiefly
for other purposes, I find myself ill-situated when it comes to offering any
comprehensive view of this ‘middle-level’ evidence. Two examples, though,
may provide some insight into how it might be put to work.
Apart from β, where it does not figure at all, AL appears in a twelve-chapter
arrangement in all the main manuscript types. But at least three copies (F, I,
and O) present an eleven-chapter division of this treatise. F and O are both δ
twelve-book copies; I, disconcertingly, is an α manuscript. But before any ten-
tative stemma could be drawn or redrawn on this basis, the detail would have
to be checked across the entire range of copies. My own partial evidence sug-
gests that the twelve-chapter AL is standard at least among ε-type copies, but
more remains to be done elsewhere. It would be necessary too to check that
the eleven-chapter variant is actually the same in each case; the mere omis-
sion of a chapter-rubric, though hard to get out of a tradition once it has
occurred, is something which can get into different traditions with relative
ease. One would also want to enquire whether manuscript I, for example, had
other features which seemed to associate it with the δ type. (In fact, as we shall
see, it does.) The point of these rather elementary considerations is that each
piece of evidence of this sort furnishes only a single cross-bearing within an
intricate task of overall plotting; it does not, in and of itself, set a specific
course for us.
That remains true even in the case of more major contrasts. One such is pro-
vided by the various texts of DRF, which appears in two versions, recognizably
of the same translation, but separated by more than those omissions, amplifi-
cations, and errors which would appear to be normal within the process
142 Medieval Spain

of manuscript transmission.39 Ramón Pousa’s published text from the Salamanca

copy X is more explicit and less epigrammatic than its Latin original; it
tends towards a plain and naturalized Castilian prose style. It amplifies, articu-
lates, and sometimes rationalizes the original content, along the familiar
lines of much medieval translation practice, to the relative detriment of char-
acteristically Senecan rhetorical effects. That poignant brevity in Seneca’s per-
suasive style to which Cartagena elsewhere testifies so emphatically is much
more evident in the version provided by manuscripts F and O.40 In its respon-
siveness to the specific effects of the Latin, this strongly suggests the later
remodelling of a more passive and tentative earlier version. But that is quite
certainly not what happened. Time and again the F and O version reflects the
lectio difficilior, in ways which establish X as its derivative, rather than its
source.
All of which suggests another account of the two. As an accomplished
Latinist like Cartagena worked from his Latin original – especially if he did so
by vocalizing and dictating a text – he could well have produced as a first draft
something very like the DRF of F and O. But for readers who were less steeped
in that cultural background – possibly Juan II; certainly those vassals of his for
whose use these translations were intended; clearly the noble owner of X (who
could do without the glosses, but not without the elaborate illuminations) –
for all these, a ‘public’ DRF also had to be prepared. The ‘private’ version, clos-
er to the Latin, would not have disappeared, however, but was made available
from time to time (perhaps by the translator himself) to such readers as were
equal to it.
So far, so good, but again the distribution across our manuscript types is less
straightforward than might have been hoped. Among the α series, developed
under royal patronage, the ‘public’ DRF predominates, but manuscript I once
again proves the exception. Among δ and δδ copies, the ‘public’ version is also
represented (by H and T), but it is the ‘private’ version which is commonest.
Provisional explanations can be suggested. If there was, as has been argued, a
‘royal’ tradition of the twelve- book δ series too, then it was reasonable that the
‘public’ DRF should continue to figure there: hence H and T. But so far as his
own purposes were concerned, Cartagena, returning from Basle, might well
have allowed the ‘private’ DRF to circulate, as capturing rather more of the
Seneca he knew. Whether in so doing he would have been acknowledging
some advance in cultural competence among the Castilian nobility over the
previous few years is an intriguing question still. Certainly it was this more
demanding version which found its way into the hands of his friend Iñigo
López de Mendoza (manuscript K), and – here it begins to be possible to
account for I – into those of another literary-minded friend, the Count of Haro.
Even so, I remains an anomaly within the α group. It could even be a copy
made within the δ tradition, embodying Cartagena’s ‘private’ DRF text, and
restoring DPD I to first place in the series, because Haro (or whatever copyist
was working for him) knew enough about it to do so. Or it could be the key to
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 143

a totally revised stemma – as in Fig. 6.2 (c) – in which the twelve-book type of
manuscript would be assumed as the origin of all the others. About that, on
the basis of the evidence reviewed here, one could scarcely hope to pro-
nounce, though it seems, on balance, improbable. But already certain copies –
I, H, E,T (and perhaps, for different reasons, X, Z, and AA ) – begin to assume a
special interest.
That interest, indeed, extends beyond the codicological and textual
domain: it has implications too for the history and theory of translation. DRF
is only one among several instances of ‘double translation’ on Cartagena’s
part. Sections of Manelli’s Compilatio that are rendered as part of the abridged
version in Cop also appear, differently translated, in Am. Sentences in AyD
which derive from DQV are rendered independently in the course of each
work. There is evidence too, though it goes beyond the textual tradition of the
Libros de Séneca themselves, that AyD as a whole may well have existed in two
distinct but closely-related versions. I have dealt elsewhere with some of the
issues with which these examples confront us.41 Yet all such assessments of a
translator whose significance in the history of translation must by now be self-
evident have to remain provisional until the whole body of textual evidence
has been set in order.42 Towards that still formidable task the present essay
offers a preliminary clearing of the ground.43

Notes
1 Ramón F. Pousa, ‘Libro que fizo Séneca a su amigo Galión contra las adversidades de la
Fortuna. Versión inédita de Alonso de Cartagena según el MS 607 de la Biblioteca
Universitaria de Salamanca’, Escorial, 10 (1943), 73–82. The MS is now numbered as
11.201. See also now Tomás González Rolán and Pilar Saquero, ‘El Epitoma rei mili-
taris de Flavio Vegecio traducido al castellano en el siglo XV: edición de los Dichos de
Séneca en el acto de la caballería’, Miscelánea Medieval Murciana, 14 (1987–88), 3–150.
2 Karl Alfred Blüher, Séneca en España: Investigaciones sobre la recepción de Séneca en
España desde el siglo XIII hasta el siglo XVII (Madrid: Gredos, 1983; 1st [German] edn:
Munich: Francke, 1969), pp. 133–4. For Blüher’s textual reliance on Eguía’s edition
(Alcalá de Henares, 1530) of the Cinco libros de Séneca see pp. 135–43 passim; where
items do not appear among the Cinco libros, his preferred source is MS Madrid,
Biblioteca Nacional 6962 (ibid., p. 140).
3 Olga Tudorica Impey, ‘Alfonso de Cartagena, traductor de Séneca y precursor del
humanismo español’, Prohemio, 3 (1972), 473–94, at p. 475. See Carlos Cabrera,
‘Cartagena, traductor de Séneca. Aproximación al estudio del manuscrito escuri-
alense N ii 6’, Studia Zamorensia, 6 (1987), 7–25.
4 Nicholas G. Round, ‘Alonso de Cartagena and John Calvin as interpreters of Seneca’s
De clementia’, in Atoms, ‘Pneuma’, and Tranquility: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in
European Thought, ed. Margaret J. Osler (New York: Cambridge U.P., 1991), pp. 67–88.
Impey found that N II 6 emerged from a comparison of three manuscripts as the likeli-
est to yield ‘la más correcta lección’ (p. 475); my choice of T III 6 was based on its early
date of 1447, combined with a generally coherent and intelligible state of the text.
144 Medieval Spain

5 Jeremy N. H. Lawrance, ‘Humanism in the Iberian Peninsula’, in The Impact of

Humanism in Western Europe, ed. Anthony Goodman and Angus MacKay (London:
Longman, 1990), pp. 220–58, at pp. 226–7; Louise Fothergill-Payne, Seneca and
‘Celestina’ (Cambridge: U.P., 1998).
6 See, for example, Lawrance, ‘The rubrics in MS S of the Libro de buen amor’, in The
Medieval Mind: Hispanic Studies in Honour of Alan Deyermond, ed. Ian Macpherson
and Ralph Penny (London: Tamesis, 1997), pp. 223–52; also his contribution to
‘Forum: Letters on “Manuscript Culture in Medieval Spain” ‘, La Córonica, 27, 1
(Fall 1998), 123–244, at pp. 149–61. The whole of this discussion, based on respon-
ses to John Dagenais, The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the ‘Libro de
buen amor’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U.P., 1994) is of great interest.
7 See Joseph Bédier, ‘La tradition manuscrite du Lai de l’Ombre. Réflexions sur l’art
d’éditer les anciens textes’, Romania, 54 (1928), 161–96 ; 321–56.
8 That indeed is the position which Dagenais’ book adopts in principle and applies in
a practice which is anything but simplistic. The objections outlined here, however,
retain their force.
9 Germán Orduna, ‘La collatio externa de los códices como procedimiento auxiliar
para fijar el stemma codicum. Crónicas del Canciller Ayala’, Incipit, 2 (1982), 3–53.
10 For the account of Latin manuscripts which follows see Round, ‘Alonso de
Cartagena and John Calvin. . . ’, pp. 68–70, and references given there.
11 See Round, ‘Alonso de Cartagena and John Calvin. . . ’, pp. 70–1. For the date of the
subsequent commission to Pero Díaz see Round, Libro llamado ‘Fedrón’: Plato’s
‘Phaedo’ translated by Pero Díaz de Toledo (London: Tamesis, 1993), pp. 99–100. The
translator, still a licenciado in late 1440, is universally referred to as doctor in rubrics
to the manuscripts of his Proverbios de Séneca. That work, itself extensively glossed,
clearly antedates his other gloss to Santillana’s Proverbios (late 1445), which quotes
it. Several copies of Proverbios de Séneca have markedly Aragonese linguistic features,
tending to associate its early diffusion with the period when supporters of the
Infantes de Aragón held sway at Juan II’s court (May 1441 to June 1444).
Discounting early and late phases of acute political tension within this period, we
might think of this lengthy and erudite work as being completed at some date early
in 1443.
12 Diego Rodríguez de Almela, Valerio de las historias de los hechos de España (Madrid:
Blas Román, 1793), p. 328; on Seneca see p. 321.
13 The classification here is adapted from that of Fothergill-Payne, Seneca and
‘Celestina’, pp. 153–4, in the light of details supplied by Blüher, Séneca en España,
pp. 135–41.
14 See Blüher, Séneca en España, pp. 68n. and 140–1; Publilii Syri Mimi Sententiae, ed.
Otto Friedrich (Berlin: T. Greiber, 1880), pp. 10–11, 245–60; Caecilii Balbi de nugis
philosophorum quae supersunt, ed. E. Woelfflin (Basle, 1855).
15 On this much-quoted passage see Edgar Wind: Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), pp. 26–35.
16 María Morrás, ‘Repertorio de obras, MSS y documentos de Alfonso de Cartagena (ca.
1384–1456)’, Boletín Bibliográfico de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval, 5
(1991), 213–48, at p. 222 offers a list with very minor variations, whose provisional
character she herself acknowledges (p. 217); see also her ‘Sic et non: En torno a Alfonso
de Cartagena y los studia humanitatis’, Euphrosyne, n.s. 23 (1995), 333–46, at p. 344.
17 Sources for the following are to be found in Blüher, Séneca en España, pp. 141–3 (nn.
92 and 93) and Round, ‘Alonso de Cartagena and John Calvin. . . ’, pp. 70–2, with
further details derived from original manuscripts as indicated.
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 145

18 6 July was the date of the papal provision to that effect (see Luciano Serrano, Los
conversos D. Pablo de Santa María y D. Alfonso de Cartagena (Madrid: CSIC, 1942), p.
106). Any time taken for the news to arrive in Castile would defer that terminus ad
quem, though probably not for much more than a couple of weeks.
19 Serrano, Los conversos. . . , p. 135
20 Serrano, Los conversos. . . , p. 106 observes that episcopal appointments were nor-
mally cleared in advance with the Castilian Crown. This could have created a brief
period of uncertainty, during which it would not have been entirely clear which
title ought to be given to Don Alonso. But at least one of the glosses to AyD (below,
n. 23) would be readily compatible with his having finished work on this book
while abroad.
21 For the dating of Pero Díaz’s work see above, n. 11. For the close association of De
quatuor virtutibus with the Proverbia and De moribus see Round, ‘The medieval repu-
tation of the Proverbia Senecae: A partial survey based on recorded MSS’, Proceedings
of the Royal Irish Academy, 72, C, 5 (1972), 103–51, at pp. 132–3. For the presumed
early date of the DQV translation see below, n. 24.
22 The latter view seems marginally more likely (see Round, ‘ “Perdóneme Séneca”:
the translational practices of Alonso de Cartagena’, BHS [Glasgow], 75 (1998),
17–29, at p. 26). Fothergill-Payne, Séneca and ‘Celestina’, pp. 42–4 presents this work
as a ‘pseudo-Senecan treatise in its own right, its translation motivated by an inter-
est in issues of friendship and love’. It is not strictly the case, though, that ‘the Título
circulated separately’ from the rest of Cartagena’s Senecan output (p. 42).
23 Gloss to AyD, III, 8 (MS E, fol. 270v)
24 See the case made for this view in Round, ‘ “Perdóneme Séneca”. . . ’, p. 26.
25 Lawrance, ‘On fifteenth-century vernacular Spanish humanism’, in Medieval and
Renaissance Studies in Honour of Robert Brian Tate (Oxford: Dolphin, 1986), pp.
63–79, at pp. 68–9 places Cav in a context of many classical works on war and strat-
egy, translated into Castilian in this period. These include Fray Alonso de San
Cristóbal’s translation of Vegetius, another Vegetian epitome associated with
Enrique de Villena, and a selection of Dichos de Quinto Curcio (copied with
Cartagena’s Seneca in MS I of our listing here). See further González Rolán and
Saquero (above, n. 1), and on Vegetian translations generally, P. E. Russell, ‘The
medieval Castilian translation of Vegetius, Epitoma de rei militaris: an introduction’,
in Spain and its Literature: Essays in Memory of E. Allison Peers, ed. Ann L. Mackenzie
(Liverpool: UP, 1997), pp. 49–63.
26 See Gerard Breslin, ‘The Duodenarium of Alonso de Cartagena: a brief report on the
manuscripts and contents’, La Córonica, 18. 1 (Fall 1989), 90–102, at p. 92. Though
purporting to answer twelve questions posed by Fernán Pérez, the work in its sur-
viving form addresses only four.
27 María de las Nieves Alonso Cortés, Catálogo de los manuscritos de la Biblioteca de Santa
Cruz (Valladolid: Universidad, 1976), pp. 270–1.
28 De actibus reverendissimi in Christo patris et domini Alfonsi de Cartagena episcopi
Burgensis, MS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 7432, fols 89–92, at fols 89v, 90r.
29 Francisco Cantera Burgos, Alvar García de Santa María: Historia de la Judería de Burgos
y de sus conversos más egregios (Madrid: CSIC, 1952), p. 438.
30 On fol. 1r Antonio de Maluenda recorded the births, between 1490 and 1513, of his
three sons and a grandson. Morrás, ‘Repertorio. . . ’, p. 223 notes that the arms
borne by the Maluendas, as described by Cantera Burgos (Alvar García. . . , pp. 398,
408 n. 29), differed from the Santa María device, which appears in the decoration of
MS C. She suggests that C might actually be the Capilla de la Visitación copy. It is
146 Medieval Spain

not certain, though, that this Antonio de Maluenda belonged to either of the
branches whose arms Cantera Burgos describes (see Alvar García. . . , p. 404). Nor is it
clear why a book illegally abstracted from Burgos Cathedral should have been cho-
sen for such ‘family bible’ use. In any event, the Cathedral volume contained at
least nine Senecan items; C, with only four, cannot be the same.
31 Round, The Greatest Man Uncrowned: a Study of the Fall of Don Alvaro de Luna
(London: Tamesis, 1985), p. 208 (see too Pero Carrillo de Huete, Crónica del
Halconero de Juan II, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1946), pp.
439–56); also pp. 9–10.
32 E, fol. 1r [rubric to DPD I]: ‘por mandado del muy alto príncipe e muy poderoso rrey
e señor nuestro señor el rrey de Castilla e de León, don Johan el segundo’; J, fol. 142r
[rubric at end of DCop]: ‘por mandado del muy alto príncipe e muy poderoso rey e
señor nuestro señor el rey’.
33 W, fol. 1r: ‘Aqui comiença la tabla de los libros e tratados de seneca que fizo el dean
de santiago con su glosa’. Contrast the implications of H, fol. 261r [AyD]: ‘el rrev-
erendo señor don alfonso obispo de burgos’ and fol. 3r [DVB]: ‘Aqui comiença un
maravilloso tractado , el qual conpuso e ordeno el sabio seneca para pro comun de
los que en esta vida bebimos, el qual llamo en latin bita beata e aqui presente mente
comiença el prologo que fizo el dean de santiago don alfonso fijo del obispo de
Butgos, don pablo.’
34 W, fol. 56r [DPD I]: ‘nuestro señor el rey don Juan el virtuoso rey de Castilla’; BB, fol.
1r: ‘por mandado de nuestro señor el rey don Juan el segundo’; contrast H, fol. 261r:
‘por mandado del rrey don Iohan que aya santa gloria’.
35 See Impey, ‘Alonso de Cartagena. . . ’, p. 475 (the distinctiveness of T is further con-
firmed by González Rolán and Saquero, ‘El Epitoma rei militaris. . . ’, pp. 126–7); on
DRF see below, pp.141–2. For Queen Isabel’s note on fol. 69r see Julián Zarco
Cuevas, Catálogo de los MSS castellanos de la Real Biblioteca de El Escorial, 3 vols
(Madrid: Imprenta Helénica, 1926–29), II, 391.
36 Q, fol. 88v [rubric to DPD I]: ‘trasladado de latín en lenguaje castellano por manda-
do del muy alto príncipe e muy poderoso rrey e señor nuestro señor el rrey don Juan
de Castilla e de León el segundo’; similar wording in G, fol. 112r.
37 A majority of datable copies seem to come from Juan II’s reign. But since rubrics refer-
ring to him as if still alive may not always have been updated in copies made later, it is
possible that the datings offered in Table 6.1 above may be skewed towards a some-
what earlier distribution than actually obtained. Some manuscripts, certainly, are
from relatively late in the fifteenth century, and others were clearly still being read
then.
38 Their promise, though, is inconsistently fulfilled. The contents of AyD remain, in
fact, uninformatively stable across the range of manuscripts; by contrast, the vary-
ing contents of Cop in D (an α copy, E (γ), F (δ) and A, G (both ε) suggest, fascinating-
ly, that the kinship between ε and γ texts may extend beyond their common
possession of THV. If this evidence is given priority, a stemma along the lines of
Fig. 6.2 ) begins to seem the most likely.
39 The contrasts are explored and interpreted, along lines broadly similar to those of
the present study, in Round, ‘ “Perdóneme Séneca”. . . ’, 26–8.
40 See Round, ‘Alonso de Cartagena and John Calvin. . . ’, p. 84.
41 They are reviewed in Round, ‘ “Perdóneme Séneca”. . . ’, 24–6. In every instance
there is more to be said than is said there.
42 María Morrás’ edition of Cartagena’s Libros de Tulio: De senetute, De los ofiçios (Alcalá
de Henares: Universidad, 1996) now offers an exemplary instance, albeit in a rather
 Alonso de Cartagena’s Libros de Seneca 147

more straightforward case, of the kind of work which needs to be done. María
Morrás and María Mercé López Casas, ‘Lectura y difusión de los Libros de Séneca (A
propósito de un testimonio desconocido)’, Revista de Filología Española, 81(2001),
137–63 appeared just too late to taken into account in the final revision of the pres-
ent study. The authors’ broad classification of a slightly larger number of MSS than
those reviewed here is, in general, close to my own, though their detailed view of
MS relationships, argued on different grounds, assigns more authority to the ε
group than I would be inclined to do. The whole article is worth close attention.
43 An earlier version of this paper was read to a King’s College London Colloquium on
‘Manuscript, Text and Transmission in Medieval Spain’ in May 1994. I am grateful
to Professor David Hook, sometime of that institution, for permission to present it
in its much revised state here.
7
Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian
Cities in the Mid-Fifteenth Century1
Brian Tate

The theme of the praising of a city is not one frequently to be met with in
Spanish literature. The first of the two pieces to be studied here is a unique
item on Córdoba from the mid-fifteenth century. The work of a cleric called
Don Jerónimo de Córdoba and of whom little else is known, it opens with the
elegant hexameters:

Cordoba me genuit, Italia redigit adultum.

Sub Phebo prorupi de aluo genetricis in ortu.2
(Córdoba gave birth to me; Italy made me an adult
I emerged from my mother’s womb when Phoebus rose into the sky.)

It should be noted, of course, that these lines are a calque of those that, accord-
ing to fourth-century Vita Virgilii of the grammarian Donatus, formed the epi-
taph of Virgil:

Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc

Parthenope: cecini pascua, rura duces.

This text was also included by Petrarch on the first folio of his edition of the
Mantuan poet.
The second of the two eulogies to be considered here comes in the form of a
Latin epistle, which the chronicler Alfonso de Palencia sent from Seville to
one of his friends who had recently gone to live in his own native town of
Palencia. It was intended to raise its recipient’s spirits by reminding him of the
advantages of being a citizen of Seville, and was composed in an excellent
humanistic Latin, at some time around the middle of the century. Like the
work of Don Jerónimo, with its debt to Virgil’s epitaph, this letter belonged to
the emerging peninsular tradition of humanism, and to the revival in it of
classical literary forms.
The genre of the Laus urbium was a long established one. It has been seen as
a form of rhetorical exercise, of limited scope and modest literary level, but

148
 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities 149

one that permitted the authors who practised it a degree of imaginative exag-
geration in their descriptions of their subjects. Its aim was to promote the
political and cultural significance of a city, and thus of its ruling classes, but
could also be put to serve more mundane ends, such as providing travellers
and pilgrims with practical information.3 In most cases these texts could best
be classified as pièces de circonstance.
Such works, which could be written in either verse or prose, tended to share
certain presuppositions, such as the superiority of urban life, and a belief in
the physical and spiritual impact of the ambience of the city upon its inhabi-
tants, both individually and en masse. Individual citizens could indeed help to
mould and shape that ambience through their words and their deeds. All of
these features manifest themselves in our two mid-fifteenth-century Spanish
revivals of the genre.
Eulogies, by their very nature, concentrate upon the positive elements of
their subjects; in the case of cities, these would be things like a health-giving
climate, the beauty of the architecture, the historical significance of the monu-
ments, both sacred and profane, and the achievements of the citizens, either
in their fame or their wealth. In reality, of course, ancient and medieval cities
and urban life were just as much marked by episodes of war, internecine vio-
lence, epidemics, political and economic instability, theological and other
dissent, and much individual human suffering. In fifteenth-century Spain it
would be enough just to recall the irmandiños in Galicia, the comuna in Seville,
the conflicts between the Busca and the Biga in Barcelona, and the feuding of
rival aristocratic factions in Córdoba and Cádiz. However, these and other
such depressing aspects of the social history of the period could never have
been included in the Iberian Laudes urbium, any more than their equivalents
could have found their way into the earlier examples of the genre.
While the late medieval practitioners of the Laus Urbium may have thought
that the origins of the form lay in the Roman past, the earliest known manifest-
ations of it date to the Early Middle Ages.4 It is possible that the roots of the
genre could be traced back to classical manuals of rhetoric, such as that of
Quintilian, but in practice the form has only slender links with the Latin litera-
ture of Late Antiquity. It would continue in irregular use well on into the seven-
teenth century, when, in a Spanish context, elements of it can still be found in
some of the dialogues of Ginés de Sepúlveda.
The chronological run of the evidence favours the view that there existed a
common tradition, but it was not one that manifested itself uniformly across all
parts of Europe. It was in Italy that the genre first emerged, with the Versum de
Mediolano Civitate of c. 738, which then served as the model for the Versus de
Verona, which were composed between 795 and 804.5 Later generations tended
to recognize it as a literary form of almost exclusively Italian inspiration. While
there existed some literary descriptiones of non-Italian cities, the genre remained
pre-eminently linked to the emergence of urbanism in the Italian peninsula,
especially in the north, and to the related growth in the concept of citizenship.
150 Medieval Spain

The ideal plan for such a work consisted of a sequence of sections, covering
the following elements: firstly, following an exordium, there would be a
description of the physical situation of the city, that is, whether it was set in
the mountains or on a plain. Next would come an account of the city’s protect-
ive walls, and then a description of its natural resources. To these would then
be added a historical section, detailing the legacy from the city’s past and
some account of its more famous former citizens. In later versions, these
would be supplemented by listings of the city’s churches and holy places, and
mentions of the various saints who were associated with the protection of its
citizens.6
The most widely disseminated of the works of this type in the central
Middle Ages was the Mirabilia Urbis Romae of c. 1143, which was a product of
the twin forces of the revival of civic spirit, generated by the creation of the
Roman commune, and the growth in the number of pilgrims coming to the
city.7 The Mirabilia, a work whose author seems to have had no self-conscious
literary aspirations, provided what are no more than catalogues of four basic
aspects of the city: firstly, its walls and gates; secondly, its most notable build-
ings, in particular the palaces, Roman baths and theatres, the sites of martyr-
doms and the Christian cemeteries; thirdly, the features of its civic
administration; and fourthly a whole series of legends and stories associated
with the individual monuments. These tales consisted of a melange of truth
and fiction, combined to produce narratives that would appeal both to local
patriotism and to the piety of visiting pilgrims. The novelty of the work, in
comparison with its earlier medieval predecessors, resides in its greater enthu-
siasm for the Christian present of the city of Rome than for its pagan past.
A third phase in the development of the genre can be seen in the later
medieval centuries, with a growth in the awareness of civic pride and an
increase in the amount of detail provided. The latter feature is notable, not
least, in Villani’s Florentiae Urbis Descriptio, located within his chronicle, and
which is full of statistics. His work particularly well exemplifies the shape of
the medieval Descriptio or Laus Urbis in its most developed form prior to the fif-
teenth century.
Such accounts became an increasingly important and conspicuous feature of
the local historiography of the Italian cities, especially Florence and Naples, in
this period. Between the appointment of Leonardo Bruni in 1427 and the
expulsion of the Medici in 1494, five scholars held the office of chancellor in
the city of Florence. Only one of them, Carlo Marsuppini, failed to include
such a Descriptio in his chronicle. Bruni’s tomb, sculpted by Bernardo Rossellini
in 1445, depicts the recumbent chancellor holding a copy of his history of the
city between his hands. As Lauro Martines noted, reinforcing Hans Baron’s
view of the relationship between the Florentine populus and the republic,
‘Civic humanism was the major intellectual experience of the city-state’.8
Although urban political life in Spain shared many points of comparison
with that of Italy, there are few traces of the tradition of the Laus Urbium to be
 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities 151

found in the Iberian peninsula prior to the fifteenth century. There is the sin-
gle fourteenth-century libellus written by Gil de Zamora about the city of
Zamora, which depended upon its supposed identification with the ancient
town of Numantia. The latter, actually in the province of Soria, had been the
centre of Iberian resistance to the Romans, and was destroyed by them after a
lengthy siege in 133 BC.
The same theme was taken up a century later by the Italian humanist
Gianozzo Manetti, when praising the mother of his friend, the Castilian
scholar Nuño de Guzmán, who had been born in Zamora:

The City of Zamora is remarkable for its antiquity, and possesses both
wealth and beauty: a fertile and pleasing situation, a healthy climate, and a
courageous populace. In respect of its antiquity, it is so old, as our great poet
says, that ‘time devours and sweeps away the memory’; so that of what is
mentioned in the chronicles of the Greeks and the Romans, the remains
have long since vanished.9

This is a fragment of a perfect pièce de circonstance, which accepts the well-

worn identification of Zamora with Numantia, and spices it with a dash of
Virgil. In the later part of the fifteenth century several examples of this kind of
eulogy can be found. Barcelona was described by the scholar Jeroni Pau in the
best humanist tradition. Writing to a colleague in the Vatican, Paolo Pompilio,
he avoided giving credence to the well-known myth of the city’s supposed
foundation by Hercules, who was said to have stepped onto the shore from the
ninth ship in his fleet, thus giving the new settlement the name of barca nona.
As Pau noted, nulla adiuti autoritate priscorum aut probabili coniectura. But other-
wise he covered the topics that were traditional for a work of this sort, inter-
larding them with classical quotations, and bringing his account up to his own
day, in which he compared Barcelona to Florence. He concluded his work with
a remarkable suggestion: ‘Why do we not put our criminals to more profitable
use by making them labour on public works or in the mines?’10
Pau, and other scholars such as Miquel Carbonell, begin to include copies of
inscriptions in their works; many of which were culled from the commentaries
of Ciriaco of Ancona. As a recent editor has commented: L’obra de Pau no hauria
existit si s’haguessin perduts textos de l’antigüedat grega o llatina. La seva obra no té
entitat per si sola, ni es pot entendre si no és a través del coneixement dels clàssics.11
The other great port city of the Corona de Aragón, Valencia, also attracted
the attention of humanist scholars, of whom I shall here only mention
Gonzalo Jiménez from Córdoba, whose Ad urbem Valentiae panegyricum
Carmen begins:

Urbem si veteros illam dixere beatam

Quam bona: quamque vigil sapientium cura gubernat
Quaeque colat caste cultas castissima musas.
152 Medieval Spain

It continues with an account of the kings of Aragón, up to Fernando el

Católico, as well as eulogies of notable authors associated with the city, includ-
ing Alfonso de Proaza, whose own works include an Oratio luculenta de
laudibus Valentiae.12

Following this brief historical introduction to the genre, I should like to sketch
out something of the cultural background against which our two authors, don
Jerónimo of Córdoba and Alfonso de Palencia, should be seen. Of the former
little is known beyond what was said of him by Nieto Cumplido in 1973. Born
in Córdoba, and a studious youth, he may have become a canon of the Real
Colegiata de San Hipólito during the later years of the reign of Enrique IV.
According to the prologue to his work, he travelled to Italy, Constantinople,
Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa, but in what circumstances and for what
purposes we do not know. Given the location of the unique manuscript of his
text in the university library of Salamanca, it has been suggested that he may
have studied there and used the books he found there in preparing his work.
He noted that he was writing this scholarly exercise while in exile, so that
‘[Córdoba] should not be ignored by its inhabitants, and be better known and
appreciated by others.’13
By contrast, Palencia only once mentioned his native town, and then dis-
paragingly: eo ipso baratri teterrimo loco.14 He first appears in history as a young
familiaris of the bishop of Burgos, Alonso de Cartagena. He then travelled to
Rome and Florence, and eventually entered the service of Cardinal Bessarion.
Through him he made the acquaintance of humanists such as George of
Trebizond, Donato Acciaiuoli, Carlo Marsuppini, and Vespasiano da Bisticci,
while also spending his time in the copying of manuscripts in a well-rounded
humanistic script, littera antiqua. He returned to Spain at the time of the fall of
Constantinople and, through the good offices of Alfonso de Velasco, juez de
suplicaciones in Seville and influential uncle of the constable of Castile, Pedro
Fernández de Velasco, Palencia came to follow Juan de Mena as official chron-
icler and royal secretary in charge of Latin correspondence. It is not necessary
here to follow his stormy and eventful life any further; just suffice it to say that
he was always interested in matters pertaining to urban life, particularly archi-
tecture and the role of the citizen. In one of his letters written while in Rome
he said:

Indeed I have killed time by distinguishing the character of the buildings

here . . . what one calls magisterii jactantiam. As you asked me to do, I have
applied myself with diligence to presenting the context of city life and
those quarters worthy of attention . . . You in the past have had the oppor-
tunity to meditate upon the buildings of Rome; so if there are any errors
here, please correct them.15
 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities 153

The same interest manifests itself in his political allegory De perfectione mili-
taris triumphi of 1459 (?), which I quote here from its Castilian version:

Después de aver caminado algunos dias, entró el Exerçiçio [an allegorical

figure which represents Military Discipline] en una çibdad de Catalona,
muy más rica que las otras çibdades de aquella provinçia; e, como maravil-
lado, andovo mirando con diligençia las partes della dignas de loor. Es la
çibdad asaz populosa, situada iunta con el mar Mediterráneo, y bien llena
de riquezas; de las quales no pequeña quantidad se véya en una pública
morada. . . véya aun más con deseo los muy devotos y guarnidos templos,
fechos y dotados con grandes espenzas, y las moradas de los çibdadanos
fabricadas de piedra esquadrada, y acogidas sagradas constituídas con
grand aparato para consuelo de los pelegrinos y pobres. Et miró assimesmo
una casa pública cerca del mar, en la qual se ayuntavan los çibadanos por
razón de entender en negoçios, la qual era edeficada sobre colunas y véyala
llena de muy ricos mercadantes.16 [This was the Barcelona stock exchange.]

Let me now make some comparisons of the two eulogies of Córdoba and
Seville. The manuscripts are both of fifteenth-century date. That of Don
Jerónimo, in the university library at Salamanca, was transcribed (with a few
minor errors) by Nieto Cumplido in 1973. Palencia’s manuscript is in the
chapter library of the cathedral of El Burgo de Osma, and I edited it in 1982.
This codex contains other letters by and to Palencia, together with tracts on
religious, philosophical, and humanist subjects by various authors. One of the
letters contains the eulogy on Seville, which he probably wrote in the late
1450s, not long after his return from Italy.
The exordia to both works are distinct in form and flavour. As previously
mentioned, Palencia starts out in a light tone, intending to lift the spirits of his
addressee. This contrasts with the ponderous and bookish introduction of
Don Jerónimo, which was intended to display his erudition. He described
himself as an experienced traveller, exiled from his native city, which he says
had treated him like a step-mother.
Following the set formula, in both cases the opening phrases give way to
an account of the foundation of the city and its date, and of the etymologies
of its name and those of its titles. Don Jerónimo opted for the antique lin-
guistic derivation, one previously used by Alfonso el Sabio and to be found
in some Hebrew texts: Córdoba – ‘it rests upon the heart’. Palencia adopted
the Latin literary origin for the name of Hispalis, as a settlement located near
a lake and surrounded by a wall of stakes, that had been set in place by
Hercules. In contrast, Don Jerónimo ignored the Roman past and made no
reference to the classical authors associated with his city, such as the two
Senecas, Lucan and Silius Italicus. He took the roughly lion-shaped outline
of the city’s walls as a symbol of the need to defend it against frequent
assaults by foreigners.
154 Medieval Spain

Following this comes the description of the climate and of the geographical
setting. As both authors wrote from personal knowledge, any exaggeration
should be taken to be deliberate. Both emphasize the favourable disposition of
the stars and the salubrious climate. The ideal combination of hills, plain and
river suggested to both authors the idea of the worldly paradise, created,
according to Palencia by Deus rerum sublims architector, and in don Jerónimo’s
view by the Summus conditor. Both refer to the music of running water.
Don Jerónimo comments: ‘How can anyone not be enraptured in the
evening silence by the sonorous rhythm of the noria (water wheel), recalling
the harmony of the spheres at both poles, arctic and antarctic?’17 Similarly,
Palencia writes about the river Betis, but note the different tone: ‘imposing
ships, propelled by the oar or sail, arrive at the bridge of this city; a bridge that,
because of the depth of the waters and the sandy bottom, is constructed of
small barges.’18
The other significant constituent of the geography is the presence of hills.
Don Jerónimo launches into a litany of the hills of Holy Land, with a dense
and not particularly pertinent interweaving of Old Testament references,
which may derive from St. Jerome’s Onomasticon of Hebrew names. In both
eulogies a contrast is made between the human and the natural landscape.
Both affirm the productivity of the land; in the first case asserting that
Córdoba could feed the whole of Spain, and in the second that Seville out-
stripped any three Italian cities.
Both authors conclude their surveys with the secular and religious monu-
ments. Don Jerónimo refers to the Mezquita, but in its transformed state as
Christian church. However, he did allude to the ingenuity of the Moorish arti-
sans: ‘. . . the throne with ivory tracing, erected for a certain king Almanzor,
set under a coffered ceiling.’19 As well as the Mezquita, and the Alcazar and its
gardens, he mentions an area ‘where the magistrates celebrate their councils
and where youths practice military arts with lances and other weapons.’ The
atmosphere combines the exotic and the chevaleresque.
Palencia’s Seville belongs to a more secular and contemporary world, and he
makes no mention of the Islamic past: ‘Within the walls there are sacred tem-
ples and impressive edifices, dedalica arte constructa, and there live some 150
000 inhabitants . . . there is such a press of merchants, that in languages
alone, it seems like a second Babel.’20 The size of the population is clearly
exaggerated, as in this period Córdoba had about 25 000 inhabitants, and
Seville could hardly have exceeded 60 000.
Palencia does not catalogue the natural advantages of the site, referring
instead to those created by the citizens. He attempts to harmonise the para-
dise-like aspects of his description with the fear that they might lead to self-
indulgence and corruption; elements contributing to the fall of Islamic
society in Andalucía according to several contemporary chronicles. In his pre-
vious account of Barcelona, Palencia had commented on the presumptuous-
ness of the citizens as a result of the prosperity that had come from the city’s
 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities 155

commerce, and he saw that as a sure portent of future disaster. In Seville, how-
ever, things were on a different plane: ‘The inhabitants have for themselves a
profusion of possessions, and would indeed command more, if not that such
excess would lead to sloth. For those who strive do so for pure pleasure; under
this sun and in this happy climate one does not need to toil arduously, and
even the labourer receives his adequate reward.’21
In their descriptiones both writers convey their deep-rooted belief in the
interrelationship between natural ambience and human temperament. This
theme appears in Aristotle, and became a standard feature of the classical trad-
ition. In their prefatory sections, many of the Spanish medieval general
chronicles used the well known eulogies of Hispania by Justin and by Isidore
of Seville, which stressed the advantages conferred on the peninsula by its
geography and the beneficial impact of these on its inhabitants. An example
may be taken from the fifteenth-century Latin chronicle of Ruy Sánchez de
Arévalo, which drew on his reading of Strabo and Justin:

[Spain] is more fertile than Africa or France, for the violent sun does not
wreak havoc as in Africa, nor do forceful storms sweep across it, as in
France, but rather it enjoys a mild climate, between those of the other two
. . . and this temperate sun and gentle rain produce a variety of fruits; these
do not just provide for the inhabitants alone, but are exported in abun-
dance to Italy and the city of Rome [Ruy Sánchez was at the time castellan
of the Castel Sant’ Angelo] . . . and the tranquil breezes from the Ocean
offer to the people of Spain a long and healthy life.22

Ruy Sánchez, who would also serve as dean of Seville cathedral, elaborated on
how human nature could be modified by climactic conditions:

Between these extremes [of regions of hot and cold] those who dwell in mild
and temperate climes, being neither too hot nor too cold, are disposed of an
even spirit, and are also of an inventive and agile understanding . . . ingen-
ious, clever and possessing a speculative turn of mind. . . . apt to have recourse
to intellectual matters, to the sciences and to dabbling in political affairs.23

Don Jerónimo follows the same line of reasoning:

. . . an oppressive climate generates epidemics but also a highly intelligent

population. A cold climate brings forth a dull mind; its people are fraudu-
lent and ignorant. Only a temperate climate infuses in the people its cus-
toms and qualities. This is what the ancients said about Athens, the seat of
wisdom, because the clarity of the air there brought about clarity of the
senses, which led to the contemplation of wisdom. . . The rational spirit is
saddened by corrupted surroundings, and is gladdened by that which is
undefiled.24
156 Medieval Spain

Palencia, on the other hand, avoided such popular generalizations. He drew

instead on Plutarch, whose Lives had recently been rendered from Greek into
Latin by a group of Italian humanists. The Life of Sertorius, which had
been translatted by Leonardo Bruni, told of a Roman general who had been
impressed by the climate of Hispania. He and the sailors with him were con-
vinced they had come across the Fortunate Isles; a comparison taken up by
Palencia in his account of Seville:

Here one does not suffer from that numbness that comes when each limb
falls lifeless from the cold, nor from the summer sun at its most powerful.
Here there never fails to be a breeze, which invigorates youth and infuses
new life into old age. If I were to continue in this vein, I should say that
thanks to the climate of this city, save for the noonday heat in summer, its
citizens would not succumb to death if they did not become physically
hurt or suffer accidents. It seems as if no-one dies here, or only rarely, until
the body fails through illness after reaching eighty years of age.25

Palencia takes this argument about the impact of the natural context a step
further. The vitality of the inhabitants of the city is not exclusively dependent
upon the ambience, as the latter has in part been created by the citizens them-
selves. This was by no means a new notion. It can be found in Aristotle’s, De
Anima, and from a later period in the De formatione humani . . . corporis in utero
of Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus). Palencia expounds his opinions in a let-
ter to his tutor, George of Trebizond, when comparing the sad state of Rome in
his day with that of Florence:

Look at Rome; you know well what it has been; you can see the ruins; now
the Italians can hardly make out the shape of those demolished edifices. That
ugly vista wounds via the eyes and stabs the soul; that sense of harmony has
been extinguished precisely because those scenes have lost their antique
grandeur . . . On the other hand, Florence has created eloquence and ingenu-
ity, and that is because the citizens may contemplate a well organised world
around them . . . the name of Florence flourishes in more than name.26

As previously stated, this is not a new topic. St. Jerome and other Church
Fathers had said similar things. Natural philosophers, wrote Palencia, held that
a baby’s character could be shaped at conception by the scenes that its parents
saw. These may have been traditional beliefs, but Palencia recreated them in
new contexts, as in the case of contemporary Florence. In his treatise De perfec-
tione militaris triumphi the allegorical figure Exercitum enters the city, and is
astonished at the symbiosis between the citizenry and the urban architecture:

No dexó con todo eso de bien mirar las partes de la grand çibdad y avía
deleyte de visitar los templos, fermosamente compuestos y de considerar
 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities 157

los edificios publicos, muy más polidos de quanto la péñola descrivir

podría, en el antepecho de los quales, y en sus muros más delanteros esta-
van esculpidas letras que enseñadamente manifestavan los loores de los
çibdadanos aquisitados en paz y en guerra . . . ni la presençia de los varones
entonçes por las carreras çient çibdadanos consulares y patriçios no infiri-
ores a los antiguos padres de los romanos.27

Florence was here seen as the heir of Rome, but in a new location and divorced
from the medieval past, and is described as having a new father in the person
of Cosimo de Medici, its pater patriae. Palencia then went further in evoking a
new urban vision, and himself sought to play the role of Cosimo, at least in his
own mind, by devising a perfect composita res, an institution in a special archi-
tectural setting that was to be devoted in the perfecting of Florentine society
In his treatise Palencia chose a fictitious location, outside but close to the
northern side of the city: a çinco millas lejos de la mas florecida çibdad de
Toscana. This is said to be the residence of the allegorical figure, Discretio,
where the youth of the city were to be trained not only in arms but also in let-
ters. Several years ago I tried to establish if Palencia might have sought inspir-
ation for this vision from one of the contemporary villas near Florence.
A distinct possibility would appear to be Careggi, a Medicean villa designed by
the architect Michelozzo. In any event, this would seem to be the earliest
detailed exposition by a Spanish humanist of the concept of an Academy.28

To conclude, let me place the two eulogies side by side. In rhetorical terms, both
were inspired by the concept of the earthly paradise, but their visions are set in
two distinct cultures: on the one hand there is the Garden of Eden, and on the
other the famous Insula beatorum of Graeco-Roman mythology. In the fore-
ground of the former there are the hills and the river, the fountain, the clear
water, and the creaking of the noria; in the other the river is dotted with ships
that move towards the Ocean. In the one there is a city set in the hills of the Holy
Land, with a memory of the Middle East in the form of its Mezquita; across the
other are scattered the sacratissima templa, impressive edifices constructed by
the art of Daedalus. On the one side there are youths exercising with arms; on
the other a throng of merchants, speaking the languages of all the world.
Central to both eulogies is the concept of the interaction between man and
his context; a theme stretching back to antiquity. In the case of Palencia the
observations on contemporary urban life are not necessarily derived from
classical sources, but can come as well from his Italian experiences. At the
heart of his conception is the conviction that man has the capacity to shape
his physical surroundings; this is the sphere of modern man, who should be
dedicated to both the active and the contemplative lives, devoting himself to
both the council chamber and the library.
158 Medieval Spain

In an earlier work, I referred to the tension in humanism between continu-

ity and renewal.29 In the 1450s the balance was still in favour of continuity,
even if important cultural changes have already occurred. These two eulogies
illustrate a combining of medieval and humanist themes, too tightly inter-
connected to be easily disentangled. No doubt don Jerónimo belongs more to
the tradition of the older cultural world, while Palencia shares many of the
characteristics of his Italian humanist friends, but his work had not yet arrived
at its maturity. It is even harder to define the culture of his Spanish preceptor,
Alonso de Cartagena.30 In any case it is best to avoid over-arching formulas.
A work of literature must be studied in the context in which it is conceived.
A trip to Italy does not mean that one necessarily returns as a humanist. As a
recent scholar has commented, in his book on the fifteenth-century French
historian Robert Gaguin: L’humanisme et ses enjeux ideologiques, l’imprimerie et
sa puissance sans précedent de communication, ont incontestablement été des fac-
tures de rupture, mais a y regarder de près, les continuités l’emportent.31

Notes
1 Many years ago Angus MacKay invited me to several of the famous Antiquary sem-
inars in Edinburgh, and I brought him down to talk to the Hispanic Studies
Department in Nottingham, thus beginning a long-term friendship. We also met in
Andalucia while both engaged in research on the fifteenth century, then a somewhat
neglected period. I well recall Angus being in the Colombina Library in Seville, while
I was spending time in the archives of the archbishop’s palace, and we both met ‘the
Red Duchess’ in the Medina Sidonia library on the coast. So, this small article may
jog old memories.
2 Manuel Nieto Cumplido, Córdoba en el siglo XV (Córdoba, 1973), 43.
3 See J.K. Hyde, ‘Medieval descriptions of cities’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 48
(1965/66), 308–40; also C.J. Classen, Die Stadt im Spiegel der Descriptiones und Laudes
Urbium (Hildesheim/New York, 1980), and G. Fasoli, ‘La coscienza civica nelle Laudes
Civitatum’, in idem, Scritti di storia medievale (Bologna, 1974), 293–318.
4 G.B. Pighi (ed.), Versus de Verona, Versum de Mediolano Civitate (Bologna, 1960); see
also n. 5 below.
5 Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), pp. 29–31, and
also 180–7 for an edition and translation of the Versus de Verona.
6 Hyde, ‘Medieval descriptions of cities’, 314.
7 Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ed. and trans. F.M. Nichols (2nd edn New York, 1986); see
also Debra J. Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1998), espe-
cially ch. 7: ‘The Popularity of Pilgrimage to Rome in the Twelfth Century’,
pp. 150–86.
8 Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination (London, 1979), p. 262; cf. Hans Baron, The
Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age
of Classicism and Tyranny (2 vols, Princeton, 1955).
9 Iannozzi Manetti Laudatio. . . dominae Agnetis Numantinae, in J.H.N. Lawrance, Un
episodio del proto-humanismo español. Tres opúsculos de Nuño de Guzmán y Giannozzo
Manetti (Biblioteca española del siglo XV) (Salamanca, 1989), pp. 139–40.
 Laus Urbium: Praise of Two Andalusian Cities 159

10 Jeroni Pau, Obres, ed. Mariángela Villalonga, in Autors catalans antics vol. 2
(Barcelona, 1986), vol. 1, p. 124.
11 ibid., vol. 1, p. 134.
12 Alonso de Proaza, Oratio luculenta de laudibus Valentiae (Valencia, 1505), and MS
Biblioteca de Catalunya, sig. 9-V-56, fol. 18 a/b: Gonsalvi Ximeni Corduben[sis] in
utroque iure bachalarii B.M., Ad urbem Valentiam panegyricum Carmen.
13 Nieto Cumplido, Córdoba en el siglo XV, p. 52.
14 Epistola 11, in Alfonso de Palencia, Epistolos latinos, ed. and trans. R.B. Tate and
Rafael Alemany Ferrer (Barcelona, 1982), p. 34.
15 Epistola IV, ed. Tate and Alemany Ferrer, p. 44.
16 De perfectione militaris triumphi/La perfection del triunfo, ed. Javier Duran Barcelo
(Salamanca, 1996), p. 140.
17 Nieto Cumplido, Córdoba en el siglo XV, p. 45.
18 Epist. II, ed. Tate and Alemany Ferrer, p. 37.
19 Nieto Cumplido, op. cit. pp. 51–2.
20 Epist. II, ed. cit. p. 39.
21 ibid.
22 Roderici Santii Episcopi Palentini historia Hispanica partes quattuor, in Andreas Schott,
Hispaniae Illustratae. . . scriptores varii (Frankfurt, 1603–05), vol. 1, pp. 121–2; cf.
Justin bk. 44.
23 Ruy Sánchez, Summa de politica, in Biblioteca de Autores Españoles vol. 116, p. 256b.
24 Nieto Cumplido, Córdoba en el siglo XV, p. 49.
25 Epist. II, ed. Tate and Alemany Ferrer, p. 36.
26 Epist. VII, ed. cit. p. 60.
27 De Perfectione, ed. Duran Barcelo, pp. 161–2.
28 R. B. Tate, ‘The Civic Humanism of Alfonso de Palencia’, Renaissance and Modern
Studies 23 (1979), 25–44.
29 Andalucía 1492: razones de un protagonismo (Seville, 1992), pp. 215–17.
30 María Morrás, ‘Sic et non: en torno a Alfonso de Cartagena y los studia humanitatis’,
Euphrosyne: Revista de Filología Clássica, nov. serie 23 (1995), 333–46.
31 F. Collard, Un historien au travail à la fin du xve siècle. Robert Gaguin (Geneva, 1996),
p. 330.
8
Peace and War on the Frontier of
Granada. Jaén and the Truce of 14761
Manuel González Jiménez

One of the last of the truces made between the Kingdoms of Castile and
Granada was that drawn up in 1475. Don Juan de Mata Carriazo, who studied
it in detail, believed that it was negotiated on the Castilian side by Diego
Fernández de Córdoba, Count of Cabra.2 The count, who had been on friend-
ly terms with the rulers of Granada, agreed a truce for a year with King Abu’l-
Hasan ‘Ali (1464–82), but the text of the treaty has not survived.3 According to
Torres Fontes this took place on 20 June 1475. In the political circumstances of
the time, with a war of succession raging in Castille and with King Alfonso V of
Portugal directly involved in it, this truce may have seemed to the Reyes
Católicos to be rather on the short side. Thus, in November of the same year
they entrusted Fernando de Aranda, a member of the Council of Twenty Four
(Regidores) of Córdoba and also a Regidor of Alcalá la Real, and Pedro de
Barrionuevo, a Regidor of Soria, with the negotiating of a new truce; one to be
of longer duration than that arranged earlier in the year by the Count of
Cabra.4 A copy of the text of this new agreement has been preserved in the
book of the Actas Capitulares of the municipal council or Concejo of Jaén for
the year 1476; a transcription of which appears in the first appendix to this
article.
It is not my purpose here to study the treaty of 1476 in itself, in that in all
essential features it is similar to other earlier agreements of the same kind.5
I should like instead to investigate how the truce worked out in practice in the
context of a city situated as close to the frontier as was Jaén. Before doing so, it
is necessary to draw attention to the fact that the document that I am here
publishing requires the correcting of the date of the previous treaty, the one
generally referred to as the Truce of 1475. This was indeed made in that year,
but it was intended to last for a longer period than has previously been
believed. Prior to the discovery of the Jaén text, it was generally thought that
the truce arranged by the Count of Cabra extended for only a year, and that it
was signed in the month of June in 1475.6 The text of the treaty of 1476 insert-
ed into the municipal Acta Capitulares of Jaén corrects these impressions, and
indicates with complete clarity both the duration and the date of the treaty:

160
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 161

Otorgamos a vos el muy alto, poderoso, esclarecido rey Muley Abu-l-

Haçem, rey del reino de Granada, hónrelo Dios, paz firme, sana e verdadera
por tiempo de quatro años que comiençan el postrimero día en que se cum-
plan los dos años de la paz que el muy noble señor conde de Cabra asentó
con vuestra señoría en nombre de los dichos nuestros señores rey e reyna de
Castilla, que se cumplen a honse días del mes de março del año de mill e
quatrocientos e ochenta e uno años.

If I am interpreting this text correctly, it is necessary to conclude firstly, that

the peace arranged through the mediation of the count of Cabra was intended
to last for two years not one, and secondly, that his truce was signed on 11
March 1475.
Even so, the two-year duration of this treaty must have seemed too short to
the Reyes Católicos, facing a legal challenge to their succession in Castile and a
war with the supporters of Juana la Beltraneja and Alfonso V of Portugal. So,
they needed to extend the treaty with Granada. Thus, before even the first
year of the truce agreed in 1475 had been completed, another agreement was
reached in Granada on 11 January 1476, which extended it for an additional
four years, thus ensuring that it would last till March 1481. The envoys,
Fernando de Aranda and Pedro de Barrioneuvo, who had been made respon-
sible for the negotiation of the truce by a royal ordinance issued on 27
November 1475, remained in Granada for a while after the signing of
the treaty, and in consequence the text of the new agreement was not
shown to the Consejo of Jaén until 26 January 1476.7 Which is not to say that
the fact that it had been signed was not already public knowledge prior to
that date.
The unusually long period of the new extension of the truce reinforced the
value placed upon it and aroused hopes that frontier life might achieve a cer-
tain level of stability. Thus may be explained the fact that on 24 January, the
Comendador of Montizón, who was also a Regidor of Jaén, requested the
council to den orden en el poner de las axeas, que día han de entrar los cristianos
almayares en Granada e los moros en Jahén, porque los moros nin los cristianos non
se pierdan e sepan como van e como vienen.8 That a stable situation did not yet
exist, despite the truce arranged by the Count of Cabra in 1475, is indicated by
a document from the Consejo of Baeza, which reached Jaén on 12 January.
This stated that a couple of years earlier, in the district of Huelma:

fue levado un mochacho, fijo de Diego de Trillo, vecino de Úbeda, el qual

está cativo en el reino de Granada. E como quiera que nos avemos escripto
al alguacil mayor de Granada sobre el caso, porque la dicha villa de Huelma
estava en paz, con las diferencias y dilaçiones del tiempo non se ha podido
concluir la deliberación del dicho moço porque por él de aquel tiempo un
moro que está en esa çibdad en poder de Bartolomé pescador, vecino desa
dicha çibdad.
162 Medieval Spain

The letter concluded by indicating that the town was disposed to paying
Bartholomew the value of the captive Muslim, because el dicho moço non se
pierda en tierra de moros e aya libertad.9
The reference in the letter to diferencias y dilaçiones del tiempo is an indica-
tion that, as on other such occasions, the current state of peace was not one
hundred percent secure. It seems most likely that regular trade between
Granada and Jaén, which was the primary concern of the request by Juan
Fernández de Iranzo, the Comendador of Montizón, had already been inter-
rupted for some time by the diferencias to which the Concejo of Baeza alluded
in its letter. This had resulted in considerable financial losses for the city and
for those who normally obtained substantial profits from cross-frontier
trade.10 Amongst these was Luis de Torres, to whose family and political circle
the Comendador, who was an uncle of the young count of Torres, belonged.11
In any case, the signing of a new treaty extending the existing truce also pro-
vided the opportunity for strengthening it; something that was all the more
important, given the frequency with which the existing state of peace was
being broken. Thus, for example, on 10 January a letter reached Jaén from
Diego de Biedma, Alcaide of Huelma, complaining that some huntsmen who
were resdients of Jaén had stolen two ploughs and a hoe from the Muslim
inhabitants of Cambil.12 As the thieves had passed through the territory of
Huelma, the Muslims were demanding the value of their lost goods from the
town. The Alcaide concluded his letter by requesting that the stolen property
be returned to the Muslims and that the culprits sean punidos e castigados por
quebrantadores de paz asentada entre cristianos e moros.13 It is most likely that the
peace to which the Alcaide of Huelma was here referring was that made the
previous year by the Count of Cabra. In cases such as this, the town from
which those who had broken the peace had come was held responsible for the
costs of the damage they caused. In consequence, the Consejo of Jaén entrust-
ed the case to Fernando de Torres, who was then exercising the office of Alcaide
mayor entre moros y cristianos in the name of his cousin Luis de Torres.
However, as those responsible for this crime could not be identified, Jaén had
to pay Diego de Biedma, the Alcaide of Huelma, the value of the stolen proper-
ty, assessed at 150 maravedis, for him to pass on to the Muslims of Cambil.14
Unlike earlier truces, that of 1476 laid no special requirements on the
Castilians, while Granada, as had normally been the case, was obliged to pay a
fixed amount of money each year by way of parías, and also had to release an
agreed number of Christian captives annually.15 But these differences apart,
the treaty contained the standard features of this type of document: a general
peace on the frontier ‘from Lorca to Tarifa’, the opening of the frontier to trade
via the usual points of entry and exit (axeas), with the merchants (almayales),
both Christian and Muslim, having to pay standard duties on their goods.16 At
the same time, safe conducts were to be made available for ships that wished
to engage in trade, and formal recognition was given to the activities of the
alfaqueques, the intermediaries in the negotiations for the release of captives;
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 163

the latter were also allowed the possibility of escaping without having to
be returned, so long as they did not take any stolen property away with
them.

On the Granadan frontier peace and war were more than affairs of state. Some
years ago Don Juan de Mata Carriazo, who knew the world of the frontier
exceedingly well, drew attention to this fact in an important study, of which a
few lines should be quoted here:

On the frontier of Granada peace and war were not simple concepts of
unchanging meaning and universal application. Neither was peace peace
nor was war war in the fullest meaning of each word.
War was hardly ever the struggle of the whole of one people against the
other. The most violent acts in one geographical sector of the frontier were
perfectly compatible with peaceful and even harmonious relations in
another. But above all, peace was not permanent; nor was it a complete ces-
sation of all forms of warfare; nor were truces complete. At best, there just
existed a state of diminished warfare.
In this condition of unusual, almost unique, instability that existed on
the Granadan frontier . . . peace and war were not matters of state, that were
primarily the concern of monarchs. There were issues that were particular
to each frontier zone, that would be resolved by the interested parties on
both sides, according to their own private interests, and without taking any
account of the general situation or of the agreements made by the sover-
eign rulers. Everyone made his own peace or his own war at his own pleas-
ure, and he was also at the mercy in such matters of the whims of his
neighbours.17

In such circumstances, it is not surprising to learn that on 21 February, there

reached Jaén the alarming news that the Muslim warlords of Guadix and Baza
had laid seige to Huelma, breaking the truce and the state of peace that was
supposed to exist between Castile and Granada. The incident was sufficiently
serious for the Concejo of Jaén to write to the king of Granada, denouncing the
deed and demanding reparations for the damage inflicted.18 In its letter the
Concejo stated that on the:

diez e ocho días deste presente mes de febrero en que estamos, por la
mañana los vuestros cabdillos de las vuestras çibdades de Guadix e Baça,
con mucha cavallería e peonaje de moros de vuestros reinos e con pertre-
chos, osadamente vinieron a la villa de Huelma que es y está al señorío de
los dichos rey e reina nuestros señores, e combatieron la dicha villa con
muchas arms e pertrechos a fin de la tomar e ganar e robar.19
164 Medieval Spain

At the same time, they sent another letter to Diego de Biedma, the Alcaide of
Huelma, rebuking him for not having obtained securities por el daño que en la
dicha villa fizieron los moros en ningunos almayales que vengan a esta çibdad, por
quanto la paz fue asentada entre los muy altos e muy poderosos el rey e la reina nue-
stros señores con el rey de Granada, in case there the should be no satisfactory
response from the king of Granada to the complaint made by Jaén.20
The reply from the king of Granada, escripta en arábigo, reached Jaén on
4 March, accompanied by another one from his secretary ‘Yahien Alnayar’.21
In it he justified the attack of the lords of Guadix and Baza on Huelma on the
grounds of the outrages that had previously been committed by its Alcaide,
Diego de Biedma, who avía fecho muchas sinrazones a los moros de Guadix
tomando y mandando tomar moros furtados e çiertas acémilas y yeguas estando
asentada la paz. The letter from the king of Granada concluded by affirming
that the seige had been lifted on his orders, and requesting Jaén to send a rep-
resentative to Granada to discuss the matter.
On the same day the Concejo of Jaén sent the Jurado Martín de Espinosa with
letters addressed to the royal secretary, Alnayar, and to ‘Abulcaçen Vanegas’,
the Alguacil Mayor of Granada.22 About a fortnight later, in the Alhambra, an
agreement was signed between the two parties to the case, with Granada and
Jaén being there represented respectively by ‘Abdallah Boriqueque’, chief
treasurer of the king of Granada, and by Martín de Espinosa. The main points
of the accord, which testified to an overwhelming determination to maintain
the existing truce in force, despite all difficulties, were as follows:

1. A mutual renunciation of claims for compensation for the damage caused

by the attack on Huelma carried out by the lord of Guadix, other than for
three mares stolen from the Alcaide of Huelma.
2. For their part the Granadans withdrew various claims made against the
Alcaide of Huelma, other than for the case, currently awaiting a judicial
decision, of ‘el moro Johjoh y los dos moros mudéjares’.

Up to the beginning of May there are no further mention of breaches of the

truce by either side. In the council meeting on 8 May, the Jurado Fernando de
Leyva gave an account of his interview with the Countess Doña Teresa de
Torres, widow of the Constable Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, who was also the royal
appointee as governor of the city of Jaén.23 His purpose in calling on her had
been to solicit her support for the decision of the Consejo to suspend the
despatch of the troops that the Reyes Católicos had demanded should be sent
to take part in their war against Portugal, on the grounds that the king of
Granada was threatening to attack the frontier. News had reached Jaén that
the ruler of Granada had come to Canbil con muy grande caballería e se cree que
querrá venir sobre Pegalajar e aun a correr a esta çibdad, segund el grand poder que
tienen. On account of which, it had been agreed that the king and queen
should be sent a request that the warriors of Jaén por agora non vaya porque
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 165

podría ser caso que si fuesen viniese algund daño a esta çibdad, del qual sus altezas
serían muy deservidos.24
Despite the lack of clear news about it, the attack had been more than just a
rumour, as may be deduced from the tenor of a letter that reached Jaén on 10
May, in which the Alguacil Mayor of Granada informed the city that:

de aqui adelante mercadores nin almayares algunos que van a Granada

desta çibdad no vayan por el puerto de Canbil, salvo que vayan en vengan
seguramente por el camino e puerto de Arenas, e que vayan en los días de
lunes e jueves de cada una semana, segund costumbre de paces, con
aperçibimiento que si por el dicho puerto de Canbil y otros puertos fueren,
salvo por le dicho puerto de Arenas, y algund daño recibieren, que será a su
cargo e culpa dellos.25

On 21 May an order was given to put escuchas escusañas en la sierra . . . porque no

se sabe qué farán los moros.26 Even at the end of May the Count of Cabra,
remembering what had happened in Huelma a few months earlier, was
requesting Jaén, both in his own name and in that of the Concejo of Baeza, that
the inhabitants should be preared to socorrerles sí lo ovieren menester.27
We do not know what lay behind these threats. Perhaps they were nothing
more than part of a war of nerves, accentuated by the confused political situ-
ation that had arisen from the recent confrontation between the Count of
Cabra and the Marquis of Priego. But in August the threat from Granada took
on concrete form, with a substantial and serious incursion of Muslim forces
into the lands of the Marquis of Priego. The Jaén council minutes of 8 August
recorded laconically that on este día vino nueva cómo el rey de Granada avia cor-
rido e entrado en tierra de cristianos a faser mal e daño; luego los dichos señores man-
daron apercibir la gente desta çibdad, cavalleros e peones.28 As the first step, it was
noted that the inhabitants were required to assemble in arms whenever the
city should ring the alarm bells.29 On 12 August the representatives of the dif-
ferent districts of the city were ordered to ensure that those Conversos who had
the financial means to sustain them should acquire horses and weapons.30
Given the seriousness of the situation, the city arranged that it should summon
a junta a las çibdades de la comarca y villa de Arjona para el castillo de Mengíbar,
segund que de antes se solia facer a se fizo.31 At the same time they agreed to write
to the Reyes Católicos to inform them en como el rey e moros de Granada entraron
en tierra de cristianos fasto Cañete. This letter has survived, and reads:

Muy altos y muy poderosos príncipes rey e rey [nuestros] señores: Vuestro
muy umildes servidores e vasallos el conçejo de la muy noble çibdad de
Jaén etc. con muy umilde reverençia besamos las manos de vuestra alteza
en cuyo real señorío e merced nos encomendamos, la qual plega saber que a
ocho días deste mes de agosto en que estamos el rey de Granada, muy
poderosamente con gente de cavallo e de pie, cuya fama es que serían quatro
166 Medieval Spain

mill de cavallo e quarenta mill peones, entraron por los términos de Priego
e Alcalá e corrieron e robaron el canpo, e fue su entrada nueve leguas dentro
de estos vuestros reynos, e se fizo muy grande daño por donde la hueste
pasó asy en vecinos de Vaena e de Alcabdete e de Luque e de Cañete e de
Priego e otros cortijos e heredamientos de la comarca, en manera, muy
poderosos señores, que somos puestos en toda necesidad por comarcanos
deata çibdad e sus términos e ayudar e dar favor a los otros para la dicha
guarda e defensa. Lo qual acordamos de notificar a vuestra alteza porque
aqélla, usando de su grand exçelençia, en ello mando proveer como más
entendiere que cumple a su serviçio.
Muy poderosos señores, nuestro Señor Dios vuestras muy reales personas
conserve. Fecha xvi de agosto de—lxxvi años.32

The movements and threats on the frontier that have been analysed here
did not affect Jaén directly, not least because the city took great care to observe
the truce and to ensure it was maintained, not least by avoiding making the
situation worse by provoking the Granadans.33 This did not stop the city from
adopting all possible means of defence. The first of these was to place the
Consejo’s militia in a state of alert, even though their morale had declined
sharply since the time of the death of Constable Iranzo in 1473. This can be
seen from a series of orders issued by the council, that were intended to ensure
the enforcement of the regulations obliging the so-called caballeros de cuantía
to possess horses and weapons, and to attend the alardes or military reviews
that were held periodically.34
Since the beginning of the year, Jaén had been preoccupied with getting
itself into a state of readiness for all contingencies. On 3 January it had been
ordered that watches should be kept on the towers of El Cubo and Sarnosa and
on those flanking the Puerta de Aceituno.35 This state of vigilance had been
increased in the month of February to include all of the gates of the city.36
A few days later, following the attack from Guadix on Huelma, measures were
taken to revive the cavalry forces that had once made Jaén redoubtable
throughout the frontier. The first Indication that the current situation left
much to be desired came in the form of of a demand for action presented to
the council at its meeting of 11 March by the Regidores Juan Cuello and Sancho
de Alfaro.37 Two days later the Consejo ordered that, in accordance with the
census of horsemen made in 1475, it should be verified, district by district,
who did and who did not own horses, and that those who were obliged to
have them did indeed do so.

Este día, por quanto la cavallería desta çibdad está muy decaida, e muy
esentamente sin ninguna vergüença venden y trocan sus cavallos sin tomar
licencia de los dichos señores para ello, de lo qual se sigue muy grand
deserviçio del rey e reina nuestros señores, los dichos señores, remediando
en ello, mandaron e dieron cargo a Fernando de Gormaz y Garçia de Jaén,
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 167

regidores, para que en uno con el señor corregidor Sancho de la Peña tomen
la copia de los cavallos de contía del año pasado de las collaçiones desta çib-
dad e vayan por las collaciones de Santa María e Sant Lloreynte e Santiago, e
junto con los jurados de cada una de las dichas collaçiones anden por cada
una dellas e miren y empadronen los cavalleros de contía que tienen caval-
los, e los que tienen la contía e non tienen los cavallos, e traygan razón a
otro cabildo dello, trayendo las copias de las dichas collaçiones porque el
que non tiene cavallo y tiene la contía le manden dar çedula de cavallero.38

From this time on there are frequent references to people being issued with a
cédula de cavallero, and being required to equip themselves with a horse of
their own within a month, or by 24 June at the latest. A small number were
able to claim exemption from this obligation, either on the grounds of lacking
the necessary legal status (which involved possession of property valued at
more than 20 000 maravedis), or because of their age or current state of indebt-
edness. Some could claim exemption on both of the latter grounds, as in the
case of Alfonso López de Cazalilla, an inhabitant of Mengibar, to whom was
granted a so-called carta de ancianía, because agora está muy gastado con
casamientos de fijos e otros daños e por ser persona de hedad de anciana.39 In anoth-
er case, a certain Juan Navarro was exempted from maintaining a horse
because of injuries he had received to his arms (visto el aspecto e lisión de los
braços), and thus his name was struck off the list of the caballeros de cuantía of
his district, but he was obliged instead to equip himself with a ballesta de acero
con sus tiros bien conplidos.40
These steps do not seem to have been very effective, as on 15 July the Jurados
of Jaén repeated the lament that los cavalleros de contía desta çibdad está muy
amenguada e non ay cavalleros como solia, de lo qual viene grand daño a la çibdad e
deserviçio a los reyes nuestros señores, and once more an enquiry was ordered for
the purpose of identifying those lacking horses.41 An undated list of horse-
men that is included in the council records was probably related to this inves-
tigation. From it we know that the numbers of those of knightly status
who had still not complied with the Consejo’s instructions, despite repeated
demands that they should equip themselves with horses and weapons, was
still very high.42
In the month of August another attempt was made to list the knights and
lancers in each of the districts.43 But in the light of the lack of effect of these
measures, the Regidores decided to visit each district and speak to its inhabit-
ants, to make them understand that esta çibdad está en peligro de cabsda de la
gente estar mal armada; que todos tengan ballestas e lanças e salgan a los rebatos
cada que Jahén mandare. They also asked the local priests to include this message
in their sermons.44 In October another list was prepared, and proceedings were
taken against those who had sold horses without the city’s authorization.45
These attempts at vigilance and the preparation of the city’s defences also
affected the villages and castles of the surrounding region.46 The furthest
168 Medieval Spain

forward point of the defensive system of Jaén was undoubtedly the castle of
Pegalajar, situated two leagues from the city, and intended to defend it against
threats coming from the direction of Cambil. From the municipal records we
know that it had long been the practice to maintain a garrison of five horsemen
and forty foot soldiers in the village and castle of Pegalajar. They were paid a
small sum in cash and fifty cahices of wheat per annum, out of the tax known as
the alcabala.47 The city also provided them with some of the more expensive
military supplies, such as cuirasses, breastplates, and helmets.48 In times of
danger the city enhanced this system of vigilance with look outs and watch-
men specially contracted for the purpose.49 As well as this, the city committed
itself to trying to reinforce the defences of Pagalajar by carrying out repairs to
its walls.50 At this very time a certain Francisco Sánchez, together with his son
Antonio, promised to labrar en el adarve de Pagalajar un lienço de adarve, but he
never got around to carrying out the work, because he was onbre muy pobre e non
lo podría labrar, and because his son Antonio left him to dedicate himself
instead to the more lucrative task of entrar a tierra de moros to take captives.51
This policy of trying to keep the walls, ramparts and towers in a good state of
preservation may be assumed also to have been applied to the city of Jaén
itself. Amongst other interesting information, we should note an instruction
from the Jurados, issued in the council on 9 October, that steps should be taken
in respect of the fact that los adarves desta çibdad en algunos lienços dellos se caen,
de lo qual viene daño e perjuiçio a esta çibdad.52
The year of 1476 closed with new dangers, as may be deduced from the
decision taken by the council on 9 December instructing the Obrero of the
Arrabal and the councillor Diego Sánchez that they should close the Puerta
Barrera con su cerrojo e dos tapias en alto, at the expense of the inhabitants of the
Arrabal.53

Appendix

Granada: 11 January 1476 text of a truce between the kingdoms of Castile and
Granada: ACJ, 1476, ff. 29r–30r.
f. 29r. En el nombre de Dios todopoderoso. Conocida cosa sea a todos los que la pre-
sente vieren como nos Fernando de Aranda, veintequatro de la çibdat de Córdova, et
Pedro de Barrionuevo, regidor de Soria, vasallos e mensajeros de los muy altos,
poderosos, esclarecidos príncipes e reyes e señores, conuiene saber, don Fernando e
doña Isabel, rey e reyna de Castilla e de León, de Seçilia, principes de Aragón, por virtud
del poder que de sus altezas tenemos, segund paresçe por una su carta firmada de sus
nombres e sellada con su sello real, la qual queda en poder de el muy alto, poderoso e
muy noble rey de Granada, fecha en la muy noble villa de Valladolid a veinte e siete días
de nouiembre del año de mill e quatroçientos e setenta e çinco años, otorgamos e cono-
cemos que en nombre de los dichos señores rey e reina e por virtud del dicho su poder a
nos dado e otorgado,
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 169

[1] Otorgamos a vos el muy alto, poderoso, esclarecido rey Muley Abu-l-Haçem, rey del
reino de Granada, hónrelo Dios, paz firme, sana e verdadera por tiempo de quatro años
que comiençan el postrimero día en que se cumplan los dos años de la paz que el muy
noble señor conde de Cabra asentó con vuestra señoría en nombre de los dichos nue-
stros señores rey e reyna de Castilla, que se cumplen a honse días del mes de março del
año de mill e quatrocientos e ochenta e vno años. La qual dicha paz es por mar e por tier-
ra, de Lorca a Tarifa, de barra a barra.
[2] E que los dichos nuestros señores rey e reina guardarán la dicha paz de los dichos
quatro años a todo el reino de Granada e a todas sus çibdades e villas e lugares e castillos
e fortalezas e gentes e sus ganados y bienes, e la mandarán así guardar a todos los duques,
marqueses, condes, perlados e ricos omes, alcaydes e todas las gentes de los dichos sus
reinos, con las condiciones e costumbres antiguas e las que deiuso se siguen, cómo vos,
el muy alto e muy noble rey de Granada la guardaréis e mandaréis guardar a todas las çib-
dades e villas y lugares e castillos e fortalezas de todos los dichos sus reinos de Castilla y
de León e las provinçias de sus reinos.
[3] (f. 29v) E que en todo este dicho tiempo de esta dicha paz serán abiertos los puertos
e axeas acostumbrados para los mercadores, merchantes e almayares christianos e
moros e judios de ambas las partes, así por mar como por tierra, que puedan ir e venir
con sus mercadurías e ganados de los dichos reinos de Castilla al dicho vuestro reino de
Granada, e del dicho vuestro reino de Granada a los dichos reinos de Castilla, segund se
acostunbró en todos los tiempos pasados, pagando sus derechos acostumbrados. E que
todos ellos sean seguros que non les sea fecho mal ni daño ninguno en sus personas y
mercadurías e bienes de parte de los dichos rey e reina ni de parte de vos el dicho señor
rey de Granada. E que les deseen comprar e vender, segund la costumbre, e que sean
honrados e guardados.
[4] E otrosí que los navíos e fustas que fueren o vinieren allende la mar con qualesquier
cosas e mercadurías, que ellos y los moros e las mercadurías e cosas que así en ellos
vinieren a este dicho reino de Granada e fueren como dicho es, que sean seguros de los
dichos nuestros señores rey e reina de Castilla e de sus gentes, quier sean los tales navíos
de moros o de cristianos, que vengan fletados por los tales moros, e que los moros juren
en su ley que la tal mercaduría que llevaren o troxieren a este reino es suya, lo qual al
tanto se faga a los navíos de los cristianos destos reinos de Castilla que fueren o vinieren
por la mar con sus mercadurías, que ellos sean seguros del señor rey de Granada y de sus
gentes.
[5] Otrosí, si algund almojarife o facedor de rey o otras qualesquier personas fuyere con
tesoro que non sea suyo o con qualesquier otros bienes de la parte de los dichos rey e
reina nuestros señores a las vuestra o de la vuestra a la suya, que le sea tomado el tal
tesoro o bienes que leuare de su mano e que sea tornado a poder de cuyo fuere e ruéguese
por él si su yerro non fuere grande. E que sea detenido el que así fuyere en el primero
lugar o puerto do primero salío nueve días, que es el tiempo acostumbrado, fasta que se
sepa de la otra parte de do fuyó en qué manera va.
[6] Et otrosí (f. 30r) si algund christiano o moro cabtiuo, rescatado o por rescatar, fuyere
o llegare a su tierra siete pasadas del mojón adentro, que sea libre. E sy fuere tomado den-
tro en su tierra, como dicho, que la parte quel tal catiuo christiano o moro boluiere, quel
primero lugar do fuere lleuado sea obligado a lo boluer. E si fuyere e leuare algund tesoro
o otras cosas, que se buelua lo que así leuare el tal cativo, si se fallare en su poder; e sy no se
fallare en su poder, que jure el señor de la casa del primero lugar donde llegó y posó y
algunos de los buenos del lugar, cada uno en su ley, antel que lo tal fuere a demanda, lo
170 Medieval Spain

que sabe, e con esto el tal cativo sea suelto de lo que fue demandado, dándolo si lo lleuó,
segund susodicho es. E que esta justicia sea igual a los cristianos e a los moros, saluo si el
cabtivo christiano o moro fuere ya entregado al alhaqueque, quel tal non sea libre pues
que lo ha de pagar el alhaqueque e que le sea tornado a su poder del alhaqueque
demandólo a su señor, o le sea luego fecho pagar el rescate por que se igualó e se pongan
jueces de anbas las partes de los dichos quatro años para que miren las querellas e
judguen e fagan lo que fallaren por justicia a ambas las partes, e sea pagado el querelloso.
[7] E que los caualleros e todas las otras personas de ambas partes sean thenudos de
estar por esta dicha paz así en los reinos de los dichos nuestros señores rey e reina de
Castilla e en este vuestro reino de Granada. E si alguno la querebrantare en aqueste
dicho tiempo, que sea requirido segund costumbre de paz antigua, e do non se quisiere
enmendar, que se faga la costumbre. E si el tal caso fuere de calidad que ayan de entender
en ello los tales jueces, que lo vean para dar su justicia a quien lo touiere. La qual dicha
paz con todas sus condiciones, costumbres y firmezas, segund dicho es, sea igualmente
entre los dichos señores reyes e sus reinos.
[8] Lo qual todo que dicho es y cada una cosa e parte dello sentamos e otorgamos nos
los sobredichos Fernando de Aranda e Pedro de Barrionuevo con vos el muy alto rey de
Granada como e segund dicho es por virtud del sobredicho poder que de los muy altos e
esclarecidos (f. 30v) rey e reyna nuestros señores tenemos, y cada uno de nos y ambos
juntamente jurados a Dios y a esta señal de la cruz +en que cada uno de nos puso su
mano derecha y a las palabras de los santos Euangelios en creencia de los dichos señores
rey e reina nuestros señores a vos el muy alto rey de Granada de sus nombrado, que ellos
guardarán e complirán y mandarán guardar e complir esta dicha paz por todo e en todo
tiempo de los dichos quatro años con todas sus condiciones e fuerças fasta el complim-
iento della.
[9] De lo qual otorgamos dos cartas del mismo tenor cada una dellas, escripta en ladino
e en arávigo, et pusimos en el ladino en cada una nuestros nombres y sellámoslas con los
sellos de nuestras armas, et obligamos a los muy altos e muy esclarecidos rey e reina nue-
stros señores a todo lo que susodicho es por virtud del poder que de su alteza nos es dado,
como dicho es. Así como vos el muy alto rey de Granada nos dais otra vuestra carta fir-
mada de vuestro nombre e sellada con vuestro sello real al tanto de todo lo sobredicho. E
la una destas cartas queda en poder de vos el dicho señor rey de Granada e la otra
lleuamos en nuestro poder nos los sobredichos Fernando de Aranda y Pedro de
Barrioneuvo a los sobredichos rey e reina nuestros señores.
Que son escriptas en la muy noble, leal e famosa çibdad de Granada, jueues honce días
de enero del año mill e quatroçientos e stenta e seis años.
Fernando de Aranda. – Pedro de Barrionuevo.

Alhambra de Granada: 16 March 1476; an agreement signed by Martín de

Espinosa, Jurado of Jaén, and Abdallah Alboriqueque relating to the differences
between the Alcaide of Huelma and the Caudillo of Guadix: ACJ, 1476, ff. 65v–66r.
Sepan todos los que la presente vieren como yo el jurado Martín de Espinosa, mensajero
que soy enviado de la noble çibdad de Jahén al muy noble, virtuoso el alguacil mayor del
reino de Granada, para entender e fablar en los daños acaecidos en el castillo de Huelma
por el virtuoso Hamir Abençeyt, alcaide y cabdillo de la çibdad de Guadix por el honrado
cauallero Mamad Abençalema, adelantado del Albaragilla54, y así mismo por rogar en
nonbre de la dicha çibdad de Jahén que se le diesen los çinco christianos que fueron
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 171

tomados en el dicho castillo de Huelma por las pendencias que los dichos tenían contra
el dicho alciade Diego de Biedma, alcaide de Huelma. E el dicho señor alguacil mayor,
por contemplación de la dicha çibdad de Jahén, a él plogo y mandó soltar los dichos
çinco cristianos.
Yo el dicho Martín de Espinosa, por virtud de los poderes que tengo de la dicha çibdad
de Jahén y del dicho Diego de Biedma, alcaide de Huelma, do por quitos a los sobredi-
chos cabdillo de Guadix e al adelantado del Abarragila de lo acontecido en el dicho
castillo de Huelma de muertos e feridos e robos de armas y ganados y yeguas y de lo que
fue derrocado e quemado y de qualquier cosa y pendencias que se podrían decir e allegar
e demandar fasta oy día de la fecha desta escriptura contra el reino de Granada e contra
los sobredichos, saluo las tres yeguas quel alciade de Huelma dice que son suyas e el
dicho cabdillo de Guadix dice que son suyas, para que se vea e judgue por justicia de
quier sean.
E asy mismo quedó conçertado que los dichos cabdillo de Guadix e adelantado del
Albaragilla que non les queda de demandar cosa alguna contra el dicho alcaide de
Huelma de todos los daños que los dichos han resçebido en el dicho castillo de Huelma
así de muertos, feridos como de qualquier pendencia o pendencias que los dichos tenían
o podían allegar o demandar contra él, el dicho Diego de Biedma, alcaide de Huelma,
fasta el día de la fecha desta escriptura, saluo la pendencia del moro Johjoh y los dos
moros mudéjares fasta que se vea por justicia.
E yo el dicho Martín de Espinosa, por virtud de los dichos poderes que yo tengo de los
sobredichos, me obligo en nonbre de la dicha çibdad de Jahén e en nonbre del dicho
alcaide de Huelma, que manternán e conplirán todo lo que dicho es e de mantener e
guardar la dicha paz asentada e firmada e jurada por los señores. Y a más desto, yo obligo
por la dicha çibdad (f. 66r) de Jahén que qualquier daño que se fiziere por tiempo de vn
año de oy día de la fecha por el dicho alcaide de Huelma o por su consejo a qualquier
lugar del reino de Granada, que la dicha çibdad de Jaén sea obligado de lo tornar e resti-
tuir o pagar.
Así mismo es condición que non se farán prendas en Huelma nin en su tierra por el
moro Johjoh quel alcaide de Huelma tiene ni por dos moros mudéjares, ni el alcaide de
Huelma por las dichas tres yeguas, en este dicho tiempo de vn año. E si el dicho alcaide
de Huelma prouare cómo los dichos mudéjares están en su tierra, quel sea libre e quito
dellos.
E esto es condición: que se averigüe la justicia antel señor alguacil mayor de Granada
por todo el dicho año destas pendencias.
E porque es así verdad que pasó lo sobre dicho en el Alhambra de la muy noble çibdad
de Granada antel honrado cavallero Abdalla Alboriqueque, contador mayor del señor
rey de Granada, e el honrado cauallero Martín de Espinosa, mensajero de la dicha çibdad
de Jaén, firmamos aquí nuestros nonres en dos cartas iguales fechas en el Alhambra de la
muy noble çibdad de Granada, a diez e seys días del mes de março, año de mill e quatro-
cientos e setenta e seys años.
Abdalla Boriqueque. – Martín de Espinosa.

Notes
1 In 1982 to 1983 Angus MacKay and I, together with Professor José Enrique López de
Coca of the University of Málaga, were involved in an Acción Integrada Hispano-
Británica devoted to the study of frontier relations between Andalucia and Granada.
172 Medieval Spain

This article is a memorial to that collaboration, which led, not least, to the confer-
ence held in Edinburgh in 1987 on medieval frontier societies; the acts of which
were published by the Clarendon Press in 1989 under the title of Medieval Frontier
Societies. This is also a personal act of homage to a friend from whom I have learnt so
much and who always came to my aid when called upon.
2 In a document issued at Segovia on 20 January 1475, the Reyes Católicos empowered
the Count of Cabra to negotiate with Granada a tregua y sobreseymiento de guerra . . .
por el tiempo . . . que a vos bien visto fuere. See R. Carande and J. de M. Carriazo,
El Tumbo de los Reyes Católicos del Concejo de Sevilla vol. 1 (Seville, 1929–68), pp.
11–12; see also for further information and comment J. de M. Carriazo, ‘Historia de
la guerra de Granada’ in the Historia de España dirigada por don Ramón Menéndez
Pidal, XVII (Madrid, 1969), ch. 2, and idem, ‘Las treguas con Granada de 1475 y
1478’, Al-Andalus, 19 (1954), 317–64.
3 Juan Torres Fontes, ‘Las relaciones castellano-granadinas desde 1475 a 1478’,
Hispania, 86 (1962), 186–229.
4 There is a copy of this document, issued at Valladolid on 17 November 1475 in the
Tumbo de los Reyes Católicos, edited by Carande and Carriazo (see n. 2 above), 1, 122–3.
5 Carmen Perea Carpio, ‘La frontera concejo de Jaén-Reino de Granada’, Cuadernos de
Historia Medieval 7–8 (1981/2), 231–8.
6 Cf. Torres Fontes, ‘Relaciones castellano-granadinas’ (n. 3 above), 191.
7 The text appears in the Tumbo de los Reyes Católicos (n. 2 above), 1, 122–3.
8 Actas Capitulares de Jaén (henceforth ACJ), 1476, f. 27v.
9 ACJ, 1476, f. 19v
10 On 9 February a plea was entered in the name of Luis de Torres, Alcalde Mayor entre
Moros y Cristianos, against Juan de Cerezo, claiming the right to collect the pay-
ments due to the escribanía mayor de lo morisco. ACJ 1476, f. 37v. To these were also
added those of the escribano mayor de lo morisco and of the customs of Alcalá la Real:
ibid. f. 38v. In the council meeting of 23 Febraury a document was presented in his
name requesting recognition of his right to levy a duty of 8 mrs a head on all
Muslim merchants du su salida que va con su mercadería: ACJ, 1476, ff. 51r and 52r.
José Rodríguez Molina, La vida de la ciudad de Jaén en tiempos del Condestable Iranzo
(Jaén, 1996), 106–7, publishes the tarrif of the fees of the escribanía de los morisco of
Alcalá la Real.
11 Juan Fernández de Iranzo was the brother of Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, Constable of
Castile and governor of Jaén. The latter, from 1461 up to his death in 1473 had been
the master of Jaén, of which he had been appointed both governor and Alcaide by
Henry IV. During those years he had presided over a period of intense military and
political action, magnificently described in an anonymous local chronicle, edited
by J. de M. Carriazo y Arroquia under the title of Hechos del Condestable don miguel
Lucas de Iranzo (Madrid, 1940). See also Rodríguez Molina, La vida de la ciudad de Jaén
(n. 10 above). The Constable married Doña Teresa de Torres, who as a widow was
referred to in the Actas Capitulares de Jaén simply as la condesa de Castilla. She was
the heir to a wealthy patrimony in the region of Jaén and was the lord in her own
right of Villardonpardo and Escañuela. The friendship between Miguel Lucas and
Henry IV, which was formed while the latter was heir to the throne, resulted in his
obtaining, amongst other offices and titles, those of Alcaide of Jaén and of Alcalá la
Real, governor of the bishopric of Jaén, Alcalde Mayor entre Moros y Cristianos and
Alcalde Mayor of Jaén, as well as the Clerkship of the Customs of Alcalá la Real.
12 On Huelma see Tomás Quesada Quesada, La Serranía de Mágina en la Baja Edad
Media: una tierra fronteriza con el reino Nazarí de Granada (Granada, 1989), and on
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 173

Cambil see M.A. Chamocho Cantudo, Génesis histórica e institucional de una villa en
la frontera castellano-granadina. Cambil 1485–1558 (Jaén, 1999).
13 ACJ, 1476, f. 14v.
14 ACJ, 1476, f. 20r. The establishing of the place of origin of the culprits was the
responsibility of the so-called fieles de rastro; a typical frontier institution. Jaén had
some, and there is a record of them in the 1476 Acta Capitualres. On 3 January
Fernán Martínez de Burgos gave up his office of rastrería on grounds of ill health,
and Juan Sánchez de Almagro was named to succeed him: ACJ, 1476, f. 1r. In the
same year also appear Fernán Sánchez de Córdoba and Alvaro Sánchez de Párraga,
who can be seen acting in the case of two Christians captured by the Muslims of
Arenas: ibid. f. 206v, and Juan Sánchez de Dueña, Juan de María Sala, and Juan
García de Toro, all of whom are recorded as fieles del rastro: ibid. f. 215r.
15 On these truces see J.E. López de Coca, ‘Castilian–Granadan Frontier Institutions’,
in R. Bartlett and A. MacKay (eds), Medieval Frontier Societies (Oxford, 1989), pp.
131–5.
16 By extension the term axeas was also applied to those who knew the routes that
merchants should follow when entering or leaving Granada. They also served as
alfaqueques and in general took part in mediation of anything to do with maintain-
ing peace on the frontier. See Rodríguez Molina, La vida de la ciudad de Jaén (n. 10
above), p. 130.
17 En la frontera de Granada (Seville, 1971), p. 130.
18 ACJ, 1476, f. 47v.
19 ACJ, 1476, f. 48 r/v.
20 ibid, f. 50v.
21 i.e. Yahya al-Nayar, who was Alcaide of Almería and lord of Baza during the last
stages of the war of Granada. Following the Castilian conquest, he converted to
Christianity, taking the name Don Pedro de Granada.
22 He was given 2000 mrs for travelling expenses: ACJ, 1476, f. 57v. Abulcacen
Vanegas was another of the leading figures in Granada at this time. During the final
war, he was a supporter of El Zagal, whose vizier he was. Abu ’l-Qasim ibn Ridwan
Bannigas, as he should more properly be known, was the descendant of a Córdoban
called Vanegas or Venegas, who converted to Islam while a prisoner in Granada,
and joined the upper ranks of Granadan society. After the fall of Baza, Abu ’l-Qasim
was given various estates by the Reyes Católicos, including the salt pans of la Malahá.
23 In a letter issued at Valladolid on 14 December 1475, Queen Isabel entrusted la guar-
da en encomienda de la dicha çibdad e su tierra para mi serviçio to doña Teresa, with the
power to recruit troops whenever she considered it necessary. There is a copy of the
document in ACJ, 1476, ff. 91v–92r.
24 ACJ, 1476, ff. 112v–113r.
25 ACJ, 1476, f. 114r.
26 ibid. f. 191r.
27 ibid. f. 130v.
28 ibid. f. 185r.
29 ibid. f. 189r.
30 ibid. f. 189r
31 ibid. f. 189r
32 ibid. f. 94v.
33 On 10 October the Concejo of Jaén wrote to the Comendador of Martos to seek justice
on those who mataron dos moros en Colomera: ACJ, 1476, f. 195v. On the 11th, the
Concejo issued a safe conduct para todos e qualesquier almayares que vienen de
174 Medieval Spain

Granada, as the chief judge of Granada had already dio otra carta de seguro: ACJ,
1476, f. 198v.
34 On this topic, and with special reference to Jaén, see my article ‘La caballería popu-
lar andaluza (siglos XIII–XV), Anuario de Estudios Medievales 15 (1986), 315–32.
35 ACJ, 1476, f. 9r. Watchmen were also placed on the Torre del Comendador: ibid. f.
169v.
36 On 4 March payment was authorized for all of the watchmen, night patrols and
gate guards for the month of February; totalling 5250 mrs: ACJ, 1476, f. 55r. The
gates of the city were as follows: de Granada, del Alcotón, de Santa María, de la
Carnicería, de Baeza, de Martos, de la torre Albarrana, de Noguera, and de la Barrera,
with the latter two being in the Arrabal: ibid. f. 166v.
37 Que por quanto la cavallería desta çibdad está muy decaída, de lo qual es grand deserviçio
del rey e reina nuestros señores, por merced que les requerían e requirieron que luego mande
a los jurados de las collaçiones desta çibdad que apremien a los cavalleros e personas de sus
coolaçiones que non tienen cavallos y tienen la contía, que los traigan e mantengan porque
así cumple el serviçio de los dichos rey e reina nuestros señores; e que los tienen cavallos non
consientan que los vendan: ACJ, 1476, f. 61r.
38 ACJ, 1476, f. 63r.
39 ibid. f. 61v. In the Actas there is a reference to a letter of John II that stipulated that
such a carta de ancianía should be given to a knight que Ilegase a hedad de sesenta
años: ACJ, 1476, f. 201v.
40 ibid. f. 76r.
41 ibid. f. 177r.
42 There were 65 in all, divided between the districts as follows: El Arrabal 27, Santa
María 11, San Miguel 12, Santiago 9, San Llorente 3, and San Bartolomé 3: ACJ,
1476, f. 69r/v.
43 ibid. f. 185v.
44 ibid. f. 186v.
45 ibid. f. 202r. Thus, Andrés Montero, inhabitant of the village of Cazalilla, who
vendío su cavallo sin licencia had to pay a fine of 2000 mrs and tenga cavallo de oy en
diez días: ibid. f. 205r. The same happened to Juan López de la Villa, who lived in the
Arrabal: ibid.
46 In addition to Pegalajar, there were other fortresses under the control of the
Concejo of Jaén, which paid the expenses of their Alcaides or constables. The full
list of such castles and the costs of their garrisoning is as follows: Otiñar 10 000 mrs;
Pegalajar 13 000 mrs; Torre del Campo 16 000 mrs; El Berrueco 18 000 mrs; Fuente
del Rey 10 000 mrs; Cazalilla 10 000 mrs, and Mengibar 15 000 mrs. The inhabitants
of the adjacent villages were not obliged to guard the castles, nor to provide
their Alcaides with ropa nin leña nin gallina nin ningund otro serviçio: ACJ, 1476, f.
198v.
47 This came to a total of 7080 mrs a year, at a rate of 350 mrs per horseman and 133 mrs
per foot soldier: ACJ, 1476, ff. 69v–70r.
48 In April 1476, a inqury was conducted into the condition of the Caballeros de
Cuantía of Pegalajar. As they non estavan tan armadas como devían, segund el lugar tan
cercano a los moros como está, the jurado Pedro de Barrio and the Regidor Fernando de
Gormaz, who were carrying out the survey, recommended to the Consejo that they
should lend ten cuirasses and ten armaduras de cabeza or helmets: ACJ, 1476, f. 106r.
49 Thus on 1 July the Concejo authorized payment a las guardas de Pegalajar doscientos
mrs. de los días que estovieron por atalayas quando vino el rey de Granada a Canbil: ACJ,
1476, f. 69v.
 Jaén and the Truce of 1476 175

50 The Concejo agreed to the stone mason Francisco Sánchez de Baeza carrying out
work on the castle of Pegalajar: ibid. f. 114r.
51 ibid. f. 179r.
52 ibid. f. 197v.
53 ibid. f. 222v. The muncipal officer who had the title of Obrero was in charge of carry-
ing out public works and inspecting those that had been carried out by private indi-
viduals. It seems that Jaén had two such Obreros, one for the city proper and the
other for the Arrabal.
54 This refers to the Alfarantira or line of demarcation between the kingdom of
Granada and Castilian territory.
9
Songbooks as Isabelline Propaganda:
the Case of Oñate and Egerton
Dorothy Severin

At the beginning of the undisputed reign of Isabel and Fernando the Catholic
Monarchs in 1479, after the civil wars against the allegedly illegitimate daugh-
ter of Henry IV, Juana ‘la Beltraneja’, the court songbooks that circulated
among the nobility took on a decidedly political flavour. Two of these, the
Cancionero de Oñate (HH1 in Dutton’s system of reference),1 and the
Cancionero de Egerton (LB3)2 are largely dedicated to political poetry of several
varieties:

1. Old favourites, the childhood reading of Isabel, which contributed to her

political formation and desire to forge a strong central monarchy which
would put paid to the civil wars which had plagued the peninsula for 150
years.
2. Advice to princes both old and new, some of it specifically aimed at Isabel
and her brother Prince Alfonso, who died in adolescence.
3. Attacks on the regime of Henry IV, some in veiled satire and some more
direct.
4. New poetry which created new national heroes for Castile.
5. Religious poetry and prose, some of which has a marked political agenda.

In cateory one falls the Ur-text of the new regime, Juan de Mena’s Laberinto
de Fortuna or Trescientas,3 nicknamed after the number of stanzas that it
almost has (297, with three added later to round it off). Written for John II,
Isabel’s father, it offers a messianic vision of a strong monarch and his advisor
Don Alvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile. Unfortunately, the weak-willed
John and his even more questionable son Henry were unable to live up to this
example, so it fell to Isabel, Henry’s half-sister, to carry out the programme
imagined by Mena. Equally exemplary are Mena’s didactic Coplas contra
los pecados mortales (completed by the poet Gómez Manrique after Mena’s
death), and the long, rather dreary, but extremely popular Coplas sobre diversos
virtudes y vicios by Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, who excelled at prose rather than
poetry. His Claros varones was an even more overtly political poem, similar in

176
 Songbooks as Isabelline Propaganda 177

intention to Mena’s Trescientas in its citation of exemplary Castilians worthy

of emulation. The Marqués de Santillana’s political programme written on the
occasion of a major military defeat of the Aragonese court, the Comedieta de
Ponza, also features in Oñate, as does his neo-Stoical Bias contra la Fortuna.4
In the second category, that of advice to princes, we find Gómez Manrique’s
Regimiento de príncipes written for Isabel and Alfonso, and Santillana’s equally
famous Proverbios, written for the despised Henry IV when he was a lad.
The third category, direct attacks on the regime of Henry IV, are heavily rep-
resented in these so-called songbooks. The Coplas de Mingo Revulgo is a pastoral
satire on the sexual behaviour of the allegedly homosexual Henry and his
allegedly promiscuous wife, and is probably attributable to Fray Iñigo de
Mendoza, who wrote the long and excellent Vita Christi,5 with direct attacks
on the grandees and Henry IV which survive in two versions in these two can-
cioneros. The poem was very popular in early printings of the 1480s and was
often teamed with Mena’s Trescientas, but the direct attack on the king, even
Henry, was considered too incendiary to escape the censor’s pen. Gómez
Manrique contributes his famous reprehension of the royal treasurer Diego
Arias de Avila (Coplas contra Diego Arias), and we even get Santillana’s famous
attacks on don Alvaro de Luna from the earlier regime of John II, a reminder
that overweening courtiers of dubious ancestry were not popular, even if
glorified by Mena in his Trescientas.
In category four is the most famous poem of the Spanish Middle Ages, Jorge
Manrique’s Coplas a la muerte de su padre,6 in praise of Rodrigo Manrique, the
great hero of the civil war. Jorge’s success with this piece of myth-making was
as unprecedented as it was welcome. The poet Gómez is brother of Rodrigo
and uncle of Jorge.
The fifth and last category is again best-represented by Fray Iñigo’s Vita
Christi, but to this we must add the best-selling Pasión trobada by the famous
sentimental novelist Diego de San Pedro.7 The simple but graphic style made
it a printing success, and the spirit of the new pre-Reformation devotion is
embodied in this contemplation of the death of Christ. The religious poetry of
Juan Alvarez Gato is also characteristic of the this new devotion, using popular
songs for contrafacta. A brief summary of the contents of the Egerton songbook
is as follows:

1. Two letters, most probably on the deaths of Gaston de Foix, Prince of Viana
(1470), and his mother the infanta Leonor of Aragon (1479), sister of
Fernando the Catholic.
2. Gómez Manrique, Regimiento de Príncipes.
3. Jorge Manrique, Coplas.
4. El Infante Epitus, wisdom book, prose (Epictetus and the Emperor Hadrian).
5. Two poems by Juan Alvarez Gato, contrafacta.
6. A cycle of Passion poems to the canonical hours, unique to this collection,
anonymous.
178 Medieval Spain

7. Two letters to devout nuns, anonymous, prose.

8. ‘Despertad vuestros sentidos’, unique to the collection, anonymous.
9. Mingo Revulgo.
10. Wisdom book, unique to this collection, prose.
11. Gómez Manrique, Coplas a Diego Arias.
12. Fray Iñigo de Mendoza, Vita Christi.
13. Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, Virtudes y vicios.
14. A large selection of short poems by the comic poet Antón de Montoro.
15. Juan de Mena, Coplas contra los pecados mortales, completed by Gómez
Manrique (but incomplete in this manuscript).

Egerton is closely related to another Castilian cancionero, Colombina II, (SV2),

and both were constructed on the basis of related notebooks that contain the
Fernán Pérez Virtudes y vicios, the Montoro poetry, the the Mena Coplas.
Significantly, SV2 ends with Mena’s Trescientas, which may have been copied
from a different notebook or may have been a part of the Fernán Pérez
notebook (the end of LB3 is missing). Thus Montoro’s poetry seems to be inci-
dentally included between the more popular works, although Oñate does
specifically include some Montoro poems against Henry IV.
SV2 is an interesting comparison with LB3 and HH1. It seems to have a less
pronounced pro-isabelline agenda and although the manuscript paper is con-
temporary to LB3 and HH1, an original could have been of a slightly earlier
date. It largely consists of Santillana’s Proverbios for Henry IV glossed by Pero
Díaz de Toledo, Santillana’s most popular (but perhaps his least interesting)
work. Again politics seems to outweigh aesthetic judgement. The contents are:

1. Saint Bernard’s advice to Reymundo (another advice to princes, prose

translation).
2. Santillana, Proverbios, gloss by Pero Díaz de Toledo.
3. Catechism, prose, anonymous.
4. Pseudo-Seneca, to Galeón, on adverse fortune, prose translation.
5. Pseudo-Tostado, De como al omne es necesario amar, prose.
6. Gómez Manrique, Coplas a Diego Arias.
7. Fernán Pérez, Virtudes y vicios.
8. Montoro poetry.
9. Mena, Pecados mortales.
10. Three poems written by a later hand on a blank page, one by Montoro, and
two courtly poems by Juan Alvarez Gato and Guevara.
11. Mena, Laberinto with glosses.

Advice to princes seems to be the theme of this cancionero, whether Reymundo

or Henry IV. The Laberinto, and the common Fernán Pérez notebook, make
this a cancionero from the same stable, although less critical of the Henriquean
regime.
 Songbooks as Isabelline Propaganda 179

Oñate is a much larger and more ambitious cancionero and thus slightly more
representative of the courtly production in times of John II and Henry IV.
However, contemporary artists are again shunned in favour of Manrique’s
Coplas and devotional works. Isabel’s programme seems to have included the
encouragement of devotional poetry to the exclusion of the amorous variety.
The contents of Oñate are as follows:

1. Fernán Pérez, Las setecientas (Virtudes y vicios plus religious poetry), Cuatro
virtudes cardenales, Claros varones, Doctrina que dieron a Sara.
2. Santillana, Infierno de enamorados, Comedieta de Ponza, Proverbios, Bias con-
tra la Fortuna, poem on the death of Alvaro de Luna, Doctrinal de privados
(also against Luna), Loores de Nuestra Señora, poem to Alfonso V of
Portugal, ‘Gentil dueña’.
3. Mena, Coronación del Marqués de Santillana, Pecados mortales (Gómez
Manrique ending).
4. Santillana, Defunsión de Enrique de Villena, Triunfete de amor, Sueño.
5. Mena, Laberinto, Claro escuro, ‘Al fijo muy claro de Yperion’.
6. Two preguntas and respuestas, Santillana, Mena, Mena, Santillana.
7. Costana, Conjuro.
8. Alvarez Gato, ‘Vengo dallende la sierra’.
9. Gómez Manrique on death of Garcilaso de la Vega.
10. Bishop Pedro González de Mendoza on death of his father Santillana.
11. Gómez Manrique, Planto de las virtudes on death of Santillana.
12. Diego de Burgos, Triunfo de Marqués on death of Santillana.
13. Fray Iñigo de Mendoza, Vita Christi, Mingo Revulgo (with attribution), Lo
que ha de tener el fraile, Da esfuerzo a la virtud fatigada, A un gentilhombre
14. Pedro de San Pedro (sic) Pasión trobada
15. Ambrosio Montesino, Coplas a la Verónica
16. Gómez Manrique, Coplas a Diego Arias, Regimiento de príncipes
17. Fray Iñigo, Sermon trobado to Fernando the Catholic, ‘Alta reyna esclareci-
da’ to Isabel.
18. Pero Guillén de Segovia, Salmos penetenciales.
19. Antón de Montoro, two poems to Henry IV.
20. Jorge Manrique, Coplas and last incomplete poem against death.
21. Pedro de Escavias, 18 poems, some dateable between 1437 and 1445;
includes poem critical of Battle of Olmedo, one to Constable Miguel Lucas
de Iranzo, one on the death of Henry, Infante of Aragon.

The main preoccupations of Oñate would seem to be the last ten years of the
reign of John II (including the deaths of Alvaro de Luna and Santillana), criti-
cism of the reign of Henry IV, and praise of Isabel, Fernando, and of course
Rodrigo Manrique. While my colleague Michel Garcia thinks that Pedro de
Escavias may have been the compiler, his dates are a bit early for this, and
one might rather think that a friend or younger relative in possession of a
180 Medieval Spain

notebook of Escavias’ poetry had this copied at the end of various other more
popular notebooks, one of Fernán Pérez, one of Santillana and Mena, one on
the death of Santillana and Garcilaso de la Vega (an antecedent of the poet), a
religious and moralistic notebook of Fray Iñigo, Diego de San Pedro, Gómez
Manrique and Pero Guillén, and finally one more notebook which contained
the latest isabelline poems by Fray Iñigo and Jorge Manrique, including Antón
de Montoro’s earlier poems to Henry IV and Pero Guillén’s Salmos (undated).
Of course they could also have been working with smaller units, but the evi-
dence from SV2 and LB3 indicates that these notebooks were fairly substantial
in size (they occasionally stand alone as individual collections, for example of
Fernán Pérez de Guzmán).
The reign of the Catholic Monarchs was keen to establish its legitimacy at
the end of the civil war when Isabel would still have been perceived as an
usurper. Chronicles were favourite means of propaganda, but cancioneros
(which infrequently contained real ‘songs’) were useful as another arm in
the propaganda war. Poetic and sometimes prose selections were combined
in collections which reflected the new ethos. To the moralistic works of her
father’s reign and the satirical and critical works of Henry IV’s regime were
added poems in praise of Isabel, Fernando, and the heroic don Rodrigo
Manrique. These served as a political statements for the nobles who ordered
and owned the volumes; curiously there is little sign of the artistic side of
the period 1440–79 save some of Santillana’s courtly compositions, and
love poetry has been displaced by religious poetry. Amorous poetry would
regain its popularity at a later date and would be disseminated widely in
print after the death of Isabel by the Cancionero general of 1511.8 Already in
the 1490s the courtly mode was finding favour in the presses. But at the crit-
ical period after the end of the civil war the message carried by the can-
cioneros was clearly political as the nobility realigned itself behind the
winning side.
A survey of early printings shows that the poetry popular in the Oñate and
Egerton was the poetry which made it into print.9 Even more amazingly there
was almost no amatory verse in the printed poetic production before 1496,
when Juan del Encina produced his Cancionero, and until 1511 this was the
only reprinting success wich featured courtly verse. The favourite religious
poets were Fray Iñigo, Fray Ambrosio, the Comendador Román (Coplas de la
Pasión con la Resurección), Diego de San Pedro (his Pasión trobada rather than
his courtly verse), and finally Juan de Padilla. The favourite secular poets were
Juan de Mena (Laberinto, Pecados, Coronación), Santillana (Proverbios, Bias),
Gómez Manrique (Regimiento de príncipes), Jorge Manrique (Coplas, and excep-
tionally one amatory poem, ‘Es amor fuerza tan fuerte’), Fernando del Pulgar’s
Glosa de las Coplas del Revulgo, and Fernán Pérez de Guzmán Coplas a la muerte
de D. Alonso de Cartagena, Las setecientas. Other religious poets included Luís
de Salazar (El Credo y el Paternoster), Pedro de Gracia Dei (Crianza y virtuosa
doctrina for Princess Isabel), and Martín Martínez de Ampiés, Triunfo de María.
 Songbooks as Isabelline Propaganda 181

Minor secular poets included Martín García, La traslación del muy excelente doc-
tor Chatón, and Pedro de Portugal, Coplas de menosprecio del mundo. The only
cancionero resembling the manuscripts studied above were the Fray Iñigo can-
cionero (Zamora 1482, Zamora 1483, Zaragoza 1495) which contain a quantity
of religious and doctrinal poetry by other pooets, and the Cancionero de Ramón
de Llavia which features Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, Juan de Mena, Fray Iñigo,
Jorge Manrique, Juan Alvarez Gato, Gómez Manrique, and exceptionally a
brief sampling of some very dated poetry by Gonzalo Martínez de Medina and
Fernán Sánchez Calavera.
The lack of courtly verse is such that the Alonso de Córdoba versifications
added to the printed version of Juan de Flores’ sentimental romance Grimalte y
Gradissa (1495) receive a special entry in Dutton’s index (95FG). Diego de San
Pedro might be expected to figure here as well, but his Arnalte y Lucenda (1491)
contains two of his long serious poems, one his separately printed Siete
Angustias de Nuestra Señora, and the other a panegyric to Isabel. He too had
been allied with the losing side in the civil war and had to ingratiate himself
with the regime. The short poetic leitmotiv of the Arnalte is the only courtly
verse in his prose works. One wonders whether a form of self-censorship was
operating here; he of course rejects his courtly production, including the
prose works, in his later Desprecio de Fortuna.
It was not until well after the death of Isabel in 1504 that any courtly verse
began to appear in quantity, Encina, the favourite musician and poet of the
Duke of Alba’s court, being the exception. Once the Cancionero general appears
(Valencia 1511) the floodgates are opened. This lack of courtly verse is not
necessarily explained by censorship, although some sort of self-censorship
may have been functioning. It is more likely explained by the market per-
ceived by the printers. If they had thought that there was a buying public for
amatory verse, surely they would have printed some of it. It may have been
considered too much of a minority court interest until Encina’s tome proved
that purchasers existed. But between 1482 and 1496, fourteen years, all poet-
ic printing concentrated on didactic, religious and political work (although
heavily censored in the case of the Vita Christi, where the attack on king and
grandees has been emasculated). And it took another fifteen years, between
1496 and 1511, until a major compendium of all the poetry from the
1440s onwards was produced. In the meantime the printed amatory poems
other than Encina can still be counted on the fingers of one hand, and main-
ly consist of the anonymous ‘Nunca fue pena mayor’ which was a favourite
for musical setting. Chapbooks became popular during this time and
undoubtedly some of these have been lost, but the surviving traces must be
the tip of a very small iceberg. Our current interest in amatory verse has
distorted the picture of the last quarter of the fifteenth century which was
interested in political consolidation and religious reform, and eschewed the
frivolities of court pastimes.10 Amatory poetry seem to be the dog that didn’t
bark.
182 Medieval Spain

Notes
1 See Dutton’s short-reference work, Catálogo-Indice de la poesía cancioneril del siglo XV
(Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1982), and my edition of the
Oñate (intro. Michel Garcia, Madison: HSMS, 1990).
2 For both the Egerton and Colombina II, discussed below, see my edition Two Spanish
Songbooks (Liverpool: LUP, 2000).
3 Critical edition by Maxim Kerkhof, Nueva Biblioteca de Erudición y Crítica 9
(Madrid: Castalia, 1995).
4 Fernán Peŕez de Guzman’s Virtudes y vicios has recently been edited by María Jesús
Díez Garretas and María Wenceslada de Diego Lobejón (Tordes: Univ. de Valladolid,
2000). The complete poetic works of Santillana have been edited by Miguel Angel
Pérez Priego (Madrid: Alhambra, 1983 etc.), and Regula Langbehn Rohland has edit-
ed a number of the poetic works in Biblioteca Clásica 12 (Barcelona: Crítica, 1997).
Maxim Kerkhof has edited Bias (Madrid: RAE, 1982), Comedieta de Ponza (Madrid:
Cátedra, l988), Defunsión de d. Enrique de Villena (The Hague Nijihoff, 1977).
5 Ed. Julio Rodríguez Puértolas, Clásicos Castellanos 163 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe,
1968).
6 There are numerous editions of the Coplas, for example by Vicente Beltrán
(Barcelona: Bruguera, 1981).
7 See my edition (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1973).
8 Facsimile edition by Antonio Rodríguez Moñino (Madrid: Real Academia Española,
1958).
9 I use Dutton’s Indice for my information.
10 Of course Keith Whinnom said this many years ago in his inaugural address at the
University of Exeter (‘Spanish Literary Historiography: Three Forms of Distortion’,
Exeter: the University, 1967), when he pointed out that the current vogue for cer-
tain types of literature obscured the true picture at the end of the fifteenth century.
10
Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498
Ian Macpherson

Navego triste, sin guión,

so grave pena de morte,
en aguas de chamelote.

The summer of 1498 brought the Spanish and the Portuguese courts together,
in trying circumstances, in the city of Zaragoza. On the fourth of October of
the previous year, Juan, the eldest son of the Catholic Monarchs, had died sud-
denly, and Fernando and Isabel were left with no direct male heir. Juan’s sister
Isabel became the legal heiress to the throne of Castile. She had just married
Manuel I, el afortunado, of Portugal, and she and Manuel were summoned to
Spain, initially to Toledo, to be recognized as the lawful successors to the
Castilian throne. The cortes in Toledo put no obstacles in the way of this
arrangement. The Portuguese party, some three hundred strong, then moved
on to Zaragoza so that Manuel and Isabel could be be sworn in by the
Aragonese cortes there. With great ceremony, Manuel, Isabel, and their retinue
entered Zaragoza on 1 June 1498, only to discover that the Aragonese, less
than enthusiastic about the prospect of recognizing female rights of inherit-
ance, had fallen back on delaying tactics. But a possible solution was at hand.
If the heavily pregnant Isabel were to give birth to a male heir, whom the
Aragonese cortes might be persuaded to accept as the lawful successor to the
Catholic Monarchs, the situation would be resolved. The two courts waited
together, for three long months of an Aragonese summer, for Isabel to give
birth. On St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August, Isabel did produce a son, Miguel,
but suffered a massive haemorrhage and died in her father’s arms on the same
day. After staying to witness Isabel’s simple funeral, and the baptism of Miguel
on 4 September, the disconsolate Portuguese courtiers set off on the long jour-
ney home four days later, finally arriving in Lisbon on 10 October 1498. The
survival of the young prince was now the crucial factor in the future of the
crowns of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal.1
In the early part of the Cancionero de la British Library (LB1), the smooth flow
of courtly love poetry is interrupted by a sequence of light-hearted pieces.2

183
184 Medieval Spain

These include (fols 33v–34r) a sixteen-stanza occasional poem, described in

the rubric as an invención, and occasioned by the appearance in Zaragoza of a
Portuguese courtier – later identified as Manuel de Noronha, son of the
Captain General of Madeira – sporting camel-hair hose in an eye-catching
shade of yellow.3 Apart from the British Library cancionero, the only other sur-
viving witness to this occasion is the Portuguese Cancioneiro de Resende (16RE),
first published in Lisbon, 1516. García de Resende’s poetic record of the occa-
sion is more than twice as extensive as that of the compiler of LB1. He records
thirty-five compositions, in Castilian and Portuguese, and completes the pic-
ture by adding a further ten poems relating to the event, the first of them by
Manuel de Noronha (16RE–799).4
As early as 1897, Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos recognized that the verse
recorded by the compiler of the British Library cancionero and by García de
Resende must derive from the events of the summer of 1498, when the Spanish
and the Portuguese courts were becalmed together in Zaragoza, awaiting the
birth of a potential heir to the thrones of Castile and Portugal.5 The rubrics sup-
plied by the two compilers provide the key: De los mismos galanes de la corte a un
galán portugués que sacó en Çaragoça, estando allí la corte, unas calças de chamelote
(LB1, fol. 33v); De Dom Antoneo de Valhasco, esta[n]do el rrey nosso señor em
Çaragoça, a humas çeroylas de chamalote que fez Manuel de Noronha, fylho do cap-
itam da Ilha da Madeyra (16RE, fol. 161r). Taken together, the two rubrics reveal
that the invención was composed in Zaragoza, the Spanish and the Portuguese
Courts were there at the time, and that Manuel de Noronha’s appearance in
camel-hair hose was the occasion for its composition. The stay of three months
is confirmed by Nuno Fernandez de Taide, in a verse addressed to Manuel de
Noronha and recorded by Resende: Fiziestes tais entremeses / nestas calças que
trazeis, / que juram aragoneses / e’as cortes durem tres meses, / se vos nam vos cor-
reges. / Assi que vos nos fareis, com rezam, / invernar em aragam (16RE–795).
Patrizia Botta returned to the texts in a study which examines the textual
relationship between LB1 and Resende.6 Botta demonstrates that there is no
question of either of the two surviving witnesses drawing directly from the
other, and puts a persuasive case that the two compilers (she argues for
the identification of Juan del Encina as the compiler of LB1) worked from
independent collections of loose papers recording the verses which make up
the villancico. There is some evidence that these may have circulated in
Zaragoza, often in multiple copies, at the time of composition. Botta con-
cludes, convincingly, that Resende returned to Portugal with the royal party,
bearing with him a selection of these loose papers, some in Spanish and some
in Portuguese, which he was later to order, add to, and publish in his
Cancioneiro of 1516. As his own personal record of the occasion, the compiler
of LB1, showing no interest in the Portuguese compositions, presents an
invención composed of sixteen of the Spanish-language Zaragoza verses.
My interest here is specifically in the LB1 series, considered as a personal
record of what one cancionero compiler was able to derive from the Zaragoza
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 185

fiestas.7 Precise dating of individual poems within cancionero collections can

prove at best troublesome and at worst impossible, and this is one of those rare
occasions, in the case of an occasional poem of multiple authorship, when
both the time and the place of composition are known elements. Starting
from this firm basis, it becomes possible to establish the identity of the multi-
ple authors where this has not previously been clear, and to move towards an
understanding of the elliptical language and often oblique and mischievous
allusions which would be quite impossible out of context. The text preserved
in LB1, fols 33v–34r, reads as follows:8

De los mismos galanes de la corte a un galán portugués que sacó en Çaragoça,

estando allí la corte, unas calças de chamelote. Hizieron esta invençión:

105. EL CONDE DE RIBADEO ID 0792

Que se pierda la memoria
no es razón,
señor, de tal invençión.

106A. DON ANTONIO DE VELASCO ID 0793A

Si son çiruelas de veras,
Manuel fue contra [la] ley
en no las llevar al rey,
pues que fueron las primeras,
y tanbién serán postreras,
dé razón,
si no es por maldiçión.

106B. DON ANTONIO DE VELASCO ID 0793B

Sepa todo cortesano,
por que por esto se acuerde,
que calças de raso verde
dieron la muerte a Lezcano,
pues mira quánto es más sano
el velludo en Aragón
que los chamelotes son.

107A. ÍÑIGO LOPES DE MENDOÇA ID 0794A

Seguilde, que va herido.
No tengáis temor de nada,
que la yerva es muy provada;
por ahí estará caído,
que gran rato ha que es corrido,
con razón,
a causa de la invençión.
186 Medieval Spain

107B. ÍÑIGO LOPES DE MENDOÇA ID 0794B

En las aguas, ved qué cura
de chamelote que vi;
luego claro conoçí
su mal no ser calentura.
Quien tales calças procura,
con razón,9
que se alborote el jubón.

108A. DON ALONSO PIMENTEL ID 0795A

El que se atrevió a pasar
hondura de tanto ‘mote’,
por aguas del chamelote
pasará las de la mar.
Oh, qué malo es navegar
sin guión,
señor, con tal invençión!

108B. DON ALONSO PIMENTEL ID 0795B

¡En aguas del chamelote!
Pareçe su mal sin cura,
y corre ‘a risco de mote’,
de frío, sin calentura.
[¡Oh, qué gran desaventura]10
de garçón,
morir de tal invençión!

109. DON JUAN de MENDOÇA ID 0796

¿Qué anda buscando el galán
con calças de chamelote?
Mucho ‘mote’.
Como ‘mote’ motes quiere,
qu’es razón que los reçiba,
pues que quanto el mundo fuere
su memoria sienpre biva.
Con letras de oro se escriva,
que confesó sin garrote,
querrán para con que [a]çote.

110A. DON FERRANDO CHACÓN ID 0797A

La corte triste, perdida,
con las calças la alegrastes,
el plazer resuçitastes,
al burlar distes la vida;
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 187

que será muy más reída

la invençión
que llorada la pasión.

110B. DON FERRANDO CHACÓN ID 0797B

¡Cuitado de chamelote!
con tanto martirio y pena.
¡Calças! No venís de buena
ni yo lo digo por mote,
mas yo’s vi del primer bote,
do otros son
en figura de ropón.

111. PERO FERRÁNDEZ ID 0798

Pusistes en alborote
este reino, y en debate,
en hazer al chamelote,
que en tierra de cordellate
pusiese horca y açote,
pues ‘vós pagáis el escote’,
señor, d’esta alteraçión,
n’os calçéis por afiçión.

112A. DON JUAN MANUEL, PORTUGUÉS ID 0799A

[Don Juan Manuel] ‘Señor mío, ¿cómo estáis?’
[Manuel de Noronha] ‘¡Mucho mal!
pues vine de Portugal
a daros de qué riais.’
[Don Juan Manuel] ‘Pues mucho os cunple que tengáis
buen coraçón,
que tenéis mala invençión!’

112B. DON JUAN MANUEL, PORTUGUÉS ID 0799B

Yo [vi] calças de damasco
de que huve gran manzilla,
y oí dezir en Castilla
a Domingo de Velasco,
mas no tuve fantasía
ni presunçión
que viera tal invençión.

113A. DON RODRIGO DE MOSCOSO ID 0800A

Si fue trage por más frío
fue desorden de cobdiçia,
188 Medieval Spain

y si fue por desvarío

quiçá que tuvo justiçia.
Que muriese sin maliçia
es razón
de tan pésima invençión.

113B. DON RODRIGO DE MOSCOSO ID 0800B

¡Oh, muy justo don Manuel,
en chamelote calçado!
Por que fuese reparado
del burlar, burlando d’él
fue más dulçe que la miel
la invençión,
para nuestra salvaçión.

114. CORELLA ID 0801

Sedme testigos, señores,
que Manuel de Loroña
muere de pura ponçoña,
y no de amores.
Pequeñas son la calores
de Aragón,
para tan fresca invençión.

Three Spanish courtiers and practising cancionero poets whom I have been
able to identify elsewhere were present in Zaragoza. Antonio de Velasco, Señor
de Arnedo y las Arenzanas, was commonly accorded the courtesy title of
Conde de Nieva after his wife Francisca de Zúñiga succeeded to the title
of Condesa de Nieva. Juan de Mendoza, born around 1470, was the youngest
of the three illegitimate children of the Great Cardinal of Spain, Pedro
González de Mendoza. Juan Alonso Pimentel, the younger son of Rodrigo
Alonso Pimentel, fourth Count of Benavente and Mayorga, married Ana de
Velasco and was known by his patronymic until he succeeded to the title early
in the sixteenth century.11 All three were active and writing poetry in the
court of the Catholic Monarchs in the 1490s.12 The Portuguese Juan Manuel,
the illegitimate son of Frei João Manuel, Bishop of Guarda, alcaide môr of
Santarem and camereiro môr to Manuel I of Portugal, was a prolific cancionero
poet in both Spanish and Portuguese, and accompanied his king to Toledo
and Zaragoza in 1498.13
The Conde de Ribadeo who initiates the series can only be Pedro de
Villandrando, the second count, who married Isabel de Castaña, lady-in-
waiting to Isabel la Católica and who in the Granada wars held Marbella for
the Catholic Monarchs after its capture in 1485.14 Caution needs to be exer-
cised, however, over the poet identified by the patronymic Íñigo López de
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 189

Mendoza. Given the propensity of the Mendozas to restrict the choice of first
names to familiar and non-interchangeable combinations of two, the task of
identifying which of the numerous members of the family christened Íñigo
López and known to be alive in the 1490s needs to be approached with cau-
tion.15 The two most famous bearers of the name in the 1490s can almost
certainly be discounted. Íñigo López de Mendoza, the son of Diego Hurtado
de Mendoza, was the second Duque del Infantado and the Conde de
Saldaña.16 His namesake Íñigo López de Mendoza, second Conde de Tendilla
(1442–1515), was appointed alcaide of the Alhambra and Captain General of
the kingdom of Granada on its capitulation in 1492 and became first Marqués
de Mondéjar in 1512.17 But both inherited their titles as early as 1479, and it is
therefore unlikely that either would be referred to twenty years later by
patronymic rather than formal title.18
Fernando Chacón was the half-brother of Pedro Fajardo, Marqués de los
Vélez, and the son of Juan Chacón, Contador Mayor of Isabel la Católica.19
Pero Ferrández is assuredly Pedro Fernández de Córdoba, first Marqués de
Priego y de Montilla, Señor de Montilla y de Aguilar, whose wife Elvira
Enríquez was the daughter of the king’s uncle Enrique Enríquez. He is
described by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo as mas bien hablado que
paçiente, pero gentil señor, en la verdad, e muy bien dispuesto.20 The Galician
Rodrigo de Moscoso, Conde de Altamira, married María de Toledo, the sec-
ond daughter of Pedro de Toledo, Marqués de Villafranca, and María
Osorio.21
The last poet is identified by a simple surname – Corella – and might have
proved extremely difficult to trace had the bearer of the name not appeared,
later in 1498, as an alleged protagonist in one of the most infamous murders
of the century. Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo de Borja) threw a dinner party in
Rome for his illegitimate offspring, including Pedro Luis Borja, the Duke of
Gandía, and his younger brother César de Borja, Cardinal of Valencia and later
Duke of Valentinois. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo reports that in the course
of the meal a short, mysterious, masked man came into the dining room and
whispered into the ear of the Duke of Gandía. The two men then made their
excuses and left the room together. The Duke of Gandía was not seen again
until his body, with multiple stab wounds, was retrieved from the Tiber in a
sack on the following day. The rumour in informed circles in Rome was that
the masked man who led the Duke of Gandía to his watery fate was a follower
of César de Borja called Micalet Corella, and that César de Borja was the archi-
tect of his brother’s assassination.22 Fernández de Oviedo describes Micalet
Corella as un bastardo valenciano dela casa del Conde de Coçentayna, mal hombre,
particularly memorable for his lack of inches, later reporting with some satis-
faction that Corella, who remained in Italy and acquired a reputation for
speaking ill of his fellow-Spaniards, met a well- merited and violent death in
Milan at the hands of the Peralta brothers.23 It can reasonably be assumed that
Micalet Corella was present at the Zaragoza festivities earlier in the year with
190 Medieval Spain

the Valencian contingent, and is the author of the last composition in the
series.
With the place, date and authors now fixed, the poems – or more accurately
poem – can now be considered in historical context. Technically, the form is
novel. As shown in Fig. 10.1, one Portuguese galán, Manuel de Noronha, pro-
vides the springboard in the form of an invención, consisting of a divisa (the
visual stimulus of his calças de chamelote) and almost certainly a letra (the exist-
ence of which is predicated by the texts, but which has not survived). The orig-
inal concept now generates a collective invención, in the form of a villancico
launched by a three-line tema in the form of an estribillo supplied by the
Conde de Ribadeo and completed by a total of fourteen mudanzas offered by a
further nine of the courtiers present on the occasion. All the verse is in
Castilian, although one of the authors – João Manuel, known to be bilingual –
belongs to the Portuguese party. Eight of the galanes return to Ribadeo’s origin-
al rhyme-scheme in -ón in the vuelta and each aims at glossing Manuel de
Noronha’s divisa. The ninth is Juan de Mendoza, ever the individualist, who
opts for an estribillo and mudanza of his own: rather than offering a mudanza
based on Ribadeo’s -ón rhyme, he opts for one in -ote, and supplies a vuelta
which echoes his own -ote rhyme.
Invención
(Manuel de Noronha)
↑

divisa (calças de chamelote) [letra (perdida)]

↓
Invención colectiva
(10 cortesanos)
↓

Villancico
↓

estribillo + 14 mudanzas y vueltas (- ón) estribillo + mudanza y vuelta (- ote)

(Conde de Ribadeo) (8 galanes) (Juan de Mendoza)
Figure 10.1

A brief comparison between the texts preserved in the Cancionero de la

British Library and that of the Cancionero de Resende does much to set the
British Library series in a wider context. The compiler of LB1 records sixteen
compositions from Zaragoza. Resende records more that twice as many: thirty-
five compositions, of which seventeen are in Castilian and eighteen in
Portuguese. Eleven of Resende’s Castilian poems also occur in LB1 and a
twelfth appears in a Portuguese version.24 Six Castilian compositions includ-
ed by Resende do not feature in LB1: three of these are attributed to Alonso
Pimentel, two to Antonio de Velasco, and one to Juan de Meneses.25 The
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 191

verses occur in a similar but not identical order in both witnesses. Resende
continues the sequence with eighteen compositions in Portuguese produced
by Portuguese courtiers present on the occasion, and completes the picture
by adding a further ten compositions relating to the event, one of them by
Manuel de Noronha, composed after the Portuguese party had returned to
Lisbon with news of Manuel’s sartorial disasters.26
Constructive conclusions can be drawn from this catalogue. The compiler
of LB1 records some, but not all, of the mudanzas composed in Zaragoza dur-
ing the summer of 1498, and brings them together to form a invención with
multiple collaborators. Between them, LB1 and 16RE contain twenty-two
compositions in Spanish and eighteen in Portuguese. Tailoring the material to
his audience, the compiler of LB1 reproduces sixteen of the twenty-two
known to have been composed in Spanish, and none of those composed in
Portuguese. We cannot be sure whether the sixteen Spanish compositions
which he reproduces were the only sixteen which came to hand, or whether
he made a conscious choice of sixteen from a wider selection to which he had
access. The structure of the composite poem assures us that the estribillo attrib-
uted to the Conde de Ribadeo and recorded both in LB1 and 16RE was the tema
which initiated the series. The evidence of the Cancionero de Resende makes it
clear, nevertheless, that what follows the initial estribillo in LB1 does not repre-
sent all the verse composed on the occasion nor does it necessarily faithfully
represent the order in which the verses were initially delivered.
With this wider understanding of the circumstances which generated the
extended invención recorded in the British Museum cancionero, the surviving
text can now be evaluated. The Spanish and the Portuguese courts, thrown
together in the summer heat of Zaragoza in 1498 as they awaited the birth of a
possible heir to the crown of both countries, found themselves with time on
their hands. This, in a bilingual situation, provided both sets of courtiers with
an opportunity to indulge in an extended version of the word games which
were so much a feature of court life at the time. The immediate impetus was
provided by a member of the Portuguese party – Manuel de Noronha, a pro-
vincial from Madeira – who opts to make an appearance at a fiesta with his
legs clad in hose of camel-hair, rather than of the serge, damask or silk
favoured in the Spanish court of the late fifteenth century. He immediately
becomes the butt of the wit of the courtiers, both Spanish and Portuguese,
around him.
Stephen Reckert properly draws attention to Portuguese embarrassment in
the face of Manuel’s lack of fashion sense and the eagerness of one of his fellow
courtiers to disassociate the sophisticates of the Portuguese court from his
choice of hose:

As for the camel’s-hair drawers, Franciso da Silveira is at pains to make it

clear to the Spaniards that if Noronha, son of the Captain General of
Madeira, has presented himself in their country with his nether regions not
192 Medieval Spain

yet clothed in the height of fashion, it is because he is a colonial: Grande

corte de Castilha, / nam hajaes por maravilha / Manuel calçar-se mal, / que nam
é de Portugal / mas é da Ilha’ [ID5925, 16RE–801]27

In ‘Las fiestas de Zaragoza’ Patrizia Botta assumes that the sole cause for the rib-
aldry of the Spanish courtiers was the lack of fashion sense displayed by a rus-
tic from Madeira:

La burla que documentan fue debida a un traje ridículo, inadecuado, que

vistió. . . un tal Manuel de Noronha . . . esto es, un provinciano que nada
entendía de moda ni mucho menos de finuras de la corte. Tal es así que un
día sale vistiendo. . . calzas de chamelote, esto es, de tela de camello, gruesa
y bien abrigada, y fuera de lugar en pleno verano.

This is true up to a point, but to concentrate on the fashion statement is to

overlook a number of crucial factors which make the invención comprehen-
sible. The occasion was a court fiesta, two languages were involved and, from
the point of view of the galán and his audience, the colour symbolism of the
camel-hair hose might be expected to be of considerably greater significance
than their impact as a novelty garment or their suitability for a hot Aragonese
summer.
On the occasion of a fiesta, and in the context of an invención, the expect-
ation of the court would have been for Manuel’s appearance in this garment to
be interpreted as a divisa, and for it to be accompanied by a letra of his own
composition, consisting typically of some three lines of verse. Divisa and letra
traditionally formed an invención for the entertainment of the assembled
courtiers.28 The letra does not survive, but the divisa and the invención do,
revealing that Manuel, rather than aspiring to be a fashion innovator as critics
have so far assumed, had conjured up what he considered to be a telling piece
of colour symbolism and topical wordplay. The evidence of the stream of rib-
aldry which follows reveals that neither court was impressed either by the
fashion statement or the wordplay, and that their opinion of Manuel himself
was less than exalted.
Antonio de Velasco’s initial response (106A) provides an early insight. The
play on words underlying his first line, ‘Si son çiruelas de veras’, would be impen-
etrable if taken out of linguistic and social context. Antonio proposes that
Manuel’s camel-hair hose might really be plums. There would be no conceiv-
able connection between calças and çiruelas if it were not for the fact that two
languages – Spanish and Portuguese, nearly but not quite mutually compre-
hensible – were being spoken in Zaragoza. Resende’s rubric provides the key:

De dom Antoneo de Valhasco, esta[n]do el rey nosso senhor em Çaragoça, a

humas çeroylas [my emphasis] de chamalote que fez Manuel de Noronha,
filho do Capitam da Ilha de Madeira.
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 193

Manuel describes his device in Portuguese, or in an incompetent attempt to

express himself in Spanish, as çeroylas de chamalote, ‘camel-hair hose’. In
Portuguese the term cerolhas (or ceroulas) is typically defined as a male under-
garment. The evidence of Resende’s rubric, however, along with the texts
which follow, indicates a complete equivalence with Spanish calças, which by
the end of the fifteenth century were calças enteras, extending from waistline
to foot. The terms appear to be interchangeable among the Portuguese
courtiers who compose verse for the occasion: cf. calças de chamalote ( Joam
Fogaça, 16RE–781), çeroilas d’este pano (O camareiro môr [ João Manuel],
16RE–782). For informal and leisure occasions this hose, generally lined, was
worn by fashion-conscious courtiers as the only leg-covering, occasionally in
conjunction with a short skirt attached to the doublet. The distinction
between under-garment and over-garment was thus blurred.
Antonio de Velasco wantonly and maliciously chooses to misunderstand,
and translates çeroylas back into Spanish as çiruelas. Manuel is wearing plums
around his legs, which Antonio alleges should be presented to the king as the
first of the season. And, given the quality of the invención, ought properly to be
the last. But there is more to Manuel’s wordplay than at first meets the eye,
and the key to his conceit is providentially provided by Sebastián de
Covarrubias:

Dixose ciruela por la color amarilla de cera. . . . La cortesía que dize devérse-
les es por ser amarillas, y tener el color de los enamorados . . . Ciruelas pas-
sas, de una especie de ciruelas, que son destas amarillas, que en algunas
partes llaman çaragocíes, por averse traydo de Çaragoça, se hazen las ciru-
elas passas.29

Manuel de Noronha believes he has delivered a topical invención, inspired by

the characteristic Zaragoza plum, with the yellow of his camel-hair hose sym-
bolizing the pain, suffering and metaphorical death of the courtly lover.30 His
fellow-courtiers, however, Spanish and Portuguese alike, wilfully choose to
adopt a literalist approach, not to understand the conceit, and to concentrate
instead on the fashion statement and the linguistic games which arise from it.
Figure 10.2 illustrates court leisure-wear towards the end of the fifteenth
century. The short doublet with puffed shoulders, nipped in at the waist, was
complemented for informal wear by fine figure-hugging hose, most common-
ly of serge, linen, cotton or wool, and with the most luxurious made of silk and
expensively cut al pelo, according to the nap, and al sesgo, on the bias, to draw
attention to a young man’s shapely calves and tidy buttocks. Ruth Matilda
Anderson notes that the fashionable colours of the period were red, black,
light green, rose, mulberry, and white, and observes that ‘the ideal demanded
that they fit perfectly: in pictures they generally appear without a wrinkle’.31
Unfortunately Manuel de Noronha, needing yellow hose for the purposes of
his invención, compounded his sartorial infelicity by choosing camel-hair as
194 Medieval Spain

Figure 10.2

his material. Camel-hair, not only unfashionably yellow in colour, is also a

heavy, cumbersome, aesthetically unattractive cloth, which cannot be effect-
ively cut on the bias, and is thus impossible to tailor to a perfect leg-hugging
fit. The calças de chamelote could only turn out as a loose-fitting, symbolically
appropriate but fashionably inappropriate, yellow garment which did little to
flatter the shape of the lower limbs and which would be unbearably hot and
uncomfortable in an Aragonese summer. Manuel’s fellow-courtiers choose to
overlook or misunderstand the symbolism, consider the result of Manuel’s
efforts visually hilarious, and set upon him verbally en masse.
A few mudanzas depend on topical allusions or are straightforward gibes.
Íñigo López de Mendoza (107A) asserts that the abysmal quality of the inven-
ción fully justifies the persecution of its perpetrator. Fernando Chacón (110A)
highlights the mismatch between the ostensible purpose of the invención, to
appeal to the emotions, and its effect, to cause hilarity at court. Dom João
Manuel is scathing. The ineptitude of his fellow countryman causes him per-
sonal pain, and the Portuguese High Chamberlain advises Manuel that it will
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 195

take a big heart to cope with the handicap of such an appalling invención
(112A). In 112B Dom João refers to an equally objectionable case he has come
across, by implication in Portugal, involving hose of damask, and asserts that
he has also heard tell of such things in Castile.32 He concludes that never in his
wildest dreams did he imagine that he would come across anything quite as
appalling as this particular invención. John Gornall analyses this mudanza well
and to the best of my knowledge is the first to draw attention to its unusual
dialogue form. He draws the surprising conclusion, however, that ‘There
would thus seem to exist a mild air of anti-Castilian, pro-Portuguese compli-
city between the two speakers . . . Notionally, the two speakers are perhaps
using, plainly, their native language’.33 It is not easy to find textual evidence
for either statement. João Manuel’s disdain is fully on a par with that of his fel-
low courtiers, and the tone matches that of his next mudanza (LB1–112B) and
the two mudanzas in Portuguese attributed to him by Resende (16RE–782 and
16RE–794).
Death, both literal and metaphorical, is a recurrent and significant motif.
Pedro Fernández de Córdoba (111) points to the uproar caused by the folly of
an individual inept enough to try replacing fashionable serge by absurd camel-
hair, and has no sympathy for the fate which must inevitably befall him.
Antonio de Velasco (106B) reminds the courts that Manuel’s divisa evokes
the green hose which were the (presumably metaphorical) death of Juan
de Lezcano on an earlier occasion. The comparison is not flattering. Juan de
Lezcano is mentioned, without comment, by Fernando del Pulgar as one of
those who took part in the defence of Fuenterrabia against the French in
1476.34 But he is the butt of García de Astorga’s wit in Queréis ver quién es
Lescano’ (LB1–153, ID0837), in which he presents the courtier, el del rey, as a
drunken old sodomite: un cuero desque naçió, / de pro a popa borracho, / y aun
dizen que se halló / en la çibdad de Sodoma / desde mochacho. Rodrigo de Moscoso
reflects in 113B that at least the invención had the virtue of providing amuse-
ment for the courts and alleviating the boredom of their wait, but suggests that
death would be fitting punishment for such a poetic outrage (113A). Micalet
Corella bears witness that Manuel’s death will come about as a consequence of
his poisonous invención rather than unrequited love. There is ample evidence
in the Zaragoza series to suggest that the long-lost letra contained a reference to
Manuel de Noronha’s potential demise as a consequence of his career as an
unrequited lover:en tierra de cordellate / pusiste horca y açote (111), por que por esto
se acuerde / que calças de raso verde / dieron la muerte a Lezcano (106B), Que muriese
sin maliçia / es razón / de tan pésima invención (113A), que Manuel de Loroña /
muere de pura ponçoña, / y no de amores (114), [¡O, qué gran desaventura] / de
garçón, / morir de tal invençión! (108B). In this group of mudanzas, the traductio of
the courtiers depends on wordplay based on a single form, muerte, which can
be construed with two senses, one literal and one metaphorical.
Alonso Pimentel takes a whimsical line of attack in 108A and 108B. The sea-
farers who had just returned with Christopher Columbus to Spain brought
196 Medieval Spain

back with them from the West Indies a number of neologisms, among them
one which clearly captured the imagination of a group of courtiers who rev-
elled in word games. This is the Taino Indian word naguas, documented as in
use by the natives of Santo Domingo to designate the short cotton skirt worn
by local Indian women.35 The evidence of these texts is that the Spanish
courtiers took this new piece of vocabulary to themselves and promptly
deployed it, in the closed court circle, as a jocular way of referring to the new
figure- hugging calças so much in vogue at the time. Underlying the traductio
of three of the mudanzas is the misunderstanding which could arise from the
phonetic similarity between phrases such as estar en aguas and estar en enaguas.
The need to differentiate is the reason, as Corominas rightly points out, why
naguas was soon to give way, by fonética sintáctica, to enaguas in the standard
language. The opening exclamation of Alonso Pimentel’s mudanza (108B) sets
the scene for a new line of linguistic attack: ‘En aguas del chamelote!’ would be
as baffling as Antonio de Velasco’s ‘çiruelas de veras’ if the hearers were not
aware of potential for aguas/enaguas wordplay. Manuel de Noronha is accused
of turning up at the fiesta in camel-hair waters – en (n)aguas de chamelote – and
this generates the notion of Manuel running the risk of dying not of love, as he
alleges, nor of the heat generated by his heavy duty hose in the course of an
Aragonese summer, but of cold from his immersion in water. Alonso Pimentel
offers a variation on this in 108A, where he moves from en aguas to por aguas,
alleging that Manuel’s inland camel-hair hose/waters are likely to lead him to
the waters of the ocean, where his dreadful invención will leave him hopelessly
at sea. And a variation on Alonso Pimentel’s hot/cold wordplay of 108B is pro-
vided by Íñigo López de Mendoza (107B): Manuel de Noronha’s ‘watery’ hose
(this time the definite article makes an appearance: en las aguas . . . de
chamelote) makes it clear that the unfortunate galán’s problem is far from
being an excess of heat (literal, in the context of his camel-hair hose, or
metaphorical, in the case of his ardour).
The phrase a risco de mote catches the eye in 108B and exemplifies a piece of
bilingual traductio. Patrizia Botta comments:

En este caso quien copia no entiende el original portugués risco de morte

(‘riesgo de muerte’, más coherente con las voces médicas del contexto), y
mantiene risco a la vez que trivializa morte en mote, atraído quizá por la rima
del v.1 (chamelote) o por la acción de ‘motejar’ de toda la burla.

There is little in the text or the context, however, to support any of this. The
assumption that the copyist has failed to understand the ‘original’, presum-
ably the Portuguese version attributed by Resende to Juan de Meneses (16RE-
787C), would depend on establishing that the Portuguese version came first,
for which there is no evidence, and the more unlikely possibility that a
Spanish speaker in the late fifteenth century would fail to recognize, in full
context, the equivalence between Portuguese risco, morte and Castilian riesgo,
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 197

muerte. Moreover, morte can hardly be ‘trivialized’ into mote, since the form
mote, far from being a copyist’s error, is formally required by the rhyme with
chamelote in the first line. The evidence of both rhyme and context is that
Alonso Pimentel understood the Portuguese very well indeed, and availed
himself of the opportunity to play a linguistic game, choosing to accept mote
in the sense ‘death’ in 108A and 108B as if it were a Castilian form, rhyming it
with chamelote, and linking this bilingual joke with the enaguas theme in both
mudanzas, to allege that the hapless Manuel de Noronha is represented as
being in greater danger of dying a cold watery death than of overheating in his
camlet hose. Fernando Chacón takes the game one stage further in 110A, in a
mudanza devoted principally to scorning Manuel’s choice of doublet and hose
on an occasion when others were wearing the more formal ropón (knee-length
gown), by opting in passing to interpret Manuel’s mote ‘death’ as Castilian
mote ‘motto’.36 It is Juan de Mendoza, however, who in 109 makes most cap-
ital out of the possibilities for offered up by the potential misunderstanding:

¿Qué anda buscando el galán

con calças de chamelote?
Mucho ‘mote’.
Como ‘mote’ motes quiere,
qu’es razón que los reçiba,
Pues que quanto el mundo fuere
su memoria sienpre biva.

The traductio depends here on the single phonetic form with two senses. Juan
de Mendoza proposes that if Manuel’s camel- hair hose symbolize his search
for imminent mote (death), then it is only proper that he should suffer a little
name-calling in the form of a few motes thrown at him. Manuel de Noronha
deserves a good whipping and his tormentor, as his own personal contribu-
tion, provides a model in the last line of his vuelta: Querrán para con que [a]çote.
This record of courtiers at play during the summer of 1498, while unlikely to
find a place in the literary canon, nevertheless provides a number of illumin-
ating insights. A close reading of the texts confirms the strong inference that
the offending divisa would have been accompanied at the Zaragoza fiestas of
1498 by an appropriate letra, perhaps not too dissimilar from the more mod-
ern letra of my own composition which heads this article. The poems in
Spanish recorded by the compiler of LB1 represent only a selection of those we
know to have been composed in two languages for the occasion and, since it is
likely that they circulated independently on loose sheets, it should not be
assumed that the order in which they appear either in LB1 or 16RE necessarily
represents the original order of composition. The modern editor of LB1 would
be rash to attempt to rearrange them in what might appear to be a more formal
and logical order, since as they stand they are linked by common themes
which give coherence to the the final product.
198 Medieval Spain

Manuel de Noronha’s calças de chamelote, donned by the unfortunate galán

for their yellow colour and symbolic value as a divisa, are wilfully interpreted
by Spaniards and Portuguese alike as a disastrous fashion statement. There is
no strong evidence of anti-Portuguese sentiment among the Spanish
courtiers: their ridicule is directed rather at an individual, a provincial from
Madeira whose unfortunate choice of divisa is matched only by the low per-
sonal esteem in which he is held by his contemporaries. He is a figure of fun
for the Spanish court, and an embarrassment to the sophisticates of the
Portuguese court. While the divisa is the point of departure, the linguistic
games provide the theme which links the bulk of the individual contribu-
tions, in circumstances where royal courts which speak languages which are
nearly but not necessarily mutually comprehensible come together on a sin-
gle, identifiable occasion.37 It is clear from the internal evidence that the
Portuguese courtiers present used çerolhas as an alternative for calças to refer to
what had become an outer garment, and also that the neologism naguas had
already established itself in Spanish court circles, as a whimsical alternative
for calças, some twenty-one years earlier than Corominas was able to detect.
The possibilities of wordplay offered by calças/çerolhas, muerte/morte/mote,
aguas/naguas capture the attention of the assembled courtiers with time on
their hands, and the invención provides a graphic demonstration of the love of
words and the games they play, spread in this case over two languages, which
so characterize cancionero poetry of the 1480s and 1490s.

Notes
1 See especially Damião de Góis, Crónica do felicíssimo rei dom Manuel, ed. Joaquim
Martin Teixera de Carvalho and David Lopes, 4 vols (Coimbra: Universidade, 1949),
I, 54–69, García de Resende, Chronica de El-Rei D. João II, 3 vols (Lisboa: Escriptorio,
1902), 91–116, and Jerónimo Zurita, Historia del rey don Hernando el Católico: de las
empresas y ligas de Italia, ed. Ángel Canellas López (Zaragoza: Dep. General de
Aragón, 1989–96), II, chs. 24 and 30. The cortes of Zaragoza swore allegiance to the
new Prince on 22 September 1498, but the infant Prince was to die before his second
birthday, on 20 July 1500.
2 The British Library Cancionero (LB1) has been reproduced by Hugo Albert Rennert,
Der spanische Cancionero des Brit. Mus. (MS ADD 10431) (Erlanger: Fr. Junge, 1895)
and by Brian Dutton and Jineen Krogstad in El cancionero del siglo XV, c. 1360–1520
(Salamanca: Univ., 1990–91), I, 131–275 (hereafter CancXV). A major new critical
edition of the text by Manuel Moreno is now near completion.
3 Manuel de Noronha’s participation in the Portuguese delegation is confirmed by
Resende, Chronica de El-Rei D. João II, 3, p. 93.
4 Ed. Alda Fernanda Dias, 5 vols (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional 1990–98). The Zaragoza-
related poems can be consulted in Vol. 3, 246–62.
5 Review of Rennert (1895), in Literaturblatt für Germanische und Romanische Philologie,
4 (1897), 127–44 (129–30).
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 199

6 ‘Las fiestas de Zaragoza y las relaciones entre LB1 y el Cancioneiro de Resende’, a

paper delivered to the colloquium ‘Spanish Cancioneros: Materials and Methods’,
held at the Institute of Romance Studies of the University of London, 27–28
June 1997 and presently at press with Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research
Seminar (London: Dept. of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary). John Gornall,
‘Invenciones and their authors at Zaragoza’ La Corónica, 29 (2000), 91–100, has sub-
sequently reviewed the evidence which supports the placing of the composition in
Zaragoza 1498, drawing particular attention to those courtiers present on the occa-
sion who are known to have links with the Crown of Aragon.
7 A full study of all the poems in Spanish and Portuguese which survive from the
occasion in both cancioneros would be well worth undertaking, in conjunction with
the additional occasional verse which the occasion inspired after Resende’s return
to Portugal. For the present, however, it should simply be noted that Manuel de
Noronha’s activities in Zaragoza impressed the court of Manuel I as little as they did
the court of Fernando and Isabel.
8 I retain the spelling of the manuscript, but resolve abbreviations and regularize
some sixteenth-century printing conventions. Thus u/v and i/j are distinguished by
phonetic value, vocalic y is printed as i, initial rr is resolved as R or r, g is printed as gu
where it represents a velar plosive before a front vowel, and the graph h is restored
where required by modern orthographic practice. Accents, punctuation, capital-
ization, and word-division are modernized, and emendations enclosed in brackets.
There are ten named poets in the sequence. Each composition is identified here
with a manuscript number and an ID number based on those established by
Dutton, but with some fine tuning, since Dutton failed to appreciate that, of the ten
poets, six had contributed two independent compositions rather than what he
assumed to be a single two-stanza poem. The sequence in the British Library song-
book consists not of ten but of sixteen independent poems. To characterize these a
further definer – A or B – has been added after the Dutton identifiers: thus 106B,
‘Sepa todo cortesano’ ID 0793B indicates that what follows is an independent com-
position, the second of those which Dutton groups together as no 106 of the British
Library cancionero, and the second of those which share the ID number 0793 in
CancXV.
9 The line ‘a causa de la invençión’ is repeated in the MS, by attraction from 107A.7,
above.
10 Line missing from LB1. Restored on the basis of 16RE–787C.
11 Ian Macpherson and Angus MacKay, Love, Religion and Politics in Fifteenth-Century
Spain (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 110–31, 99–109, 229–30. As Diane Pamp de Avalle-
Arce notes, Alonso Pimentel is a common misreference to Juan Alonso Pimentel: ‘[A
Juan Alonso Pimentel] la historia a veces le llama equivocadamente “Alonso
Pimentel”, pero “Alonso” es apellido de la casa de Benavente’, Crónica burlesca del
Emperador Carlos V (Barcelona: Crítica, 1981), p. 229 n. 522.
12 For their surviving compositions see CancXV, VII.398–9, 418, 466–7.
13 Both García de Resende and Damião de Góis list dom Ioão Emanuel as one of the
pessoas prinçipaes who formed part of the three-hundred strong Portuguese royal
party (Chronica de El-Rei D. João II, 3, p. 93, Crónica de D. Manuel, Ch. 26, p. 58). The
relationship between the Portuguese High Chamberlain and his Spanish namesake
Juan Manuel II is examined in my The Manueline Succession: the Poetry of Don Juan
Manuel II and Dom João Manuel (Exeter, Univ. of Exeter, 1979), pp. xx–xxiii. See
also John Gornall, ‘Two Poets or One?: the Sixteenth Century Manueline
Poems’, Romance Notes, 34 (1993–94), 47–53, who argues that all the cancionero
200 Medieval Spain

poems attributed to João Manuel and Juan Manuel II are the work of the Portuguese
statesman.
14 See Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Batallas y quinquagenas, ed., Juan Bautista de
Avalle-Arce (Salamanca: Diputación de Salamanca, 1989), pp. 382–6. His coat of
arms is reproduced by Fernández de Oviedo (Avalle-Arce, p. 386). The exploits of
Pedro’s more famous father, Rodrigo de Villandrando, the first Count of Ribadeo,
are recorded by Fernando del Pulgar, Claros varones de Castilla, ed. Robert Brian Tate
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), pp. 33–8 and 90 n. 105. Rodrigo died in 1448.
15 Helen Nader, The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance 1350 to 1550 (New
Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1979) observes that ‘in 1515, there were so many men
named Íñigo López de Mendoza that they must be distinguished as Íñigo López de
Mendozaa, Íñigo López de Mendozab, and so on through Íñigo López de Mendozag.’
(p. xii).
16 Ian Macpherson, The Invenciones y letras’ of the ‘Cancionero general’, PMHRS 9,
(London: Dept of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary, 1998), p. 65.
17 F. Layna Serrano, Historia de Guadalajara y sus Mendozas en los siglos XV y XVI, 4 vols
(Madrid: Aldus, 1942).
18 Nos 4 and 5 are the only poems attributed with certainty to Íñigo López de
Mendoza in the corpus examined by Dutton, who does not attempt to identify him
(CancXV, VII.381).
19 Crónica burlesca, pp. 89 and 200 n. 178. Zúñiga describes him rather routinely as
‘esforzado’ and ‘liberal’, and identifies his mother as Inés Manrique, daughter of the
Conde de Paredes and second wife of Juan Chacón.
20 Batallas y quinquagenas, p. 359. Fernández de Oviedo reproduces his shield on the
same page.
21 Batallas y quinquagenas, pp. 332 and 407.
22 Fernández de Oviedo claims that these rumours reached him during his stay in
Rome shortly after the event: yo o´y afirmar en el tiempo que estuue en Rroma, e biuien-
do aquel don Micalot [sic], que aquél avía seydo la máscara que sacó al Duque del ban-
quete o çena que os he dicho (Batallas y quinquagenas, p. 307).
23 Batallas y quinquagenas, pp. 306–7 and 309.
24 LB1–107B, 109, 110A and 110B are not in Resende. The verse attributed to Alonso
Pimentel (LB1–108B) is recorded in a Portuguese version attributed to Juan de
Meneses (16RE–787C). Three of the eleven poems which appear in LB1 are attrib-
uted differently by Resende: Antonio de Velasco is credited with 16RE–777 (Conde
de Ribadeo in LB1–105) and 16RE–779B (Don Juan Manuel in LB1–112B), and Juan
de Meneses with 16RE–787B (Don Juan Manuel in LB1–112a).
25 Alonso Pimentel is credited with ‘Las vuestra calças, senhor’ ID 0792A 16RE–780A,
‘De ver cerca el chamilote’ ID 0792B 16RE–780B, ‘Vós traes calças de risa’ ID 0792D
16RE–780D. Antonio de Velasco is credited with ‘En este mundo mezquino’ ID
0793C: 16RE–778C, ‘Porque queréis que se hable’ ID5155A 16RE–779A, and Juan
de Meneses with ‘Tam secretas las traya’ ID5160A 16RE–787A.
26 For a detailed comparison of the contents of LB1 and 16RE see the tables produced
by Botta in ‘Las fiestas de Zaragoza’.
27 From the Resende Songbook, PMHRS 15 (London: Dept of Hispanic Studies, Queen
Mary, 1998), pp. 24–5.
28 See Invenciones y letras, esp. pp. 23–4. The choice of a symbolically-coloured item of
apparel to serve as a devisa in itself was common practice, as, for example, in Luis de
Torres’s appearance all in black, symbolizing sadness (Invenciones y letras, no. 57,
 Court Poets at Play: Zaragoza, 1498 201

ID0942), or Diego López de Haro’s choice of a capa verde to symbolize hope

(Invenciones y letras, no. 31, ID0930).
29 Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid: L.
Sánchez, 1611), p. 424b.
30 For colour symbolism in general and the significance of yellow in particular, see
Herbert A. Kenyon, ‘Color Symbolism in Early Spanish Ballads’, The Romanic
Review, 6 (1915), Harriet Goldberg, ‘A Reappraisal of Colour Symbolism in the
Courtly Prose Fiction of Late-Medieval Castile’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 69
(1972), 221–37, and ‘Color Terms in Cancionero Poetry: an Intersection between
Linguistics and Literature’, La Corónica, 12 (1983–84), 7–8, Juan de Timoneda,
‘Dechado de colores’, in Vol. 2 of María Cruz García de Enterría, Pliegos poéticos
españoles de la Biblioteca Nacional de Viena, (Madrid: Joyas Bibliográficas, 1975),
John J. Reynolds, ‘Color Symbolism in Juan Timoneda’s Poetry’, in Studies in Honor
of Ruth Lee Kennedy, ed. Vern G. Williamson and A. F. Michael Atlee, Estudios de
Hispanófila, 46 (Valencia: Castalia, 1977), Linda Woodbridge, ‘Black and White
and Red All Over: The Sonnet Mistress amongst the Ndembu’, Renaissance Quarterly,
40 (1987), 247–97, Juan Casas Rigall, Agudeza y retórica en la poesía amorosa de can-
cionero, (Santiago de Compostela: Univ, 1995), 110–14.
31 Hispanic Costume 1480–1530 (New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1979), pp.
69–70. For a full illustrated description of the jubón worn in Spain at the time see pp.
53–61, and for calças see pp. 69–70.
32 The reference to Domingo de Velasco in the fourth line is obscure, and the problem
of identification is compounded by the Resende version. In 16RE the mudanza is
attributed to Antonio de Velasco, and Domingo de Velasco becomes Sancho de
Velasco (16RE–779).
33 ‘Two Poets or One?’, 50. For the reallocation of the first line to Don Juan Manuel
and the second to Manuel de Noronha I am indebted to the good advice, in a per-
sonal letter, of Dr Manuel Moreno.
34 Crónica de los Reyes Católicos (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1943), I, p. 184.
35 Joan Corominas and José A. Pascual, Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e his-
pánico, 6 vols, BRH 5.7 (Madrid: Gredos, 1980–91), II, 587–8, lists the first occur-
rence known to him in Spanish as 1519, but since these texts can be dated at 1498
the first documentation of enaguas can now be securely brought forward by twenty-
one years.
36 For the mote as a literary form see principally Keith Whinnom, La poesía amatoria de
la época de los Reyes Católicos (Durham: University, 1981), pp. 57–62, Maxime
Chevalier, Quevedo y su tiempo: la agudeza verbal (Barcelona: Crítica, 1992), pp.
25–63, Juan Casas Rigall, Agudeza y retórica en la poesía amorosa de cancionero
(Santiago: Universidade, 1995), pp. 122–6.
37 For further examples and background, see ‘The Game of Courtly Love’, in Love,
Religion and Politics, Ch. 15, pp. 236–53.
11
Conversion in Córdoba and Rome:
Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana
Andaluza1
John Edwards

In 1845, the German Hispanist, Ferdinand Wolf, announced that he had dis-
covered, in the Imperial Library of Vienna, what still appears to be the only
surviving original copy of an anonymous printed work, entitled, Retrato de la
Loçana andaluza: en lengua española muy clarissima. Cõpuesto en Roma. El qual
Retrato demuestra loque en Roma passava y contiene munchas más cosas que la
Celestina (‘Portrait of Lozana the Andalusian, in the most clear Spanish lan-
guage, composed in Rome: the which portrait shows what was happening in
Rome, and contains many more things than the Celestina’).2 The Vienna text
is the basis of all subsequent editions and has itself been republished in fac-
simile.3 The text consists of fifty-four quarto folios, unnumbered, but with
groups of sheets designated by letters and Roman numerals. The typeface used
is predominantly Roman humanist, but the text of the title page [fol. 1 recto],
the dedication, the ‘argument’ and the introduction to the first chapter [fols 2
recto and 3 recto] is in the more old-fashioned Gothic type, which was still
popular in this period for more widely-circulated works.4 The book is illustrat-
ed with a variety of woodcuts, consisting of a selection of large and small illus-
trations, some of which occur more than once in the text. They include
composed pictures, individual human figures, faces, decorated initial letters,
and small symbols, including hands used as indicators of particular passages
in the text. Although some of the engravings appear to have been re-used from
pre-existent work, a serious, if not always successful, attempt has been made
by the anonymous printer to relate them to the text. This aspect of the Vienna
copy, which all modern editors of the Retrato suppose to have been printed in
Venice, in or about 1528, has, to date, been entirely lost in more recent edit-
ions, which reproduce selected illustrations in a somewhat haphazard fash-
ion.5 Although the text is predominantly in Castilian Spanish, it contains
passages in Catalan, Italian, and Portuguese, as well as phrases in Latin. and,
although it contains no indication of its author, printer, and publisher, or
place of publication, editors unanimously attribute it to one ‘Francisco
Delicado’. This attribution was first made, as long ago as 1857, by Pascual de
Gayangos, in his edition of the texts of chivalric romance known as the Libros

202
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 203

de caballería, and appears not to have been questioned since.6 Although one of
the most prominent modern editors of the Lozana, Bruno Damiani, has pub-
lished a biography of Delicado in the Twayne World Authors series, thus
including him in the ‘canon’ of Spanish literature, nothing is known for cer-
tain of the life of the supposed author of the Retrato, except for claims and
hints included in other works which bear his name.7 The single piece of
uncorroborated evidence which links Delicado with the anonymous Retrato is
a short passage in his preface to his own edition of the Castilian chivalric
‘novel’ Primaleón (1510), which is stated to have been published in Venice.

Certainly, those who depart from the Spanish grammar which is contained
in that great and famous history of Amadis of Gaul are without doubt
novices at writing in the vernacular, as I was when I composed the Lozana
in the common speech of elegant Andalusia.8

In the colophon to this edition of Primaleón, Delicado states that he had been
‘vicar of El Valle de Cabezuela and native of La Peña de Martos’.9 The text of
the Retrato suggests, however, that the author was born, probably in about
1480, in the diocese of Córdoba and of a Cordoban father, though his mother
came from Martos.10 It is supposed that the chronicler of Lozana’s deeds
moved to Rome in or just after 1500. His known published works include a
Latin treatise on the care of the sick (De consolatione infirmorum), and another
in Italian on the proper administration of the sacraments of the Church,
entitled Spechio vulgare por li sacerdoti che administraranno li sacramenti in
ciascheduna parrochia (‘Common mirror for the priests who administer the
sacraments in each parish’). Delicado also wrote, in Italian, a treatise on the
qualities, and value as a cure for syphilis, of the wood of the American guaiac
tree (to the Spaniards, guayaco). This work, entitled El modo de adoperare el legno
de India occidentale (‘The method for applying the wood from West India’),
obtained a privilege from Pope Clement VII, in 1526 or the following year. The
Andalusian priest also wrote an Italian grammar for his fellow Spaniards, and,
after his departure from Rome, which appears to have coincided with the sack
of the city in 1527, he published work in Venice, under his own name. This
output, which was printed by a fellow Spaniard, Juan Bautista Pedrezano,
included an edition of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (La Celestina), to
which the title page of the Retrato refers, as well as Diego de San Pedro’s ‘senti-
mental novel’ Cárcel de amor, both in 1531, Amadís de Gaula, in 1533, and a
year later a reprint of the Celestina. The reference, in the introduction to the
third book of Primaleón, to Delicado as vicar of Cabezuela is the sole basis for
regarding him as a cleric, though in that period many laymen held ecclesiasti-
cal benefices. No other evidence has so far come to light to support the basic
assumptions of modern critics, firstly that Francisco Delicado was indeed the
author of the Retrato, and secondly that this ‘priest’ may be identified with the
‘Auctor’ who becomes a character in the book.11
204 Medieval Spain

According to the recorded accounts of this enigmatic ‘Author’, and of the

Lozana herself (the name being variously translated as ‘exuberant’, ‘lusty’,
‘handsome’, ‘lively’, and ‘bawdy’) the leading lady of the Retrato was born as
Aldonza, the eldest of three sisters, in the Andalusian city of Córdoba, prob-
ably in about 1490. Her family seems to have possessed some prosperity, but
this was dissipated by her father, whom she described to her later friends in
Rome as ‘a great whorer and gambler, who would bet on the sun on the wall’
(muy putañero y jugado, que jugara el sol en la pared).12 When he died, his
widow and daughters were left with little money and a dispute over the title to
their house in Córdoba, in which the young Aldonza represented her mother
at the high court (Audiencia or Chancillería) in Granada. The action was unsuc-
cessful, however, and mother and daughter (there is no reference in the book
to the subsequent fate of the other sisters) left Córdoba and travelled via
Carmona to Jerez de la Frontera. Shortly afterwards, the mother died, and
Aldonza went to live with her aunt in Seville. It was there that, by means of her
aunt’s machinations, she met her future lover, the Italian merchant
Diomedes. They eloped together to Cádiz, and subsequently went on a huge
voyage around the Mediterranean, including North Africa, the Near East, and
Greece, on behalf of Diomedes’ family firm. There are references in the text to
children of the liaison, but while Aldonza was, by her own account, a
sparkling hostess, acquiring during this period the nickname ‘Lozana’, for her
beauty, strength, and gallantry, Diomedes’ father became determined that she
should not be his daughter-in-law. He summoned his son to a business confer-
ence and Diomedes, apparently in good faith, took Aldonza with him to
Marseilles, saying that, when he had sorted things out with his father, he
would go with her to Barcelona and marry her. The father came to Marseilles
from Genoa, however, had Diomedes arrested and imprisoned, and hired a
ship’s captain to take the girl out to sea and drown her. Instead, the captain
took pity on Aldonza and abandoned her on a rock, from which she was res-
cued by the crew of a passing ship. She landed at the Italian port of Livorno
(Leghorn), penniless apart from a ring which she had hidden in her mouth, as
a token of her former life. From there she travelled to Rome, supposedly arriv-
ing at the time of the coronation of Pope Leo X, which took place on 11 March
1513. She stayed in the ‘Eternal City’ for the next fourteen years, took a much
younger lover, a Neapolitan called Rampín, and engaged in prostitution and
other trades, some of them dubious, such as pimping, midwifery, the disposal
of unwanted babies, and the manufacture and application of cosmetics. In
1527, she fled the Sack of Rome, along with many of her compatriots, and
apparently retired to Lipari, in the Aeolian islands north east of Sicily, though
the title page of the first edition suggests that Venice was her true destination.
Although the Retrato failed to achieve, in its own day, the international suc-
cess of its illustrious, and acknowledged, predecessor Celestina, editions of the
Lozana’s story have been appearing in print since 1871, with a revival after
the publication in facsimile, in 1950, of the ‘Venice 1528’ edition.13 It is not
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 205

the intention here to survey in detail the critical literature which has devel-
oped since the ‘rediscovery’ of the Retrato, but some general points may
nonetheless be made. Firstly, having effectively disappeared from European
literature for over three centuries, Delicado’s supposed work was very soon
excluded once again from the ‘canon’, and consigned to the post-Inquisitorial
‘index of forbidden books’, by the redoubtable Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo,
who condemned it as inmundo y feo (‘filthy and ugly’), and described its
literary value as nulo (‘nil’).14 The Lozana andaluza’s lack of success in the six-
teenth century has thus in large measure continued into modern times, in
sharp contrast to its self-declared model, the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea,
or Celestina. Marcel Bataillon compares the Retrato unfavourably with
Fernando de Rojas’ masterpiece, on the grounds that Delicado, unlike his
illustrious predecessor, was interested in the habits of prostitutes, pimps and
ruffians (prostituées, maquerelles et rufians) for their own sake (pour elles-mêmes)
rather than for any higher moral purpose.15 Following the same logic, Pierre
Heugas, in his fine study of the literary successors of the Celestina, dismissed
the Lozana as one of those early sixteenth-century works ‘which, closely or
distantly, have links with La Celestina’ (qui, de près ou de loin, ont des rapports
avec ‘La Célestine’).16 Nevertheless, despite this tradition of moralistic con-
demnation, and although there is still no journal entitled Lozanesca, criticism
of the Retrato has expanded so greatly in recent years that the day of its inau-
guration may not be far away. In brief, many critics have come to see the book
as one of the precursors of the Picaresque novel, and also as a realistic portray-
al of the Spain and Rome of Delicado’s day.17
No doubt partly because of historians’ traditional suspicion of ‘literary’
sources, as well as the linguistic difficulty of the text, the Retrato has generally
been neglected as a source for Spanish and Italian history, though Menéndez y
Pelayo long ago acknowledged its value as a description of prostitution in
early sixteenth-century Rome. The first historian to take Lozana’s story ser-
iously was Angus MacKay who, since the 1980s, has published a series of dis-
cussions of its significance.18 In a paper published in Spanish as ‘Averroistas y
marginadas’, and in its revised English version as ‘Women on the margins’,
MacKay firmly placed Lozana, as well as her Andalusian female companions
in Rome, in the category of conversas, ‘a highly marginalized social group
which is not simple to define precisely, but which is characterized more by its
Averroism than by its Christianity or its Crypto-Judaism’. He nevertheless
goes on to define this group as ‘female converts to Christianity (including
washerwomen, shirt-makers, serving-maids, and prostitutes)’, people of
‘humble’ origin who ‘spend their lives in a kind of exile outside the frontier of
Andalusia’.19 In another paper, also delivered in 1984 but not published until
eight years later, he compared Delicado’s treatment of Lozana, and her life in
both Spain and Italy, with the complaints which were made to Ferdinand and
Isabella of Spain in the early 1480s, by the converso historian and royal chron-
icler Fernando del Pulgar, who is briefly quoted in the text of the Retrato.20
206 Medieval Spain

Pulgar had been concerned that the newly-founded ‘Spanish’ Inquisition,

which began work in Seville in 1480, and two years later in Lozana’s birth-
place, Córdoba, was particularly cruel to the female members of the converso
community in Andalusia, who, for reasons to do with culture and social cus-
tom, had received little or no instruction in the Christian faith.21 Part of
MacKay’s thesis concerning the Retrato is, therefore, that the author’s account
of his ‘heroine’ indicates her close involvement in such circles, both because
of her upbringing in Andalusia and because of her dealings, earlier in the
book, with the Spanish Jewish and converso communities in Rome.22 For
MacKay, therefore, the author’s overall treatment of Lozana indicates his sym-
pathy with the condition of the Andalusian conversas, so graphically described
by Pulgar in a letter to Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza, who was arch-
bishop of Seville at the time when the new foundation of the Inquisition was
introduced to that archdiocese.23 What, though, was the religious identity (if
any) of Lozana and her friends, both in her childhood in Córdoba, and later in
Rome and (perhaps) Lipari?
It is impossible to ignore the explicit references in the text of the Retrato to
Lozana’s Cordoban origins. The book begins with the statement that

The lady Lozana was by birth a compatriot of Seneca, and no less than he in
her intelligence and astuteness, who from her childhood had talent and
memory and great alertness.24

Not only did Aldonza/Lozana emulate, in her own way, the qualities of the
Roman philosopher and tragedian, who was venerated during her lifetime as
one of Córdoba’s greatest sons, but she missed no opportunity, while in Rome,
to proclaim her origins with pride.25 On her arrival in what is referred to in the
text as the ‘Alma cibdad’ (‘Soul city’), the abandoned and defiant Lozana
declared to a widow from Seville, ‘I am Spanish, and from Córdoba’.26 Her
pride in her native city endured to her last year in Rome, when she told a
group of prostitutes, who were about to take over her clientele,

I give many thanks to God that he formed me in Córdoba rather than any
other land, and that he made me a wise woman and not a beast, and of the
Spanish nation and no other.27

Claude Allaigre regards this comment as ironical, but whether it is or not, he,
Bruno Damiani and Giovanni Allegra, who have provided the best current
editions, have nonetheless missed other clear references to Córdoba in the
text, which have a significant bearing on its interpretation. One such case is
particularly important, and relevant to the question of conversion and
Lozana’s religious identity. While describing her youth to her aunt in Seville,
Aldonza talks about her culinary skills, and in particular her much-prized
pickled meat (adobado), saying that ‘as many drapers as there were in the Calle
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 207

de la Heria [sic] wanted to try it’.28 In his 1975 and 1982 editions of the text,
Damiani states that young Aldonza is referring here to ‘the Calle de la Feria
[fair] or market, famous in Seville’, a conclusion which is significantly modi-
fied by Allaigre, who comments that the future Lozana is clearly referring to
the time before the death of her parents and grandmother.29 This is fair com-
ment, but Allaigre does not suggest an alternative. The most recent French
translator of the Retrato, Claude Bleton, renders the phrase, without explan-
ation, as ‘Rue de la Heria’, while Damiani, in his English version, refers to ‘the
ragpickers on Market Street’.30 The inappropriate nature of the latter transla-
tion, with respect to both the expressions employed, will be discussed below,
but if, on the basis of the ‘Venice 1528’ text and the context of the passage, the
simple assumption is made that Lozana is referring to her birthplace, it seems
entirely reasonable to assume further that she meant the Calle de la Feria in
Córdoba, not Seville.
During the period of Lozana’s early life in Córdoba, the streets surrounding
the Calle de la Feria were the main centre of the city’s commerce and crafts.
The street itself was its axis, running from north to south to reach the river
Guadalquivir, and dividing the western half of the city, which was known in
the fifteenth century as the ‘Medina’, from the eastern half, known as the
‘Ajerquía’. It appears to have been developed after the Christian conquest of
the city by Ferdinand III of Castile, in 1236. By the time of Lozana’s ‘birth’,
what was known as the Calle de la Feria had become a focus not only of special
events, such as trade fairs, markets, and the public executions which took
place outside the Franciscan convent of San Pedro el Real (known colloquially
as ‘San Francisco’), but also of day-to-day economic activity. It was one of the
streets in the city which had been paved well before 1500.31 It is for this reason
that nothing could be more misleading than to translate the word ‘traperos’,
used by Lozana, as ‘ragpickers’. She was in reality talking about individuals
who dominated, in alliance with the largely aristocratic possessors of the great
estates, the most important trade and industry of the region in that period,
which was the production of wool and textiles. The importance of the cloth
trade which took place at the Cordoban trade fairs was evidently recognized
by the Castilian Crown. The 1429 (cuaderno) for the collection of the alcabala,
the increasingly lucrative sales tax on trading transactions, gave official
authorization, as though this were a recent development, for the sale of cloth
in the Calle de la Feria, during the chartered trade fairs in March and May each
year, in addition to the traditional outlets in the covered market for luxury
goods, the Alcaicería, which was situated to the west, in the cathedral parish of
Santa María.32 The 1435 city ordinances of Córdoba, which were re-issued in
1457 and 1468, listed the duties which were to be paid by producers and
traders to the alguacil mayor (chief constable) or his agents. Included were
cloth-merchants who had formed companies (traperos arracamados) and also
those who traded as individuals, who were known as traperos de Córdoba.33 By
1500, what has been described as ‘merchant capitalism’ had led the drapers to
208 Medieval Spain

divert ever more of the wool production of the region from the city’s own text-
ile industry to that of Burgos. Increasingly, the cloth merchants on the Calle
de la Feria, who were said to have delighted in the various delicacies offered by
the youthful Aldonza, were not Cordobans but Castilians from that northern
city. Their prosperity was hardly in doubt and Burgos drapers received increas-
ing favours from Córdoba city council.34 It should be added, however, that
Damiani’s translation of ‘traperos’ as ‘ragpickers’ is not totally unconnected
with Spanish reality in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The correct term
for a rag-merchant or old clothes dealer, ropero or aljabibe, (the latter derived
from the Arabic al-jubbab, a seller of jibbas or djellabas), was indeed strongly
associated with Jews and Jewish Christians (confesos or conversos). The
Cordoban converso poet, Antonio de Montoro (d. 1477), was known as ‘El
Ropero’, while, when Lozana arrived in Rome, she was supplied with second-
hand clothes by an apparently Spanish Jew called Trigo.35 In Córdoba,
aljabibes participated with traperos in the raising of municipal taxes, or assizes
(sisas).36
Other explicit or oblique references to her native town appear in Lozana’s
conversation with other Spaniards in Rome. She told the widow from Seville,
who was one of the first compatriots she met there, that she was born in the
‘Tannery’ (Cortiduría or Tenería) of Córdoba, which was situated on the right
bank of the Guadalquivir, in the parish of San Nicolás del Ajerquía.37 The
Cortiduría, included the essential but more sordid end of the city’s second
most important industry in the period, which was leather work or ‘cordwain-
ing’. As well as being a notorious source of pollution, which was tackled in the
1435 ordinances, the trade of tanning was commonly associated, throughout
the Mediterranean region, with Jews and, by extension in the Spanish case,
with conversos.38 Lozana had further memories of Córdoba when her new
lover in Rome, Rampín, took her to the Piazza Navona, and told her about
the Wednesday market there. Her comment was, ‘In Córdoba they have it on a
Thursday, if I remember rightly:

Thursday, it was Thursday, market day,

That Fernando invited the Commanders’.39

The former Aldonza refers here both to an episode and to a place. The notori-
ous episode concerned the murder of the two commanders (comendadores) of
the military order of Calatrava, in 1448, by Fernando Alonso de Córdoba, lord
of Belmonte. The young noblemen, Jorge and Fernando de Córdoba, were dis-
covered, through the treachery of one of her servants, to be the secret lovers of
the lord of Belmonte’s wife. The cuckolded husband sent them false invita-
tions to an assignation with their mistress, and killed them, the story being
dramatically treated in a poem by Antón de Montoro.40 The Thursday market
was held in the Plaza de la Corredera, which for many centuries furnished the
venue for public events in Córdoba, including proclamations by the munici-
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 209

pal authorities, bullfights, and, in the seventeenth century, autos de fe of the

Inquisition.41
In addition, although it has not been identified as such by editors, it seems
probable that a reference in the text to the ‘potro’ has a Cordoban signifi-
cance. In Chapter 27, where Lozana engages in banter with fellow Spanish
exiles in Rome, a Valencian called Beatriz says to a notary, in her presence, ‘So
why didn’t the little whore come in? Did she think she was in the Potro?’, to
which Lozana replies, having just come in, ‘Oh! Oh! Is that how you treat me?
A young tart is worth more than a superannuated one in the public brothel.
By the Lord’s life, let Him not make peace if you don’t give me a share [of
some quince jelly which the Valencian was making]!’42 The Retrato is a com-
plex and difficult text, susceptible to multiple interpretations, and this pas-
sage is not one of the better printed in the first edition, but it does appear
possible that the word potro, though not capitalized in either the first or mod-
ern editions, may refer to a place. Modern translators have preferred to inter-
pret the word as either a urinal or a chair for women giving birth, and either
of these meanings may have been implied by the speaker.43 It may also be
possible, though, that Beatriz, who was a professional rival of Lozana, was
referring to the Plaza del Potro (Colt) in Córdoba. In the late middle ages, the
city’s ‘high street’, the Calle Mayor, ran on a west–east alignment, one block
to the north of the river bank. It crossed the Calle de la Feria at the Puerta del
Sol, and terminated in a large rectangular space known as ‘El Potro’. In
Lozana’s time, the square was associated with the horse trade and contained
several inns for travellers. The name ‘Potro’ came to be extended to the
neighbouring streets, and, through the development of the catering and
‘hospitality’ trades, to be associated with prostitution. A now-vanished cul-
de-sac, the Calle de la Mancebía (public brothel), ran southwards in the direct-
ion of the river from the Calle Mayor ‘del Potro’, between two inns, the
Mesón de la Paja (Straw Inn) and the Mesón de la Alfalfa or Madona (Alfalfa or
Lady Inn). This short street indeed contained the public brothel, which had
spread to the neighbouring streets, was owned by the cathedral and also pro-
vided an income for the city council (concejo or cabildo).44 The mancebía, too,
was regulated by the 1435 city ordinances, and was a notorious focus of crime
and violence.45 It may well be that Lozana thought Beatriz, who would surely
have heard of the Potro, and its reputation, from the numerous Andalusians
in Rome was implying that her Cordoban competitor was losing her poten-
tial for the trade. Those who worked in the ‘public’ establishment in the Calle
de la Mancebía were no doubt, in Lozana’s eyes, those who could no longer
provide a better class of ‘escort’ in the hostelries of the district. A further
converso connection is provided by the poet Antón de Montoro’s reference, in
his Cancionero, to the seamier side of activity around the Potro. In lines
addressed to a widow and a whore, he refers to places which figure in the
Roman phase of the Retrato among Lozana’s memories of Córdoba, the Potro
and the Sierra.
210 Medieval Spain

You must make provision for yourselves, ladies, whatever happens to you –
One to fuck and the other to drink – belongs only to God.
To slay this war, and fulfil both of these things,
Let one of them go to the Sierra and the other stay in the Potro.46

Here, the ‘Sierra’ in question is surely the Sierra Morena, which overlooks
Córdoba from the north, and was a prominent wine-producing area in the fif-
teenth and sixteenth centuries.47 It was also to loom large, symbolically, in the
last phase of Lozana’s career in Rome.
Nevertheless, it was the Calle de la Feria, the scene of Lozana’s earliest culin-
ary, and very probably sexual, conquests, which was associated most inextri-
cably with the fate not only of Córdoba’s conversos, but also of the rest of the
city’s population. For it was there that a series of events occurred, a few years
before Aldonza’s supposed birth, which traumatized the descendants of those
who had been baptized as a result of the violent attacks on the city’s Jewish
quarter (judería), in the summer of 1391. At the bottom of the Calle de la Feria,
in the open space known as the Cruz del Rastro, an incident took place, at the
beginning of March 1473, which led to an outbreak of general violence
against the conversos. Urine was supposedly dropped from the balcony of a
converso house, near the Cruz del Rastro, on to a statue of the Virgin Mary,
which was being carried in procession by the ‘Old Christian’ confraternity of
Charity (La Caridad). After efforts by the alcalde mayor (chief magistrate)
of Córdoba, Don Alonso de Aguilar, together with his brother, the future
‘Great Captain’ Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, to restore order had failed,
revenge for the supposed insult was exacted from the whole of the city’s con-
verso community by means of physical assault, arson, and looting. In addi-
tion, conversos were henceforth debarred from holding public office in the
city, under the terms of an early example of a limpieza de sangre (‘purity of
blood’) statute. Although Don Alonso’s control over Córdoba lasted no more
than a further five years, until he was suspended from office by Isabella and
Ferdinand, and the refugee conversos returned to the city and continued to
hold office there, the memory of the violence undoubtedly remained in fami-
lies such as Lozana’s. In Rome, though, the ‘lusty’ Andalusian seems to have
preferred to remember the happier days of the restored ‘Old’ and ‘New’
Christian life on the Calle de la Feria.48 The centrality of conversos in Lozana’s
upbringing is undeniable. What, though, of the Rome in which she supposed-
ly arrived in March 1513?
Lozana’s Rome, as portrayed (the word is used advisedly) by her ‘Author’, is,
like her recorded memories of Córdoba, more crowded with people than with
buildings or urban landscape. His own tally of 125 characters in the Retrato is
reasonably accurate, but their names indicate that the majority of them are
more stereotypes than individuals. While Lozana herself and her partner
Rampín have fairly rounded characters, others are known to the reader by
their personal characteristics, such as Divicia (wealth) and Prudencia. Others
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 211

are referred to solely by their nationality or occupation, as in the case of sur-

names, which were becoming increasingly prevalent in Western Europe in
that period. Some are unnamed, simply being referred to as relatives of other
characters. Some are given names from Ancient Greece and Rome, for exam-
ple Diomedes, the maker of copper into gold. Indeed, the author apparently
prides himself on his knowledge of the Classics, claiming to have been a pupil
of the great Salamancan grammarian Antonio de Nebrija. In contrast to this
‘human interest’, little attention is paid in the Retrato to the then increasingly
popular ‘sights’ of Rome, though mention is made of the district of Pozzo
Bianco (‘Pozoblanco’), the Campo de’Fiori, the Zecca (Mint), the Coliseum,
the Banchi (Banks or Moneychangers), the Ponte Sant’Angelo and its famous
castle, the Rotunda, the column of Marcus Aurelius, and the Piazza Navona.49
If this treatment of Lozana’s story is a ‘portrait’, its concern is human rather
than topographical. Yet the almost total lack of ‘novelistic’ characterization in
the book is clearly deliberate, and not a sign of literary inadequacy, as might
otherwise be thought. The entire work revolves round Lozana, and is indeed,
as its title indicates, her ‘retrato’, in the sense of ‘portrait’. This concept was
clearly very important to the author, as not only does it appear on the title
page, but the preliminary ‘Argument’ makes it plain that he saw his work as
the equivalent of a painted portrait, though he produces conflicting state-
ments concerning the ‘naturalness’ of the result. This is not all. Not only is
portraiture of the essence of the Lozana andaluza, but the meaning of the
Spanish word retrato in the early sixteenth century was wider than it is today.
Its more common meaning at that time was ‘retreat’ or ‘withdrawal’, generally
in a religious sense, and indeed, the use of the word in the 1520s to descrbe a
work of literature seems to have been innovative. But then, so was the painted
portrait itself, and the author refers to the ‘picking up’ of Lozana’s portrait, as
was commonly done with such pictures in that period. It is clear that Allaigre
is right to point to a religious dimension in the use of the word ‘retrato’ in the
text.50 It is now time to consider further the structure and significance of
Lozana’s ‘story’.
The text of the Retrato is effectively a portrait of Aldonza/Lozana in sixty-six
chapters, or mamotretos (of this word, more anon), surrounded by a ‘frame’ of
introductory and concluding material. At the beginning, the author provides
a prologue of dedication to an anonymous ‘lord’, and sums up the plot of the
book in an ‘Argument’. He concludes with a series of ‘post-scripts’, which
begins with a linguistic note on the origin of the word ‘Lipari’. This final sect-
ion continues with a letter, written by the author, which compares Rome at
the time of the 1527 Sack with Biblical Babylon. Then follow a ‘bull of excom-
munication’ by Cupid of a heartless woman, a letter from Lozana to her suc-
cessors as courtesans in Rome, which also refers to the 1527 Sack, and, finally,
an account by the author of his departure to Venice. Within this ‘frame’, the
‘portrait’ itself is divided into three parts, the first of which (Chapters 1–23)
takes Aldonza/Lozana from her birth in Córdoba to her establishment as a
212 Medieval Spain

successful courtesan in Rome, while the second part (Chapters 24–40) displays
her in her pomp, though, already, at this stage, the ‘Author’ begins to warn her
of the dangers of her chosen career.
The third part is announced as containing ‘more gracious things than have
gone before’.51 Given the nature of Lozana’s previous life, Claude Allaigre, like
other modern editors and critics, assumes that this statement is ironic, but
what exactly happens in the third and final section of this ‘word-portrait’? To
begin with (Chapter 41), Lozana starts to display a sense of foreboding about
the future, and sends away a group of women who come to her for help with
cosmetics, in which she had considerable expertise. She also appears to dis-
miss her Neapolitan boyfriend, Rampín, who had been her lover since soon
after her arrival in Rome, more than ten years before.52 In the next chapter,
while she is meditating in solitude, Lozana receives an unexpected visit from
the author (Auctor). They discuss her future, as well as that of Rome itself, and
Spanish involvement in the current political situation. Auctor tries to per-
suade her to abandon her interest in dreams and divination, but at this stage,
although she is aware that such things are contrary to the Church’s teaching,
she pleads that she must earn a living somehow.53 In Chapter 43, it appears to
be business as usual at Lozana’s house, with a ceaseless traffic of clients and
provisions, but a change in her life is heralded by Auctor. He leaves her in
order to search out his friend Silvano, and returns in his company.54 The next
four chapters (44–47) form a coherent block, in which Silvano and Lozana
engage in dialogue. In effect, Silvano hears the Cordoban lady’s confession,
and, for the first time, a Christian reference becomes explicit. Lozana begins to
look towards an eschatological future. She also suggests mockingly (or serious-
ly?) that the retired prostitutes of Rome should be given privileges like the
Roman soldiers of old (for example those who had founded her native city,
Colonia Patricia Corduba around the time of Christ).55 She does not compare
the Roman prostitutes to pagan soldiers, but to the Church’s ‘noble army of
martyrs’, as referred to in the matins canticle, Te Deum laudamus. Silvano is
not averse to this idea, but he is more concerned with the immediate danger
posed to Lozana and her fellow prostitutes by the scourge of syphilis, from
which the supposed author of the Retrato is believed to have suffered.
Resisting her confessor, Lozana puts forward her own varied experience,
including her time with Diomedes in the Middle East, but then admits that
once again she has fallen on hard times, and that she no longer has the trust
which she once had in her lover Rampín. After this confessional monologue,
Silvano speaks, taking the mind of his ‘penitent’ back to her native Andalusia,
to Córdoba and to the rock of Martos.56
At this point in the conversation, which is taking place on a Thursday,
Silvano is sent away, and told to return for dinner on Sunday. That evening,
and on the following Monday, he will read to her from her favourite books
and they will play instruments, his vihuela and her tambourine. The first of
the books mentioned is the popular collection of verses here described as the
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 213

Coplas de Fajardo, which is an obscene comedy, supposedly written by a friar

called Montesinos, concerning the adventures of Diego Fajardo, a knight.57
The second work requested by Lozana, the Comedia Tinalaria (Tinellaria) has
so far been almost totally overlooked by editors, but is of great interest in the
interpretation of Lozana’s ‘portrait’. It was written by Bartolomé de Torres
Naharro, a playwright from Extremadura, and was first performed, probably
in 1516, in the presence of Pope Leo X and of his own patron, Bernardino
López de Carvajal, cardinal of Santa Croce (Santa Cruz). The story, in which an
all-male, multilingual caste attempts to communicate in the servants’ hall
(tinello), largely concerns the pecking-order in hall, the prospect of obtaining
ecclesiastical benefices, and women.58 Lozana’s third request, the Celestina, is
of evident importance in the concept and execution of the Retrato. At the end
of Chapter 47, and with the interpretation of an illustration in the ‘Venice,
1528’ edition, when Silvano says a temporary farewell to Lozana, he issues
what appears to be an order: ‘Contempláme esa muerte’.59 The phrase is evi-
dently ambiguous: it may mean ‘Contemplate this death for me’, or
‘Contemplate this death of mine’. After she has regarded the skull with
Silvano on Thursday, and arranged for his return on Sunday, Lozana’s life
seems, for a brief while, to proceed much as before. Customers come to benefit
from her cosmetic skills, and she continues to consort with those, both mar-
ried and single, who exercise, or are on the fringes of, the trade of prostitution.
She now begins to experience much more severe professional competition,
however, and to doubt herself and her abilities in a manner which had not
been apparent before. Finally, in Chapter 50, she suffers violent abuse from a
client, apparently for the first time in her career, and resolves to abandon pros-
titution. The lessons of Auctor and Silvano are beginning to be absorbed, and,
as forebodings of the Sack of 1527 come to dominate the remaining chapters,
an increasingly meditative, and increasingly religious, tone prevails. In this
final section of the ‘portrait’, Lozana’s visions cease to concern profit-making
divination and become apocalyptic. In her imagination, Pluto, the god of
the underworld, rides across the Sierra Morena, above her native Córdoba,
Balaam’s ass speaks home truths about human society, under the name
Robusto, and Rome (or the world?) appears as the Tree of Vanity.60 What does
all this mean?
The debate over the historical, as well as the literary, interpretation of
Lozana’s Retrato must engage primarily with the work of Angus MacKay. As the
first historian to take the lady’s story seriously, he places Aldonza/Lozana in a
converso context, firstly because of her Cordoban upbringing, on which fur-
ther thoughts have been expressed here, and secondly because of her dealings,
immediately after her arrival, with the Spanish Jewish and converso commu-
nities in Rome.61 Nevertheless, many ambiguities remain. While MacKay sees
the Retrato as favourable to the Spanish, and more particularly the Andalusian
conversos, the critic Louis Imperiale has come to the opposite conclusion, that
the book is in reality anti-Jewish. Referring to its treatment of the Jew Trigo
214 Medieval Spain

(Goldcorn) who, when Lozana first arrives in Rome, sells her precious gold
ring for her at an extravagant commission and provides her with clothes and
lodging in order to engage in her new career of prostitution, Imperiale states

If we were to look for an ‘ideal’ model of the rapacious Jewish moneylender,

false neighbour and hypocritical philanthropist, Trigo, the Spanish Jew,
would definitely be the best-qualified candidate.62

Lozana’s genuinely Cordoban background is well attested, and some kind of

Jewish context for the Retrato seems undeniable, but it is questionable
whether the leading lady and her friends had truly abandoned religion alto-
gether, as MacKay claims. He regards them as possessing ‘theological ignor-
ance, coupled with a picaresque-type perception of how people behave’.63 In
accordance with this view of Lozana and other characters, especially the
females, MacKay contrasts the supposed sophistication of the ‘priest-author’
Delicado, ‘who knows his scriptural texts’ and is ‘a writer and linguist’, with
the apparently unsophisticated life, aspirations and religion (if any) of Lozana
and her friends.64 Are things quite so simple, though, or is it not rather the
case that ‘for the religious person, doubt has always been an intrinsic part of
faith’?65 If such a condition, of belief combined with scepticism, applied to so
many Spaniards of the period, may it not also have affected Lozana, her com-
panions, and her ‘Author’?
Lozana’s youth in Córdoba will have been spent, not only under the shadow
of the 1473 riots and the subsequent introduction of the new Inquisition, but
also in the midst of Messianic expectation, which seems to have gripped
Jewish and non-Jewish Christians alike. The lists of prosecution witnesses in
the records which remain of the notorious trials conducted by Diego
Rodríguez Lucero, inquisitor of Córdoba between 1499 and 1508, contain
many names from the business community on and around the Calle de la
Feria, for which Lozana did her fondly-remembered cooking.66 It is dangerous
to assume that ‘averroism’, understood in the late medieval Christian sense as
religious, or rather irreligious, scepticism, was a general response of Spain’s
Jewish Christians (or Christian Jews?) to the tensions and disruptions of life
which afflicted them in the years around 1500. In addition, it is rash to assume
that all references in this period, among Spaniards at home or abroad, to the
Jewish Scriptures automatically sprang from Jewish faith and practice, seeing
that these were, and are, basic texts also in the Christian Church, if differently
interpreted. If Lozana was involved with one kind of ‘conversion’ in her
native city of Córdoba, she seems to have become involved with another kind
towards the end of her time in Rome.
To begin with, it is clear that Lozana found herself, in the Rome of Leo X,
Hadrian VI, and Clement VII, in a climate of explicit Christian prophecy.
Although the Author states, at the beginning of part one, that he composed
his work in 1524, it is in fact studded with references, of growing intensity, to
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 215

the sack of the city in May 1527. This was carried out by Imperial troops,
including Lutherans, under the command, first, of the Constable of France,
Charles, duke of Bourbon, and then, after his death, under that of his lieu-
tenant, Philibert, prince of Orange, to whom it has been suggested that the
Retrato was dedicated.67 In her Epistle to all those women who decide to come to see
the Campo de’Fiori in Rome, Lozana begins,

It occurred in Rome that fourteen thousand Teutonic barbarians entered

and castigated and tortured and sacked us.68

She then proceeds to describe, in a detailed, disparaging, and fairly accurate

fashion, the other components of the Imperial army. As well as the Sack, the
account in the Retrato of Lozana’s Roman life constantly equates the city with
Babylon. As Silvio (not Silvano) puts it to his friend Auctor, at the beginning of
part two,

Do you think they say in vain, ‘Babylon’ instead of ‘Rome’, if not because of
the great confusion which liberty causes? Do you wonder that they say
‘Rome the Whore’, because she is the capital of sinners?69

The equation between Rome and Babylon is, of course, to be found in the
Revelation of St. John, the Apocalypse, in which the second angel prophesied,
while the Lamb, or Christ, was on Mount Zion with the 144,000 redeemed
souls,

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, who has made all nations drink the wine
of God’s anger roused by her fornication [14:8].

In the book of the Apocalypse, this punishment duly ensued, while, in 1499
and 1500, in Herrera del Duque (Badajoz), the prophetess Inés used very simi-
lar imagery to describe the conversos of both her own village and the city to the
south, who she believed would be taken away by Elijah from the persecution
of the Spanish Inquisition to the Messianic kingdom, and banquet, in the land
of Israel. The resultant ‘Judaizing’ resulted in severe repression by the inquisi-
tors of both Toledo and Córdoba, but, in the meantime, Inés had claimed to
see, in a series of visions, the converso victims of the Inquisition dining in heaven
off golden plates.70 The arrival of Lozana in Rome, on the other hand, coincid-
ed with an upsurge of prophecy and messianic concern throughout Italy.
The invasion of the peninsula by Charles VIII of France in 1494, and the
subsequent defeat of the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola’s attempt at spirit-
ual and secular reform in Florence, had helped to revive a long-standing desire
for reform (reformatio), and a readiness to observe and interpret the ‘signs of
the times’. Apart from preachers, of the kind observed by Lozana and Rampín
during their first trips together around Rome in 1513, other portents caused
216 Medieval Spain

concern, there and elsewhere in Italy, at the turn of the sixteenth century.71 At
the time of Leo X’s election and coronation, and hence of Lozana’s arrival in
the Eternal City, a short exposition of psalms 14, 15, and 17 was published by
an Augustinian friar, Andrea de Ferrara. The work attacked the former pope,
Julius II, who died ten days after its publication, on 11 February 1513. The
friar stated that the next pope, ‘if chosen according to human will and not
according to God’, would be no better, and would bring down divine punish-
ment on the world.72 Parallels with Andrea’s Augustinian brother, Martin
Luther, spring readily to mind, but what connection does all this have with
the Retrato?
Having established that Lozana lived in a similar prophetic world to that of
Inés de Herrera, but in an explicitly Christian context, it is necessary to return
to the Cordoban lady’s encounter with Silvano and a skull, in Chapter 47 of
the Retrato, and to her choice of books. Bartolomé Torres Naharro, whose
Comedia Tinellaria she requested, had as his patron Cardinal Bernardino López
de Carvajal, a former rector of Salamanca university. The cardinal, who was
much favoured by Isabella and Ferdinand, was strongly influenced by a manu-
script entitled the Apocalypsis nova (‘New Apocalypse’), which was attributed
to a Portuguese nobleman, João Mendes de Silva. João’s sister, Beatriz de Silva,
who had been in the retinue of Queen Isabella, founded with her former mis-
tress’s support the convent of the Concepción in Toledo, which became the
mother house of the order of nuns of that name. Beatriz’s foundation,
although Cistercian in origin, quickly came under Franciscan influence.73 Her
brother, on the other hand, rejected the Jeronymites of Guadalupe as too lax
and connected to the royal court. He became a conventual Franciscan, took
the name Amadeo, and became confessor to Pope Sixtus IV. In 1472, he joined
a Franciscan congregation at San Pietro in Montorio, on the Janiculum, which
became known as the ‘Amadeans’. He lived as a hermit on the hillside below
the convent, acting as a spiritual adviser to people of all social ranks, until his
death in 1482. Cardinal Bernardino took a close interest in the Montorio com-
munity, and was aware of the existence of the New Apocalypse, which derived
from the apocalyptic ideas of Joachim of Fiore and Spiritual Franciscans such
as Peter John Olivi. The book was eventually opened, for the first time, in the
church of San Pietro in Montorio, in 1502. Cardinal Bernardino was present at
this dramatic act, and appears sincerely to have believed that he himself was
the ‘angelic pope’ of which radical Franciscan exegesis spoke, and who would
deliver the reform for which the Church was crying out.74 His attempt, with a
largely French group of his fellow cardinals, to set up a reforming Council at
Pisa in 1512, failed dismally, though it did goad Julius II into calling the rival
Fifth Lateran Council, which continued ineffectively until Luther posted his
ninety-five theses, on 31 October 1517. When Torres Naharro’s Tinellaria was
performed in his hall, in 1516, a contrite Cardinal Carvajal was forced to
receive a very unreformed Leo X as his guest of honour.75 Whoever wrote the
Retrato, and whoever Lozana was, it seems more than likely that their social
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 217

circles were, despite all appearances to the contrary, integrated with the
Catholic Church in general, and Franciscan ideas of reform in particular.
From the time of Augustine of Hippo to the present day, commentators
have attempted to find a structure in John’s Apocalypse, and the temptation
has been to use it as a guide to the past, present and future history of the
world.76 It would hardly be surprising, therefore, given the circumstances in
which it was apparently written, if the Retrato de la Lozana andaluza partook of
the eschatological anxiety, as well as the yearning for Christian reform, which
was strong in both Spain and Italy. At least two critics have, in their different
ways, moved towards a Christian rather than a Jewish, or plainly sceptical
(‘averroistic’) interpretation of the text. Some years ago, Pamela Brakhage sug-
gested a Christian reforming context for the Retrato, but found in it the ideas
of Erasmus and his circle.77 In more general terms, in a learned and intricate
interpretation of the ‘Solomon’s knot’, which, in the final chapter of the main
book, Lozana undertakes to send to Rampín, when they have both left Rome,
he for Naples and she for the island of Lipari, Ian Macpherson documents the
medieval Christian use of this symbol. Nevertheless, and not least on the basis
of Lozana’s proposal at this stage to adopt the explicitly Jewish name Vellida,
he opts for a Jewish, or judeoconverso interpretation of the book. If Lozana, at
the end of her chequered career in Andalusia, the Mediterranean, and Rome,
Lozana finds a religious faith for the first time in her life, it must have been a
Jewish faith78 But are things quite so simple? Angus MacKay has expressed the
view that ‘the critical moment in the work’ comes early on, when Lozana loses
Diomedes, finds herself alone and penniless, and decides how she is going to
live in Rome.79 Could it not be, though, that the ‘hinge’ of the Retrato is in fact
Lozana’s encounter with Silvano, in the presence of a skull?
That the text is still far from surrendering all its meanings may be illustrated
by two concluding thoughts. Each chapter of the main part of the book is
given the unusual designation of mamotreto, which in literal terms may be
defined as a ‘tome’, a ‘notebook’ or a ‘sketchbook’. The assumption has gen-
erally been made that the word is derived from mammothreptus, a medieval
Latin word based on late Greek, which may have any of these meanings.80 If,
however, the origin of mamotreto is in fact mammotractus, the allusion in
‘Auctor’’s choice may once again be Franciscan. The argument is intricate, and
must be reserved for another place, but it is worth noting at this stage that, in
the last years of the life of Queen Isabella, the royal library of the Alcázar of
Segovia contained a ‘mamotreto’, which was an exposition and grammatical
repertory of the words in the Bible, composed by Giovanni Marchesino, a
Franciscan from Modena, and printed in Mainz in 1470.81 The religiously
‘uneducated’ Lozana, in her new frame of mind, might well have found such
a work valuable. Finally, the supposed place of her ‘retirement’ (or retreat?),
the island of Lipari, is equally enigmatic. Not only is it unclear from the
text whether she ever went there, but it may be misleading to assume, as
Macpherson apparently does, that this Aeolian island was the place where
218 Medieval Spain

Lozana achieved ‘peace, understanding and fulfilment’.82 This member of the

volcanic chain had been associated since Classical times with Hell, and in the
Middle Ages was linked with Purgatory.83 If Lozana was in fact to be required
to purge her sins, while contemplating the prospects of both Heaven and Hell
(whatever the official teaching of the Church may have been), then her condi-
tion may not have been totally unlike that of the scholars who attempt, near-
ly five centuries later, to interpret her ‘Portrait’.

Notes
1 In the composition of this paper, many debts are owed, for comments and advice, to
members of the Early Modern History and Spanish research seminars in the
University of Oxford and the Hispanic Studies research seminar in the University of
Birmingham, and also to participants in conferences and seminars in Bar-Ilan
University (Israel), the Colegio Español in the Cité Universitaire (Paris), the National
Gallery, London, the Universities of Manchester, Northumbria and St Louis, and
Queen Mary and Westfield College, London. The greatest debts of all, though, are
owed to Angus MacKay, who, in Jerusalem in 1984, first introduced Lozana to this
writer, and to Vivien Edwards, the marriage with whom, in Birmingham in 1993,
inspired him to undertake an edition, a translation and a historical and literary study
of the text. This interim report is dedicated with gratitude to them both.
2 Ferdinand Wolf, Studien zur Geschichte der spanischen und portugiesischen
Nationalliteratur (Berlin, 1859), p. 290, cited by Antonio Vilanova in his edition of
Francisco Delicado, La Loçana andaluza (Barcelona, 1952), p. lvi n.
3 Private publication by the Murcian bibliophile Antonio Perez Gómez (Valencia,
1950). The best editions currently available are by Bruno M. Damiani, La Lozana
andaluza (Madrid, 1982) and Claude Allaigre, Retrato de la Lozana andaluza
(Madrid, 1985). There is also a critical edition of the Vienna text by Bruno M.
Damiani and Giovanni Allegra (Madrid, 1975). For other editions of the Retrato, see
n. 12.
4 Clive Griffin, The Crombergers of Seville. The history of a printing and merchant dynasty
(Oxford, 1988), pp. 174–5.
5 Perhaps their editors share A. E. Housman’s hostility to illustrators. When Claud
Lovat Fraser sent him illustrations for his A Shropshire lad, the poet wrote, ‘The trou-
ble with book-illustrators, as with composers who set poems to music, is not merely
that they are completely wrapped up in their own art and their precious selves, and
regard the author merely as a peg to hang things on, but that they seem to have less
than the ordinary human allowance of sense and feeling’ [Housman letter, quoted in
the introduction by Kelsey Thornton to A Shropshire lad, Birmingham, 1995, p. 6].
For Spanish printers’ use of woodcuts in both Spain and Italy in this period, see
Griffin, The Crombergers, pp. 185–7, 197–9.
6 Libros de caballería, con un discurso preliminar y un catálogo razonado por Don Pascual de
Gayangos, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, xi (Madrid, 1857), p. xi n.
7 Bruno M. Damiani, Francisco Delicado (New York, 1974).
8 Primaleón, ed. Delicado (Venice, 1533), book III: ‘que cierto, los que se apartan de la
gramática española que es encerrada en aquella grande y famosa historia de Amadís
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 219

de Gaula son, sin duda, nuevos romancistas, como lo fui yo cuando compuse la
Lozana en el común hablar de la polida Andalucía’.
9 See Damiani’s introduction to La Lozana andaluza, pp. 9–10. The first place in ques-
tion may be Cabezuela del Valle (province of Cáceres) and the second is Martos
(province of Jaén), fourteen leagues (77 km) from Córdoba. A character in the book,
Silvano, of whom more anon, claims that the city of the Caliphs is visible from the
‘peña’ (rock or summit) of Martos [Allaigre, Retrato, pp. 396–8].
10 Allaigre, Retrato, p. 399.
11 Damiani, La Lozana andaluza, pp. 9–13.
12 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 193.
13 The following editions have appeared in addition to those cited in n. 3: Marqués de
la Fuensanta del Valle and José Sancho Rayón, eds, Retrato de la Lozana andaluza
[= Colección de Libros Españoles Raros o Curiosos, i] (Madrid, 1871); Luis de Lara, ed.,
Retrato de la Lozana andaluza [in Colección de Libros Picarescos] (Madrid, 1899);
Eduardo María de Segovia, ed., Retrato de la Lozana andaluza (Madrid, 1916); José
Gómez de la Serna, ed., La Lozana andaluza (Santiago de Chile, 1942); Javier Farias,
ed., La Lozana andaluza [= Libros Raros y Curiosos, i] (Buenos Aires, 1942); Antonio
Vilanova ed., La Lozana andaluza (Barcelona, 1952); Antonio Prieto, ed., La Lozana
andaluza (Barcelona, 1967); Joaquín del Val, ed., Retrato de la Lozana andaluza
(Madrid, 1967); Carlos Ayala, Jaime Uyá and Francisco Fernández, eds, La Lozana
andaluza (Barcelona, 1968); Angel Chiclana, ed., La Lozana andaluza (Madrid,
1988). Bruno Damiani began his important contribution to Lozana scholarship
with his doctoral thesis for Johns Hopkins University (1967), which was an edition
of the text. Claude Allaigre began his involvement with his doctoral thesis for the
University of Grenoble (1980), entitled ‘Sémantique et littérature: le Retrato de la
Loçana andaluza de Francisco Delicado’.
14 Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Orígenes de la novela, iii, Novelas dialogadas, con estu-
dio preliminar [= Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, xiv] (Madrid, 1910), pp. cxciv,
cxcvii. This view of the Retrato is perhaps unsurprising, given the overall historical,
moral and political views of that writer. Peter Linehan observes that ‘The Spain
whose demise D. Marcelino had lamented was the Spain of the century after 1492 –
“Spain evangeliser of half the world, Spain hammer of heretics, light of Trent,
sword of Rome; cradle of St Ignatius” [Linehan, History and the historians of medieval
Spain, Oxford, 1993, p. 16]. This was hardly the world which Delicado and Lozana
inhabited.
15 Marcel Bataillon, La Célestine selon Fernando de Rojas (Paris, 1961), p. 137.
16 Pierre Heugas, La Célestine et sa descendance (Bordeaux, 1973), p. 30.
17 See, for example, the critical guide by Augusta Espantoso Foley, Delicado. La Lozana
andaluza (London, 1977).
18 Angus MacKay, ‘A lost generation: Francisco Delicado, Fernando del Pulgar, and the
conversas of Andalusia’, in Circa 1492. Proceedings of the Jerusalem Colloquium:
Litterae Judaeorum in Terra Hispanica, ed. Isaac Benabu (Jerusalem, [1984] 1992), pp.
224–35; ‘Averroistas y marginadas’, in Actas del III Coloquio de Historia Medieval
Andaluza. La sociedad medieval andaluza. Grupos no privilegiados (Jaén, 1984),
pp. 247–61, reprinted in MacKay, Society, economy and religion in late medieval
Castile (London, 1987), no. XII and in English, as ‘Women on the margin’, in Ian
Macpherson and Angus MacKay, Love, religion and politics in fifteenth century Spain
(Leiden, 1999), pp. 28–42; ‘The whores of Babylon’, in Prophetic Rome in the High
Renaissance period, ed. Marjorie Reeves (Oxford, 1992), pp. 223–32, reprinted in
Macpherson and MacKay, Love, religion and politics, pp. 179–87. The subject is also
220 Medieval Spain

examined in MacKay, ‘The Hispanic-converso predicament’, Transactions of the Royal

Historical Society, fifth series, xxxv (1985), pp. 159–79, reprinted in MacKay, Society,
economy and religion, no. XIII.
19 MacKay, ‘Women on the margins; p. 28.
20 MacKay, ‘A lost generation’: ‘Y como dice el coronista Fernando del Pulgar: “así daré
olvido al dolor” ‘ [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 169–70].
21 For recent accounts of the beginnings of the ‘new’ Inquisition in Andalusia, see
Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition. An historical revision (London, 1997), pp.
43–8, John Edwards, The Spanish Inquisition (Stroud, 1999), pp. 55–8, and Edwards,
The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1520 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 84–9.
22 See, for example, Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 175–83, 188–201, 244–50.
23 ‘Sin duda, señor, creo que mozas donzellas, de diez a veinte años hay en el
Andalucía diez mil niñas, que dende que naçieron nunca de sus casas salieron, ni
oyeron ni supieron otra dotrina sino la que vieron hazer a sus padres de sus puertas
adentro. Quemar todos éstos sería cossa crudelíssima, y aún difíçile de hazer,
porque se avsenterían con desesperaçión a lugares donde no se esperase dellos cor-
repçión jamás’ [full text in Fernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, ed.
Juan de Mata Carriazo (Madrid, 1943), I, pp. xlix–lviii].
24 ‘La señora Lozana fue natural compatriota de Séneca y no menos en su inteligencia
y resaber; la cual desde su niñez tuvo ingenio y memoria y vivez grande’ [Allaigre,
ed., Retrato, p. 175].
25 For Seneca in Castilian, and especially Cordoban, humanists’ letters in the fifteenth
century, see Karl-Alfred Blüher, Séneca en España: investigaciones sobre la recepción de
Séneca en España desde el siglo XIII hasta el siglo XVII, trans. Juan Conde (Madrid,
1983). An early sixteenth-century description of Córdoba’s intellectual heritage
in Escorial MS M-I-16 typically includes Seneca, and calls the city ‘otra Atenas’
(‘another Athens’) [the gift of the transcription of this source by Adeline Rucquoi is
gratefully acknowledged].
26 ‘Soy española, y de Córdoba’ [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 190].
27 ‘Yo doy munchas gracias a Dios porque me formó en Córdoba que en otra tierra, y
que me hizo mujer sabida y no bestia, y de nación española y no de otra’ [Allaigre,
ed., Retrato, p. 403.
28 ‘Cuantos traperos habían en la cal de la Heria querían proballo’ [Allaigre, ed.,
Retrato, p. 177].
29 Damiani and Allegra, ed., Retrato, p. 81 n. 4 and Damiani, ed., Lozana andaluza, p.
39 n. 10: ‘Calle de la Feria o Mercado, famosa en Sevilla’. Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp.
177–8 n. 4: ‘Pero creo que tiene que ser otra que la de Sevilla pues Aldonza acaba
justo de llegar a esta capital, y se está refiriendo a una época anterior a la muerte de
sus padres y de su abuela’.
30 Francisco Delicado, Portrait de la Gaillarde andalouse. Roman, trans. Claude Bleton
(Paris, 1993), p. 51; Delicado, Portrait of Lozana: the lusty Andalusian maiden, ed. and
trans. Bruno M. Damiani [= Scripta Humanistica, 34] (Potomac, Maryland, 1987),
p. 8.
31 Manuel Nieto Cumplido, Historia de la Iglesia de Córdoba, ii, Reconquista y restau-
ración (1146–1326) (Córdoba, 1991), pp. 234–7, 287–8; John Edwards, Christian
Córdoba. The city and its region in the late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1982), p. 59; José
Manuel Escobar Camacho, Córdoba en la Baja Edad Media. Evolución urbana de la ciu-
dad (Córdoba, 1989), p. 203; Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave, ‘La pavimentación de las
calles de Córdoba a fines del siglo XV’, in Las ordenanzas de limpieza de Córdoba
(1498) y su proyección (Córdoba, 1999), p. 127.
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 221

32 Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada, La hacienda real de Castilla en el siglo XV (La Laguna,
1973), p. 70; Edwards, Christian Córdoba, p. 74.
33 Manuel González Jiménez, ‘Ordenanzas del Concejo de Córdoba (1435), Historia,
Instituciones, Documentos, ii (1975), pp. 194–5, 202, 204; Escobar Camacho, La vida
urbana cordobesa. El Potro y su entorno en la Baja Edad Media (Córdoba, 1985), p. 37n.
34 Edwards, ‘Oligarchy and merchant capitalism in lower Andalusia under the
Catholic Kings: the case of Córdoba and Jerez de la Frontera’, Historia, Instituciones,
Documentos, iv (1977), pp. 24–5, and ‘ “Development” and “underdevelopment” in
the western Mediterranean: the case of Córdoba and its region in the late fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 11 (1987), pp. 33–4,
both reprinted in Edwards, Religion and society in Spain, c. 1492 (Aldershot, 1996),
nos XIV and XVI; Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp. 167–8, 170–2, 175.
35 Kenneth R. Scholberg, Sátira e invectiva en la España medieval (Madrid, 1971), pp.
316–22; José Alberto Toribio Fernández, ‘Antón de Montoro en el Cancionero de
burlas provocantes a risa’, in Homenaje a Antón de Montoro en el V centenario de su
muerte (Montoro, 1977), pp. 17–28; Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 244–50.
36 Archivo Municipal de Córdoba, Actas Capitulares, 1 December 1501, 13 March
1504 (on this latter occasion, the aljabibes contributed on their own).
37 There appears to be a parallel, in this respect, with Celestina, who lived in the ‘tan-
neries’ which are generally supposed to have been beside the river Tormes in
Salamanca [Fernando de Rojas, Comedia o tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, ed. Peter
E. Russell (Madrid, 1991) p. 241 and note].
38 González Jiménez, ‘Ordenanzas’, p. 270; Escobar Camacho, Vida urbana, pp. 34–5,
65–6; Minna Rozen, ‘La vie économique des Juifs du bassin méditerranéen de l’ex-
pulsion d’Espagne (1492) à la fin du XVIIIe siècle’, in La société juive à travers l’his-
toire, ed., Shmuel Trigano, iii, Le passage d’Israël (Paris, 1993), pp. 313–14.
39 ‘Jueves, era jueves, día de mercado,
convidó Hernando a los Comendadores ‘ [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 241].
40 Montoro, Cancionero, pp. 249–54.
41 Escobar Camacho, Córdoba en la Baja Edad Media, pp. 218–19; Juan Bautista Carpio
Dueñas, ‘La ciudad de Córdoba en 1498’; in Las ordenanzas de limpieza, pp. 86–7;
Rafael Gracia Boix, Autos de fe y causas de la Inquisición de Córdoba (Córdoba, 1983),
pp 396–405 (auto of 21 December 1627).
42 ‘BEATRIZ – Y por qué no entró la puta moza? Pensó que estaba al potro? LOZANA –
Ay! Ay! Ansí me tratáis? Más vale puta moza que puta jubilada en el publique. Por
vida del Señor que, no me dais mi parte, que no haga la paz! [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p.
312].
43 Damiani, trans., Portrait, p. 126; Bleton, trans., Portrait de la Gaillarde, p. 155.
44 Escobar Camacho, Vida urbana, pp. 28–32 and Córdoba en la Baja Edad Media, p. 113.
45 Gónzález Jiménez, ‘Ordenanzas’, p. 237. On violence and crime in Córdoba in this
period, see Edwards, ‘La noblesse de Cordoue et la révolte des “Comunidades” de
Castille’, in Bandos y querellas dinásticas en España al final de la Edad Media [=
Cuadernos de la Biblioteca Española, I] (Paris, 1991), pp. 142–3, and Emilio Cabrera,
‘Crimen y castigo en Andalucía durante el siglo XV’, Meriedes. Revista de Historia
Medieval, I (1994), pp. 17–18.
46 Averos de bastecer, damas, de lo que os fallesce,
a la una de hoder y a la otra de bever,
a solo Dios pertenesce;
para matar esta Guerra y cumplir lo uno y l’otro,
la una vaya a la Sierra, la otra quede en el Potro.
222 Medieval Spain

[Antón de Montoro, Cancionero, ed. Marcella Ciceri and Julio Rodríguez Puértolas
(Salamanca, 1990), p. 322].
47 Edwards, Christian Córdoba, p. 99.
48 For the 1473 riots and their context see Manuel Nieto Cumplido, ‘La revuelta contra
los conversos de Córdoba en 1473’, in Homenaje de Antón de Montoro, pp. 29–49;
Margarita Cabrera, ‘El problema converso en Córdoba. El incidente de la Cruz del
Rastro’, conference paper cited by E. Cabrera, ‘Violencia urbana y crisis política en
Andalucía en el siglo XV’, in Violencia y conflictividad en la sociedad de la España
bajomedieval (Zaragoza, 1995), p. 21 n. 56; Edwards, ‘The “massacre” of Jewish
Christians in Córdoba, 1473–1474’, in The massacre in history, ed., Mark Levene and
Penny Roberts (New York and Oxford, 1999), pp. 55–68; Edwards, ‘The culture of of
the street: the Calle de la Feria in Córdoba, 1470–1520’, in Mediterranean urban cul-
ture, 1400–1700, ed. Alexander Cowan (Exeter, 2000), pp. 69–82; Edwards, ‘Nobleza
y religión: Don Alonso de Aguilar (1447–1501)’, Ambitos. Revista de Estudios de
Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de Córdoba, no. 3 (2000), pp. 9–19.
49 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 187–96, 211–12, 241. For Rome in this period see Loren
Partridge, The Renaissance in Rome, 1400–1600 (London, 1996), passim.
50 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 45; Nicholas Penny. ‘Back to the wall’, a review of Eve
Mendgen, In perfect harmony, in London Review of Books, 21 September 1995, p. 12:
‘It is often assumed that easel pictures have always hung on walls, but in fact the
backs of many small Renaissance panel paintings, both sacred and secular, were
decorated, suggesting that they were designed to be handled as well as hung’. For
examples of the importance of portraits in English dynastic marriages, see Retha M.
Warnicke, The marrying of Anne of Cleves. Royal protocol in Tudor England
(Cambridge, 2000), pp. 47–53.
51 ‘Y serán más graciosas cosas que lo pasado’ [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 373].
52 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 373–8, 229–38.
53 Allaige, ed., Retrato, pp. 378–84.
54 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 384–6.
55 Pilar León, ed., Colonia Patricia Corduba. Una reflexión arqueológica (Córdoba, 1996),
pp. 77–85.
56 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 387–99.
57 Caragicomedia compuesta por el reverendo padre fray Bugeo de Montesinos...dirigido al
muy antiguo carajo del noble cavallero Diego Fajardo, in Cancionero de obras de burlas
provocantes a risa, ed. Frank Domínguez (Valencia, 1978), pp. 139–84.
58 Tinellaria, in Propalladia and other works of Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, ed. Joseph E.
Gillet (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1945–61), I, pp. 187–267 and ii, pp. 453–538.
59 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 399.
60 Allaigre, ed., Retrato. pp. 400–82.
61 Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp. 175–83, 188–201, 244–50.
62 Louis Imperiale, El contexto dramático de La Lozana andaluza [= Scripta Humanistica,
84] (Potomac, Maryland, 1991), p. 246.
63 MacKay, ‘Lost generation’, p. 227.
64 MacKay, ‘Women on the margins’, pp. 37–42 and ‘The Hispanic-converso predica-
ment’, p.177.
65 Edwards, ‘Religious faith and doubt in late medieval Spain: Soria, circa 1450–1500’,
Past and Present, 120 (1988), p. 3, article reprinted in Edwards, Religion and society in
Spain, no. III.
66 Edwards, ‘Trial of an inquisitor; the dismissal of Diego Rodríguez Lucero, inquisitor
of Córdoba, in 1508’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxxvii (1986), pp. 240–57.
 Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana Andaluza 223

67 Giovanni Allegra, ‘Pequeña nota sobre el ‘Ilustre Señor de la Lozana andaluza’,

Boletín de la Real Academia Española, liii (1973), pp. 391–7; Allaigre, ed., Retrato, pp.
175, 214, 216, 242, 299, 383–4. For details of the 1527 Sack, see Vicente de Cadenas
y Vicent, El Saco de Roma de 1527 por el ejército de Carlos V (Madrid, 1974), especially
pp. 247–352.
68 ‘Epístola de la Lozana a todas las que determinan venir a ver Campo de Flor en
Roma. . . . Sucedió en Roma que entraron y nos castigaron y atormentaron y saque-
aron catorce mil teutónicos bárbaros’ [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 503].
69 ¿‘Pensáis vos que se dice en balde, por Roma, Babilón, sino por la muncha con-
fusión que causa la libertad? ¿No miráis que se dice Roma meretrice, siendo capa de
pecadores?’ [Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 299]. The theme is developed in MacKay, ‘The
whores of Babylon’, in Macpherson and MacKay, Love, religion and politics, pp.
179–87.
70 Edwards, ‘Elijah and the Inquisition: messianic prophecy among conversos in Spain,
c. 1500’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, xxviii (1984), pp. 79–94, reprinted in Religion
and society in Spain, no. VIII, and Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp. 236–8; Haim
Beinart, ‘Inés of Herrera del Duque. The prophetess of Extremadura’, in Women in
the Inquisition. Spain and the New World, ed. Mary E. Giles (Baltimore, Maryland,
1999), pp. 42–52.
71 For anti-papal images of the period, see R. W. Scribner, ‘Demons, defecation and
monsters: popular propaganda for the German Reformation’, in Scribner, Popular
culture and popular movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), pp. 282–5.
72 Ottavio Niccoli, Prophecy and people in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane
(Princeton, 1990), pp. 37, 52–6, 105–6. The psalms on which Andrea commented
are: [14] ‘The fool hath said in his heart there is no God’, [15] ‘Lord, who shall dwell
in Thy tabernacle: or who shall rest upon Thy holy hill?’ and [17] ‘Hear the right, O
Lord, consider my complaint’.
73 Balbina Martínez Caviró, Conventos de Toledo. Toledo, castillo interior (Toledo, 1990),
pp. 255–60, 278.
74 Anna Morisi-Guerra, ‘The Apocalypsis Nova: a plan for reform’, and Josephine
Jungic, ‘Joachimist prophecies in Sebastiano del Piombo’s Borgherini chapel and
Raphael’s Transfiguration’, in Prophetic Rome, ed. Reeves (Oxford, 1992), pp. 27–50
and 321–43; Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Firoe and the prophetic future. A medieval
study in historical thinking (Stroud, 1999), pp. 83–115; David Burr, Olivi’s peaceable
kingdom. A reading of the Apocalypse commentary (Philadelphia, 1993).
75 On Carvajal’s involvement in the Council of Pisa, see José M. Doussinague,
Fernando el Católico y el cisma de Pisa (Madrid, 1946), pp. 123, 177, 221–4,
406–11.
76 Some recent scholarly analyses of the book of Revelation (Apocalypse) are Richard
Bauckham, The climax of prophecy. Studies on the book of Revelation (Edinburgh,
1993), and A. J. P. Garrow, Revelation (London, 1997). For a lucid overview of the
question, see W. R. Ward, ‘Millennialism for the Millennium’, Humanitas. The
Journal of the George Bell Institute, i, no. 2 (2000), pp.5–22.
77 Pamela S. Brakhage, The theology of La Lozana andaluza (Potomac, Maryland, 1986).
The tendency of scholars, since Marcel Bataillon, to link movements for reform in
the Spanish Church of this period exclusively to outside influences, and particular-
ly to Erasmus, has recently been strongly challenged by José C. Nieto, in El
Renacimiento y la otra España. Visión cultural socioespiritual (Geneva, 1997), and more
effectively by Lu Ann Homza, in Religious authority in the Spanish Renaissance
(Baltimore, Maryland, 2000).
224 Medieval Spain

78 Ian Macpherson, ‘Solomon’s knot’, in Macpherson and MacKay, Love, religion and
politics, pp. 205–22.
79 MacKay, ‘Women on the margins’, p. 40.
80 José Sánchez, ‘Nombres que reemplazan a capítulo en libros antiguos’, Hispanic
Review, xi (1943), p. 157; Allaigre, ed., Retrato, p. 30.
81 Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, Libros, tápices y cuadros que coleccionó Isabel la
Católica (Madrid, 1950), p. 41.
82 Macpherson, ‘Solomon’s knot’, p. 222.
83 Jacques le Goff, La naissance du Purgatoire (Paris, 1981), pp. 279–81.
12
The Making of Isabel de Solis
José Enrique López de Coca

Arab historiography tried to explain the rapid conquest of Spain by the

Muslims in 711 by reference to the treasonable acts of the count (or merchant)
Julian. The latter was said to have placed himself at the service of the invaders
because he wanted revenge on the Visigothic king, Roderic, who had violated
his daughter. In Hispano-Christian literature this theme is developed further,
with the young woman being given both the name of Florinda and the
derogatory epithet of ‘la Cava’, or ‘the Prostitute’. In the fullest version of
these events, the rape of Julian’s daughter by the Gothic king was described as
taking place while she was receiving her education at the court school in
Toledo.1 Reducing a disaster such as ‘the Fall of Spain’ to the confines of such a
drama played out between a few individuals, resulted from the need to pro-
vide an explanation for events whose scale and complexity otherwise ren-
dered them incomprehensible to contemporary minds.2
Today we regard the fall of Granada in 1492 as the final throes of the pro-
tracted death agony of that kingdom. For many of the Muslims of Andalucia
at the time it seemed like a sudden and unforessen cataclysm, and they tried to
make sense of it in ways that could easily be understood. Following their exile
from Spain, voices came to be raised amongst the Muslims, claiming that it
had been internal discord that was the key to the understanding of why the
Nazirids had proved themselves so weak in the face of the Christian threat.
But, as it was not easy to comprehend the motives that had driven the aristoc-
racy of the kingdom of Granada to undermine itself in a suicidal conflict with-
in its own ranks at the very time it was facing the onslaught of the Reyes
Católicos, it became necessary to make sense of this fratricidal conflict in terms
of the actions of a small number of individuals. In this way, the love story of
the Amir Abu ‘l-Hasan ‘Ali, known to the Spanish chroniclers as ‘Mulay
Hasan’, and the renegade Christian Zoraya came to be turned into an attract-
ive and comprehensible explanation for the fall of the kingdom of Granada.3
There are similarities between the stories of Florinda and of Zoraya. In both
cases it was the Muslims who created and circulated them, and the Christians
who adopted them and developed them further for their own purposes. But

225
226 Medieval Spain

there are also differences. The passivity of ‘la Cava’ is in stark contrast to the
active involvement of the renegade Christian woman in the last act of the
drama of Granada. Moreover, if Florinda was only a fictional character, Zoraya
really existed, even if the historical realities of her life were subsequently dis-
torted in the imagination of various Spanish historians of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.

From captive to ‘queen’ of Granada

An anonymous witness of the last phases of Nazirid rule recalled from exile in
Morroco, that the rule of ‘Mulay Hasan’ went into decline in 1477/78. He
claimed that from that time onwards, the sovereign, in thrall to his passions,
delegated the responsibilities of government to a corrupt vizier, who, as well as
neglecting the army, burdened the realm with new taxes. The chronicler added:

This amir, Abu ‘l-Hasan, was married to his cousin, a daughter of the amir
Muhammad the Left-handed, and by her he had two sons: Muhammad
(‘Boabdil’) and Yusuf. The licentiousness of the amir reached such a pitch
that he preferred a Christian woman called Zoraya to his own wife, causing
him to abandon his cousin and the sons she had born him. As this gave rise
in his wife to those feelings of jealousy to which women can be provoked
by their husbands, dissension broke out between them. The amir’s sons
Muhammad and Yusuf took their mother’s side, and this in turn served to
aggravate the enmity between the amir and his family. However, as he was
a man of a choleric and impetuous nature, and his wife feared that her hus-
band’s anger would be turned on their sons, matters were kept peaceful for
some time, during which the amir continued to lose himself in his pleas-
ures and passions.4

In March 1482 the Nazirids lost the strategically important fortress of

Alhama to the Christians, only to succeed soon afterwards in driving them
back from the walls of Loja; on 15 July. Describing the latter event, the same
chronicler wrote:

On the very day of the victory the news came to the ears of the defenders of
Loja that the two sons of the Amir Abu l-Hasan, Muhammad and Yusuf,
had fled from the Alcazaba (of the Alhambra) in fear of their father. It had
happened that certain demons in the form of men had tempted their
mother, making her afraid for her sons because of the impetuous character
of their father. Thanks to this and to the ill feeling that already existed
between her and the slave of the boys’s father, the Christian woman called
Zoraya, they succeeded in winning her over. And they did not desist from
the task of trying to influence her until she had yielded to the suggestions
of the plotters concerning what they were saying about her sons.5
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 227

A new and final civil war thus began with the flight of ‘Boabdil’ to the town
of Guadix, whence he would return to Granada some months later, proclaim-
ing himself amir in place of his father. Without excusing ‘Mulay Hasan’, the
chronicler wanted it understood that his wife, called Aisha or Fatima, driven
by jealousy, had fallen into a trap set by the aristocratic faction that was
opposed to the monarch and his vizier.6
This anonymous chronicler, who made no further reference to Zoraya in his
narrative, thus considered her to be the catalyst of the crisis in Granada. A simi-
lar view was held by another author, also writing in exile, the Jewish chronicler
Capsali, who drew on an earlier tradition in providing the following account:

One day the king was looking out of a window and saw a young woman
that his servants had carried off from Sefarad. The girl was very beautiful
and good to look at, for which reason she had been given the name of
Turayya [Zoraya], which means ‘Lamp’ in the tongue of Ishmael. And the
king ardently desired her beauty. . . . And he hid her for many days,
because it was a humiliation that the king should bring a concubine into
his home and take other women in place of his wife.

The chronicler continues by saying that the king eventually suborned some
judges into legalizing his new marriage, and that this produced furious resent-
ment and the breaking of relations with him on the part of his other wife and
her sons.7
Another important source is the account of Hernando de Baeza, written
around 1505, in which its author has left us various carefully constructed and
detailed impressions of the final period of the Nazirid Amirate, based on the
confidential information he had received from ‘Boabdil’, with whom he had
had direct contact. Having indicated that the Amir Abu ‘l-H asan had been
married for about twenty years to a daughter of Muhammad ‘the Left-
Handed’, by whom he had had three sons and a daughter, Baeza continued:

Being thus married, and also being the most highly esteemed and also
feared king of that and of earlier times, it happened that certain Moorish
warriors wished to enter and assault the land of the Christians. Their leader
came from Aguilar, which was a place seventy leagues from Córdoba. He
decided to place his men in hiding around a well near Aguilar on a Saturday
night, because on the Sunday the local people would not come out to work
and the countryside would be safe. And this he did. And when some chil-
dren came out there to water their animals, he captured them. Amongst
them was a young girl aged around ten to twelve years old, who was
brought to Granada to be sold. Falling into the portion (one fifth of the
loot) that was allotted to the king, she was given by him to his daughter,
and became a cleaner and chamber maid. And in truth I knew her many
years later, and she did not seem to me to be a woman with a good face.8
228 Medieval Spain

Abu ‘l-H asan ‘Ali soon took a fancy to the captive, and installed her in his
palace of ‘Daralcotola’, which used to stand on the site now occupied by the
monastery of Santa Isabel la Real in the Alcazaba Cadima of the Albaicín. And
in a very short while he decided to live with her. Known by all as the Romía, a
name reserved for apostate Christians, she ‘was held to be the queen’, and
gave birth to two sons, Sa’d and Nasr.
Hernando de Baeza’s narrative appears rather confused, largely due to his
imprecise chronology. Thus, he does not indicate when this raid into the terri-
tory of Aguilar took place, and therefore when la Romía first came to form a
part of the Amir’s life. However, I have reason to believe that these events took
place in the early 1470s. From an Arab document, translated into Spanish, we
know that in December 1476 ‘Mulay Hasan’ granted Zoraya the legal owner-
ship of the estate of an Alguacil of the district of Godco. The text states que él
poná en el señorío a la madres de su hijo, la honesta, libre, limpia y noble Zoraya, de
todas las heredades que eran para él y le pertenecían de toda la herencia . . . He made
it clear that all that he was giving her es para ella como madre de su hijo; referring
no doubt to the prince Sa’d. At the time that the latter’s brother was born in
1478, Zoraya received various gifts from the royal treasury as her own property.
In the relevant document recording this we read: . . . compróse por parte de la
señora madre del infante hijo de nuestro señor el rey de los moros . . . Abu ‘l-Hasan.9
These and similar documents were presented at the inquiry held in 1506 to
establish the whereabouts of the properties once held by Zoraya, which were
now being claimed by her sons, the former infantes of Granada. The records of
the inquiry report the very full questioning to which were subjected a group of
about thirty Moriscos, including various elderly quadis and faqihs, who had
previously had close dealings with the royal house of Granada.10 From their
replies, it is clear that the property owned by la Romía is indistinguishable in
its nature and extent from other great aristocratic estates. It was the circum-
stances under which it was acquired that arouses particular interest, as much
of it derived from the ruler’s rights over his subjects’s property. One of the wit-
nesses testified that ‘the cause of the discord in the royal family was the fact
that so much of what the king [Abu ‘l-Hasan] had inherited and owned he
gave to the aforesaid queen . . . ’
Equally noteworthy are the declarations made by other witnesses about
the estates of various courtiers, who were apostate Christians that had been
executed by order of the king, and whose possessions had then passed
into the hands of the queen. It was certainly not unreasonable of the
anonymous Muslim chronicler to accuse ‘Mulay Hasan’ of having persecut-
ed his military commanders, and of then dividing up their wealth and
offices amongst those not deserving of them.11 This was a possible cause of
the animosity that la Romía seems to have aroused amongst other renegade
Christians. As will be seen, Hernando de Baeza received at first hand from
these former Christians a very unfavourable opinion of the second wife of
the amir.12
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 229

The capture of ‘Boabdil’ by the Christians at the battle of Lucena in April

1483 made it possible for his father to recover control of the Alhambra. The
latter’s preoccupation with increasing the economic well-being of his new
family had intensified following the birth of the second of the sons of Zoraya.
In 1483 ‘Mulay Hasan’ and his brother Muhammad al-Zagal divided between
themselves the very substantial inheritance of one of their aunts.13 The
Nazirid ruler immediately passed on his portion, including the grange of
Arenalles and the estate of ‘Dar Aldefla’ amongst others, to the sons of la
Romía. In 1506 a witness recorded that ‘immediately afterwards people began
to say that it was because the princes were poor that their father had given
them these lands and many others.’14
While ‘Boabdil’ was negotiating with the Reyes Católicos for his release, his
brother Yusuf had taken refuge in Almería. As he could not take the town by
force, the Amir offered the rebels an amnesty; with only seven or eight
unnamed individuals being excluded. In the account of Hernando de Baeza
we find that:

They said that the king, ‘Abu ‘l-Hasan, had drawn up in his own hand the
list of those to be excluded, in the presence of the apostate queen, his wife.
And that it was at her request – indeed, at her demanded and importuning
– that his son [Yusuf] was included in the list of those to be denied the
amnesty. Some maliciously said that the queen had done this, believing
that the king who was in captivity [Boabdil] would never be released, and
that with this other one dead, it would be her son who would become sole
heir.15

The surrender of Almería was followed by the death of Prince Yusuf in

obscure circumstances. Old and unwell, his father soon after went insane. In
the meantime, the Castilian forces had been making themselves masters of
the western provinces of the Nazirid Amirate, with the assistance of ‘Boabdil’,
who had been freed after making himself a vassal of the Reyes Católicos.
Alonso de Palencia is the only one of the chroniclers of the War of Granada
who took any notice of the people in whom we are interested. He brings them
back to light in relation to the events that took place in the summer of 1485.
The religious leaders and the general populace of Granada, worried by the
Amir’s lack of reaction to the Christian advance, began to consider the advis-
ability of replacing him by his brother al-Zagal, who enjoyed considerable
prestige as a military leader. Forewarned, ‘Mulay Hasan’ withdrew to the
coastal town of Almuñécar, together with his personal treasure, without
warning anyone of his flight other than his new wife and a few of his
intimates.
Although Zoraya suggested her eldest son should become the new Amir, the
religious leaders of Granada were unwilling to replace an old man by a child,
and recommended that the way should be left open for al-Zagal. In the words
230 Medieval Spain

of the chronicler ‘despite her sorrow, the queen obeyed the wishes of the
people.’16
Hernando de Baeza does not mention the flight of ‘Mulay Hasan’ to
Almuñécar. On the contrary, he states that it was al-Zagal who, when he was
made Amir, ordered the exile of his brother and his sons to Salobreña. As for
‘the queen, the wife of the king, called La Romía, she was kept in Granada, on
the pretext that he was thinking of marrying her himself’. According to the
chronicler, who was basing his account on the testimony of various elderly
Christian renegades, what Muhammad al-Zagal really wanted was for her to
reveal the whereabouts of the treasures that she possessed, both her own and
those of Abu ‘l-Hasan.17
However, according to the inquiry of 1506, Zoraya was kept in Granada for
only two or three days before being allowed to join her husband, who died not
long afterwards. At the same time, al-Zagal kept in post those officials who had
previously been responsible for administering the estates of la Romía and of
his nephews. It was only two years later when ‘Boabdil’ expelled his uncle
from the Alhambra that the latter’s situation changed for the worse.18

Doña Isabel, resident of Seville

Master of the city of Granada from 1487, ‘Boabdil’, the so-called Rey Chico,
appealed to the Reyes Católicos for assistance against the towns that remained
loyal to Muhammad al-Zagal, now known as the ‘king of Guadix’. The latter
finally laid down his arms in December 1489, in return for a comfortable
retirement in the Alpujarra, where he was given the lordship of the districts of
Andarax, Órgiba, Lecrín, and Lanjarón amongst others. At the time of al-
Zagal’s submission, Zoraya and the princes Sa’d and Nasr were still with him,
and he then endowed them generously from his new estates.19
The princes were living in Andarax when it was rumoured in Granada that
‘Boabdil’ had made a secret agreement to surrender the city to the Christians.
According to the inquiry of 1506, some of the leading citizens then wrote to
prince Sa’d to say ‘that he should join with them and they would make him
king of the aforementioned city.’ It is worth wondering if Zoraya played any
part in this. Whatever the case, because of this plot, the Reyes Católicos ordered
that the two princes be transferred to Seville. This took place in March 1490.20
It seems that subsequently Sa’d and Nasr accompanied the Spanish rulers as
they moved around the country. Amongst the papers of the royal secretary
Hernando de Zafra has been preserved an account of the clothes and fabrics
that both princes received during their stay in Seville, and subsequently in
Córdoba.21 On 30 April 1492 the bishop of Guadix, Frey García de Quixada,
baptised both princes and six of their servants in the encampment of Santa
Fe.22 According to Hernando de Baeza, ‘the elder of the two was thenceforth
called don Fernando, after the king, who was his godfather, and the younger
became don Juan, after the most excellent prince don Juan, who had similarly
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 231

received him from the baptismal font.’23 They were very carefully educated in
the course of the following years, as the Catholic monarchs hoped that their
example might lead other leading men of Granada to follow suit. The German
traveller Hieronymus Müntzer, who visited the Spanish court in 1495,
described the princes of Granada as adolescentes pulchros et longos, qui optime
sunt in fide nostra eruditi.24 They seem to have occupied prominent places in all
the court ceremonies and events.25
Having followed the princes thus far, let us now leave them and turn instead
to their mother, who had been living in Christian territory since al-Zagal took
the road into exile in October 1490. Lucius Marineus Siculus reported that
‘having returned to her original religion at the earnest entreaty of her sons and
at the command of the Reyes Católicos, she took the name of Isabel.’26 But
before this she had tried to prevent her sons from converting to Christianity.
We can read in the records of the frequently cited inquiry of 1506, that Zoraya
made over the title to her property in the Alcazaba Cadima, together with var-
ious jewels and perfumes, to the royal secretary, Hernando de Zafra, in order
that he might intercede with the Reyes Católicos to allow her sons to go into
exile in North Africa. This testimony was given by ‘Reduan Matran’, the
princes’ former nanny, who stated that her evidence was true ‘because I saw
and took part in this agreement.’27
Some documents preserved in the Simancas archive prove that Zoraya was
still a Muslim in the summer of 1494, when she was living in the city of
Córdoba.28 Six years later the Treasurer, Gonzalo de Baeza, noted in his records
the provision of a quantity of Flemish and English cloth for a Doña Isabel de
Granada and her servants, who had just converted to Christianity. However,
I do not believe that this refers to la Romía, and it is more likely to relate to one
of the Nazirid princesses who had received the same baptismal name of Isabel,
as part of the general conversion of the Kingdom of Granada.29 It is probable,
though, that Zoraya did become reconciled to her original faith before 1500,
since, as Marineus Siculus writes, she was pressed so to do by her sons and by
the Reyes Católicos.
With the turn of the century Doña Isabel can be found living in Seville.
Some municipal accounts of 1501 refer to road repairs being undertaken ‘in
front of the house lived in by the former queen of Granada, close to the house
of the duke’ (of Medina Sidonia).30 I have established that this relates to our
Isabel, thanks to the copy of a power of attorney that was included in the
inquiry of 1506. Dated to 23 March 1501, it begins: ‘Doña Isabel, mother of
the Infantes of Granada, I being an inhabitant of the parish of San Miguel in
the Most Loyal city of Sevilla . . .’ She was not able to sign this power of attor-
ney ‘because I state that I do not know how to write.’31
The Spanish monarchy took responsibility for providing for the material
needs of Isabel de Granada. Initially this took the form of a ración or daily
stipend for her maintenance, which was paid, almost always late, by the
administrator of the goods that had been confiscated from heretics by
232 Medieval Spain

the Inquisition of Córdoba.32 After her baptism this was changed to an annual
pension of 150 000 maravedis, which was reduced by a third some time
around 1504. But it is not possible to know whether or not Doña Isabel
escaped from her financial difficulties without taking account of her landed
wealth.33
At the end of the war the Reyes Católicos did not allow the recovery from
‘Boabdil’ and his supporters of properties that he had previously confiscated
from those Muslims who had opposed him.34 This issue reasserted itself in the
inquiry of 1506, along with the supposed royal pledge to compensate those
who had suffered from this decision. Muhammad al-Baqanni, the former chief
qadi of Granada, had initially declared that

as far as he knew, he did not see how they could give satisfaction to the
infantes or to their mother or to the other nobles who had been at enmity
with the Moorish king in respect of the lands, money and other forms of
property they had formerly owned.35

However, the situation changed with the departure of ‘Boabdil’ to Morocco in

October 1493, as in the August of the following year the Spanish monarchs
ordered the same qadi to deal with Zoraya’s claim for the recovery of certain
property, described as ‘that which it is said to be held in this city of Granada by
a Moor of the name of “Abray Azeyte”, which had been taken from her by the
last Amir’.36
It is noteworthy that the defendant here was the former secretary and confi-
dant of Muhammad al-Zagal. The same man, having by then become a Regidor
of the town of Guadix and having changed his name to Hernán Valle, declared
in 1506 that he had attempted to recover for his former master and for Zoraya
all of the estates that had been confiscated by their enemies. This is a brief
indication of the obscure circumstances under which important transfers in
the ownership of both rural and urban property took place in Granada after
the conquest.37
A case in point is the attempted unlawful seizure of the so-called Huerta del
Príncipe Hamete, next to the river Genil, by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. In
a document of recognition of ownership of this property, drawn up in July
1494, the witnesses could not have been more explicit: the huerta belonged to
‘the excellent and honest Zoraya, mother of the sons of our lord the king of
glorious memory, Abu al-Hasan . . .’ and they were certain that she had not
sold it.38
Luck was not always with Zoraya/Isabel in her legal efforts to recover her
family property. Thus, she was unable to assist her sons before the judges in
reclaiming properties that had fallen into the hands of Queen Isabel la
Católica. In the inquiry of 1506 Zoraya stated that she and the infantes had lost
the mansion called Dar Alcotola, together with another house in the Alcazaba
Cadima together with a granary, turned into a pottery, in the Realejo district.
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 233

As for rural estates, she had about ten of different kinds, scattered across the
Vega, the Quempe, and the region to the north of Granada.39 Nor were these
the full sum of her possessions. A notarial document from Granada of 1510
refers to the existence of a shop owned by ‘the queen (sic), the mother of the
infantes’ in the parish of Santa María.40 I am thus led to suspect that Zoraya’s
properties included more than those just listed in the inquiry of 1506. The
rents she received from them, however small, would have augmented the pen-
sion she had been granted by the monarchs.

The birth of the legend

As for the two sons of Abu ‘l-Hasan and Zoraya, the elder, Don Fernando de
Granada, became the fourth husband of Doña Mencia de la Vega, who had
inherited the lordship of Tordehumos and Guardo. He died in Burgos in 1512,
leaving no descendants.41 His brother Juan, whose first wife was Doña Beatriz
de Sandoval, contracted a new marriage after her death with Doña María de
Toledo, with whom he had several sons. During the Revolt of the Comunidades
he was included amongst the leaders of the Junta of Valladolid, where he was
living. He died in that city in 1543, and was buried in the monastery of
Nuestra Señora de Prado.42
As for their mother, Zoraya/Isabel, nothing more is known of her after 1510.
It seems that her death passed unnoticed in a contemporary historiography
that was becoming increasingly ill informed. Thus, the anonymous continua-
tor of the chronicle of Hernando del Pulgar, who was writing prior to 1512,
went so far as to confuse Zoraya/Isabel with the mother of ‘Boabdil’.
According to his account, she was born in Cieza in the kingdom of Murcia,
and was captured by the Granadans when she was very young. ‘Mulay Hasan’
married her because it was supposedly a matter of pride amongst the Moors for
the Amir or any other Muslim noble to marry a wife of Christian origin.43
We have to wait until the middle of the sixteenth century before another
chronicler, the unknown author of the Historia de la Casa Real de Granada
undid this particular confusion. Dealing with the love life of Abu ‘l-Hasan,
this author distinguished between the Amir’s first wife, his cousin ‘Aixa la
Horra’, who was the mother of ‘Boabdil’, and Zoraya, a second wife of
Christian origin, by whom were born his sons Sa’d and Nasr. Indirectly follow-
ing Hernando de Baeza, he attributed to ‘Mulay Hasan’ the plan of naming
one of the sons of Zoraya as his successor, but diverged from this source in
linking la Romía with ‘Boabdil’ at the end of the war, and converting her into
one of the protagonists of the story immortalized under the title of the
‘Suspiro del Moro’.44 The author, who was not himself Andalucian, was here
freely following the chronicle of Alonso de Santa Cruz, who himself was
indebted to the anonymous continuator of Pulgar.45
Luís del Mármol Carvajal followed Baeza faithfully in his Descripción General
de Africa of 1588, and again in his Rebelión y castigo de los moriscos del reino de
234 Medieval Spain

Granada of 1600, even if he did add a fantastic tale that he drew from the work
of the anonymous author of the Historia de la Casa Real de Granada. Thus, we
read in the second of Mármol’s books:

Abil Hascen was ill and infirm and was so smitten with love for a renegade
that he had taken as wife, called la Zoraya (not because that was her real
name, but because she was so beautiful that she was compared to the evening
star, that is called Zoraya) that he repudiated Ayxa, his principal wife, who
was also his cousin. And with the greatest cruelty he had decapitated some of
his sons on a column of alabaster, that can still be seen today, with the inten-
tion that he should leave the kingdom to the sons of la Zoraya.46

At this distance in time from the events they described, the chroniclers and
other scholars were no longer interested in knowing that Zoraya was a
Christian captive, taken as a child while drawing water from a well in the
vicinity of Aguilar, as had been reported by Baeza. There was, however, a def-
inite interest in identifying her as a woman whose descendants had married
into the highest and oldest levels of the Castilian aristocracy. Francisco de
Medina y Mendoza stated in his Vida del Cardenal don Pedro González de
Mendoza that ‘I have drawn everything that concerns the Moors’ from
Hernando de Baeza’s Granadan chronicle. But he borrowed from other
sources, or distorted what was already known, when writing that the renegade
Christian woman who had turned the head of the Amir Abu’l-Hasan had been
born in Baena, and was named Catalina Muñoz. Having commented on the
outbreak of discord in Granada, he accused Zoraya of having beguiled her hus-
band into signing the order for the execution of prince Yusuf. But he also pres-
ented her as standing by the side of ‘Boabdil’, who is made to say that ‘he
obeyed her as if she were his own mother’. Francisco de Medina had been seek-
ing for a narrative thread around which to structure the poorly organized
material he obtained from Baeza, and must have thought that he had found it
in the greed for power displayed by la Romía.47
Although written in the last three decades of the sixteenth century, this work
had to wait for almost three centuries to be published. But the canon of the
Cathedral of Toledo, Pedro de Salazar y Mendoza, consulted it when compiling
his Crónica del Gran Cardenal de España, that saw the light of day in 1625. In this
the author emphasized that the beautiful Zoraya had completely dominated
the Amir, and in trying to identify her, he made the following suggestion:

She was the daughter of the comendador Sancho Jiménez de Solís, alcaide of
la Higuera de Martos and of Bedmar, and the Moors captured her and
another of her sisters, who was called Doña María . . . According to another
tradition, la Zoraya came from Baena and was called Catalina de Narváez.
Having become a Moor she was named Fátima Romía. The first of these two
opinions I am certain is the correct one.48
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 235

There can be no doubt that the second version derives from the work of
Francisco de Medina. It has proved much more difficult to document the first
one, as Salazar does not cite his sources. Reviewing the fifteenth-century
Granadan chronicles, I came across an account of a devastating raid by the
Granadans on the town of Bedmar, which was owned by the Order of
Santiago, in August 1407. The Comendador, Sancho Jiménez, died in the
defence of the castle, while his daughters were taken captive along with other
inhabitants.49 Another chronicle gives an account of an attack made by
‘Mulay Hasan’ on Sunday 29 September 1471 on Santiago and la Higuera de
Martos, both of which were owned by the Order of Calatrava. The Nazirid
ruler destroyed both villages, before returning to Granada with four hundred
and fifty prisoners, mainly women and children.50
It was the nineteenth-century historian, Miguel Lafuente, who, in referring
to the destruction of Bedmar in 1407, explained that it was Gonzalo de Argote
who in the late sixteenth century had conjectured ‘con fundamento’ that
Zoraya had been one of the daughters of the Comendador Sancho Jiménez.51
But Argote, author of the Nobleza de Andalucía of 1588, says nothing of the
sort, and restricts himself to repeating the version of events given in the two
chronicles of the reign of Juan II of Castile.52 In my opinion, it was Salazar y
Mendoza himself who linked the two not dissimilar events of 1407 and 1471,
thereby convincing himself that the Comendador don Sancho was Alcaide of
two settlements that belonged to quite different military orders. A similar
licence, that completely ignored problems of chronology, made it possible to
assign a suitable genealogy to an illiterate girl, who, having renounced her
religion, went on to rule Granada. Thus, it became feasible to entertain the
possibility that the girl in question had not come from Aguilar, nor from
Baena, but instead was one of the captives taken at Higuera de Martos.
Francisco Bermúdez de Pedraza gave his support to the version invented by
Salazar y Mendoza. In his first historical work, which dealt with the members
of families of Granadan origin living in Valladolid, with whom he had come
into contact while studying there, he just copied Mármol Carvajal and did not
try to identify la Romía.53 However, thirty years later, he produced a different
version in his Historia eclesiástica:

Abil Hazen married as his first wife Ayxa Fátima la Horra, which means ‘the
Honest’, in contrast to his second wife, of whom he lived and died enam-
oured, who was called Fátima la Zoraya, which means ‘the Beautiful’. She
was the king’s captive, but he was prisoner of her beauty. She was the
daughter of the comendador Sancho Jiménez de Solís, alcaide of Martos, who
died in an attack by the Moors, who carried off his two daughters, the
elder of whom was called Doña Isabel de Solís. The king, captivated by her
beauty, persuaded her to marry him, and she agreed for the sake of the
power of ruling, and so turned herself into a Moor. Such is the ambition of
women and the desire that they have to command.54
236 Medieval Spain

This text, with its moralizing finale, may be taken to serve as an eclectic
resumé of all that had been written up to this time about the love of ‘Mulay
Hasan’ and the captive Christian girl. It should be noted that Bermúdez de
Pedraza states that Zoraya’s father was the former alcaide of Martos. The same
identification is to be found in the Tratado de los Reyes de Granada, traditional-
ly attributed to Hernando del Pulgar, and which was not to be published in
printed form before the end of the eighteenth century.55 Thus we read in the
Valladares edition that the Amir Abu’l-Hasan:

. . . had two wives in particular whom he greatly loved; the first was his
cousin, from whom was born the prince Mahomat Baudelin, whom was
later known as el Rey Chico; the other wife was of Christian lineage, daugh-
ter of the alcaide of Martos, by whom he had two sons, the first called Çad
and the second Natan, who later became Christians . . .56

The manuscripts of this work seem to have had a very limited distribution.
Esteban de Garibay lamented that he had been unable to consult one while writ-
ing his Compendio Historial.57 This might explain why the information relating
to Zoraya’s supposed family links appears to have remained unnoticed until dis-
covered by Bermúdez de Pedraza. However it is much more likely that this book
is a later forgery, written at a date that it is impossible to establish clearly. Modern
authors who have used this supposed work of Pulgar all agree that it is a very con-
fused text, full of errors, and is much in need of a proper critical edition.58
Around 1770 the antiquarian scholar Fernando Osorio y Altamirano devoted
a chapter in his work on Granadan history and genealogies to the love affair of
Zoraya and the Amir Abu’l-Hasan. He compared the beauty of the renegade
Christian to that of Florinda, ‘la Cava’, concluding that the former was the rea-
son why se perdieron los moros.59 Thus finally came to be written down what
many other authors and their readers had probably been thinking throughout
the course of the preceding three centuries: the existence of a symmetrical
relationship between the beginning and the end of the Islamic presence in
Spain. The romantic imagination would leave the rest to Washington Irving
and Francisco Martínez de la Rosa.

Appendix

1) 24 July 1494, Segovia: A mandate from the Reyes Católicos to the chief qadi of
Granada, ordering him to judge a legal claim made by Zoraya. Archivo General de
Simancas. Cámara de Castilla, libro 1 de Cédulas, doc. no. 237
El Rey e la reyna
Mahomad el Pequeñi: Por parte de la reyna Çoraya, mora, nos es fecha relaçion diziendo
que en tiempo quesa çibdad de Granada hera de moros el rey Muley Baudili le tomó çier-
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 237

tos bienes suyos contra rason e justiçia, sin tener cabsa ni rason para ello, los quales
dichos bienes diz que tienen en esa dicha çibdad de Granada un moro que se llama
Abray Azeyte. E nos suplicó que mandásemos que los dichos bienes que así paresçieren
que son suyos e los tyene el dicho Abray Azeyte se le tornasen e restituyesen o como la
nuestra merçed fuese. Por ende nos vos mandamos que veays lo susodicho el llamadas
las e oydas las partes a quien atañe brevemente fagays e administres conplimiento de
justiçia a la dicha reyna mora en tal manera que la aya e alançe e por defeto della no aya
cabsa de venir ni enbiar más a quexar sobre esto. E no fagades ende al.
Fecha en Segovia a XXIIII de Julio de XCIIII años.

2) 24 July 1494, Segovia: A royal mandate to the Corregidor of Córdoba,

concerning a servant of Zoraya. Archivo General de Simancas. Cámara de Castilla,
libro 1 de Cédulas, doc. no. 239.
El rey e la reyna
Francisco de Bovadilla, nuestro corregidor de la çibdad de Córdova. Por parte de los
ynfantes don Fernando e don Juan nos es fecha relaçion que un moro que bive e mora en
esa çibdad, que se llama . . ., es criado de la reina mora su madre, el qual diz que mora en
una casa alquelada de un vezino de la dicha çibdad, e que agora él non se la quiere
alquilar dándole tanto por ella como otro le da, e que si le fuese quitada la dicha casa
reçebiera daño, e nos suplicaron que mandásemos que le fuese dada o como la nuestra
merçed fuese. Por ende nos vos mandamos que tengays manera con el dueño de la dicha
casa que si el dicho moro le da de alquiler tanto como el que más le da, que le dexe bivir e
morar en ella por el tiempo que le alquilare. E no fagades ni fagan ende al.
Fecha en Segovia a XXIIII de Julio a XCIIII años.

3) 8 August 1494, Segovia: A mandate from queen Isabel la Católica to the

administrator of goods confiscated by the Inquisition of Córdoba, ordering him to
take responsibility for the expenses of Zoraya and her household. Archivo General de
Simancas. Cámara de Castilla, libro 1 de Cédulas, doc. no. 271.
La reyna
Andrés de Medina, mi reçebtor de los bienes confiscados e aplicados a mi cámara e con-
fisco por le delito de la heretyca parvidad en la çibdad de Córdova e su obispado. Ya
sabeys como por otra mi çedula vos ove enbiado a mandar que diésedes e pagásedes a la
reyna çoraya, mora, questá en esta çibdad de Córdova, çiertos maravedíes cada día para
su mantenimiento. Et agora por su parte me es fecha relaçion que desde en fyn de otubre
del año pasado de noventa e tres años acá no le aveys pagado cosa alguna del dicho man-
tenimiento, e que ella está muy pobre e no se puede sostener. E me enbío a suplicar que
le mandase remediar. E yo tóvelo por bien, por ende yo vos mando que de qualesquier /
maravedíes / del dicho vuestro cargo dedes e paguedes a la dicha reyna mora los mar-
avedíes que montan con el dicho mantenimiento desde el fyn de dicho mes de otubre
del dicho año pasado hasta aquí al respeto de lo que yo le mando dar cada día, e así
mesmo de aquí adelante le pagués al dicho respeto lo que oviese / de / aver fasta que
ayays otro nuestro mandamiento en contrario, por manera quella esté bien pagad e no
esté en la pobreza que agora está. E tomad sus cartas de pago de lo que así le diésedes, con
las quales e con esta mi çédula e con la otra mi carta por donde vos mandé que diésedes
el dicho mantenimiento a la dicha reyna mora, mando a los dichos mis contadores may-
ores de cuentas e otras personas que ovieron de tomar e resçebir vuestras cuentas, que
vos resçiban e pasen en cuenta lo que así le diésedes e pagásedes. E no fagades ende al.
238 Medieval Spain

Fecha en la çibdad de Segovia a ocho días del mes de agosto de noventa e quatro años. Yo
la reina. Por mandado de la reyna, Fernando Alvares.

NOTES
1 E. Lévi-Provençal, España musulmana hasta la caída del Califato de Córdoba
(711–1031), vol. IV of the Historia de España dirigada por D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal
(Madrid, 1967), pp. 9–10.
2 R. Collins, España en la Alta Edad Media, 400–1000 (Barcelona, 1986),
pp. 189–90.
3 In this article I have completely rethought what I wrote in my ‘Granada en el siglo
XV: las postrimerías nazaríes a la luz de la probanza de los infantes D. Fernando y D.
Juan’, in the Actas del V Coloquio Internacional de Historia Medieval de Andalucia
(Córdoba, 1988), pp. 599–641.
4 Kitab nubdhat al ‘asr fi akhbar muluk Bani Nasr, ed. Alfredo Bustani and trans. Carlos
Quirós, Fragmento de la época sobre noticias de los Reyes Nazaritas o Capitulaciones de
Granada y emigración de los Andaluces a Marruecos (Larache, 1940), p. 7.
5 ibid., pp. 12–13.
6 The mother of ‘Boabdil’ was traditionally known by the name of Aisha, but this has
subsequently been replaced by that of Fatima, which derives from documentary
sources. Modern historiography has accepted this newer name, though one recent
study favours a return to the earlier one. See L. Seco de Lucena, ‘La sultana madre de
Boabdil’, Al-Andalus vol. 12 (1947), pp. 359–90, and E. Santiago Simón, ‘Algo más
sobre la sultana madre de Boabdil’, in Homenaje al profesor Darío Cabanelas Rodríguez
o.f.m., con motivo de su LXX aniversario (Granada, 1987), vol. 1, pp. 491–6.
7 Y. Moreno Koch, ‘La conquista de Granada y la expulsión de Sefarad según las cróni-
cas hispano-hebreas’, in Actas del I Congreso de Historia de Andalucia: Andalucía
Medieval vol. 2 (Córdoba, 1978), p. 331.
8 Hernando de Baeza, ‘Las cosas que pasaron entre los reyes de Granada desde el tiem-
po del rrey don Juan de Castilla, segundo de este nombre, hasta que los Cathólicos
Reyes ganaron el reyno de Granada’, in Relaciones de algunos sucesos de los últimos
tiempos del reino de Granada (Madrid, 1868), pp. 6–7. The youngest of the three sons
of Abu ‘l-Hasan died in an epidemic.
9 Archivo General de Simancas (hereafter AGS), Casa y Sitios Reales legajo 10, fol.
297; published in A. Malpica and C. Trillo, ‘Los infantes de Granada. Documentos
árabes romanceados’, Revista del Centro de Estudios Históricos de Granada y su Reino
vol. 6 (1992), pp. 391 and 396; López de Coca, op. cit. p. 622.
10 López de Coca, op. cit. pp. 609–12. Particularly interesting are the statements of the
old faqih ‘Hamete Xarafi’, who gave evidence about the wedding of Abu ‘l-Hasan
and Zoraya, and about the births of their sons.
11 López de Coca, op. cit. pp. 615–18.
12 Las cosas que pasaron entre los reyes de Granada, p. 37.
13 Malpica and Trillo, op. cit., pp. 388 and 399.
14 López de Coca, op. cit. pp. 612 and 614–15.
15 Hernando de Baeza, op. cit. p. 29.
16 Alonso de Palencia, Guerra de Granada (Biblioteca de Autores Españoles vol. 267:
Madrid, 1973), pp. 149–50.
17 Hernando de Baeza, op. cit. pp. 33–4.
18 López de Coca, op. cit., pp. 621–2.
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 239

19 He gave his nephews the districts of Órgiba and Jubeyel, that produced a rental
income of more than half a million Maravedis. For their part the Reyes Católicos
promised that Zoraya and her offspring would recover the property they used to
own in Granada and its territory. ibid., pp. 623 and 625.
20 On this conpiracy, on which the narrative soources are silent, the details are con-
tained in the inquiry of 1506. See López de Coca, op. cit., pp. 628–9.
21 See the document published by M. Garrido Atienza, Las capitulaciones para la entrega
de Granada (Granada, 1910), pp. 203–7. Princes Sa’d and Nasr were in Córdoba on
29 August 1491, when a seventy-year-old slave called ‘Fátima Jarife’, who was
owned jointly by them both, was manumitted in the presence of a notary: Archivo
Histórico Provincial de Córdoba, Protocolos Notariales 14–24/26, cuad. 6 fol. 52
recto. I owe the information about this document to Dra. Margarita Cabrera
Sánchez of the University of Córdoba.
22 This is according to the account of Queen Isabel’s Toledan doctor. Cf. Chronicón
de Valladolid (Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España vol. 13:
Madrid, 1848), p. 191. The princes and their servants were rewarded with robes,
horses, and other valuable gifts. A. and E. de la Torre, Cuentas de Gonzalo de
Baeza, tesorero de Isabel la Católica vol. 2: 1492–1504 (Madrid, 1956), pp. 22, 28
and 168.
23 Las cosas que pasaron entre los reyes de Granada, p. 8.
24 L. Pfandel (ed.), ‘Itinerarium Hispanicum Hieronymi Monetarii (1494–1495)’, Revue
Hispanique vol. 48 (1920), p. 123.
25 This is revealed in a letter to the Duke of Milan, sent from Burgos on 18th March
1497, describing the reception of Princess Margarita of Austria: see I Diarii di Marino
Sanudo vol. 1 (Venice, 1879), cols. 616 and 621–2.
26 Sumario de la clarissima vida y heroycos hechos de los catholicos reyes don Fernando y
doña Ysabel (Toledo, 1546), f. 179.
27 López de Coca, op. cit. p. 631. This information concurs with other contemporary
evidence relating to the greed of the powerful royal secretary. See Colección de
Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España vol. XI (Madrid, 1845), p. 527.
28 The Christian monarchs wrote to the Corregidor of Córdoba, ordering him not to
harm a follower of the mother of the princes, who had been driven out of the house
in which he had been living. See document 2 in the appendix above.
29 See Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza vol. 11, p. 49; M.A. Ladero Quesada, ‘Nóminas de
conversos granadinos (1499–1501)’, Estudios sobre Málaga y el reino de Granada en el
V Centenario de la Conquista (Málaga, 1987), pp. 310–11. Among them was Aisha,
the sister of ‘Boabdil’, who remained living in Spain.
30 Archivo municipal de Sevilla. Papeles de Mayordomazgo, año 1501.
31 Archivo General de Sevilla, Patronato Real, caja 11, doc. 123, ff. 9–11. The Duke of
Medina Sidonia also lived in the parish of San Miguel.
32 In a letter dated 8 August 1494 we read that Zoraya had not received her stipend
since the preceding October ‘and was very poor and unable to sustain herself.’ See
document 3 in the appendix to this article.
33 Between 1503 and 1506 she was receiving around 100 000 mrs per annum. See
Archivo General de Sevilla, Mercedes y Privilegios, legajo 65.
34 M. Gaspar Remiro, Últimos pactos y correspondencia íntima entre los Reyes Católicos y
Boabdil sobre la entrega de Granada (Granada, 1910), pp. 103–4.
35 López de Coca, op. cit. pp. 631 and 638.
36 Letter of 24 July 1494: see document 1 in the appendix to this article.
240 Medieval Spain

37 R. Peinado, ‘El patrimonio real nazarí y la exquisitez defraudatoria de los “princi-

pales” castellanos’, in Medioevo Hispano. Estudios in memoriam del Prof. Derek W.
Lomax (Madrid, 1995), pp. 297–318.
38 Malpica and Trillo, op. cit. p. 388.
39 López de Coca, op. cit. pp. 613–15 and 633–4.
40 This was situated close to the dye works that her sons owned in el Zacatín. See A.
Moreno and J.M. Obra, ‘Los contratos sobre establecimientos comerciales como
fuente para el estudio de las élites urbanas en la Granada del siglo XVI’, in Actas del
VI Coloquio Internacional de Historia Medieval de Andalucía (Málaga, 1991), pp.
501–2; contracts nos. 28, 39 and 46.
41 Lorenzo Galíndez Carvajal, Anales Breves del reinado de los Reyes Católicos, Don
Fernando e Doña Isabel de gloriosa memoria, in Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la
Historia de España vol. XVIII (Madrid, 1851), pp. 328–9.
42 On Don Juan’s role in the Comunidades see K. Garrad, ‘The Original Memorial of
Don Francisco Nuñez Muley’, Atlante vol. 11 no. 4 (1954), pp. 213–14.
43 See Continuación de la Crónica de Pulgar por un Anónimo, in Biblioteca de Autores
Españoles vol. LXX (Madrid, 1953), pp. 515–16. J. Torres Fontes accepts the identifi-
cation of Zoraya as the mother of ‘Boabdil’, and assumes in consequence that
she was one of the young women carried off during the famous Granadan raid on
Cieza in 1447; see his ‘La frontera de Granada y sus repercusiones en Murcia y
Orihuela: los cautivos’, in Homenaje a D. José Ma. Lacarra vol. IV (Zaragoza, 1972),
p. 204, 23.
44 J. de M. Carriazo (ed.), La ‘Historia de la Casa Real de Granada’. Anónimo castellano
del siglo XVI, Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos vol. 6 (1957), pp. 44, 46 and
55. According to this tradition, when ‘Boabdil’ was on the way to his place of retire-
ment in the Alpujarra in January 1492, and reached a mountain from which he
could see Granada, he burst into tears. His mother berated him, saying that he
should not cry like a woman over something which he had been unable to defend
like a man. See Antonio de Guevara, Epístolas familiares (Madrid, 1948), p. 218.
45 Alonso de Santa Cruz, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, ed. J. de M. Carriazo, vol. 1
(Seville, 1951), pp. 38–9.
46 Luís del Mármol Carvajal, Historia del rebelión y castigo de los moriscos del reino de
Granada in Biblioteca de Autores Españoles vol. XXI (Madrid, 1946), p. 139; reprinted
Málaga, 1991.
47 F. Medina y Mendoza, Vida del cardenal D. Pedro González de Mendoza, in Memorial
Histórico Español vol. 6 (Madrid, 1853), pp. 286–7.
48 Referring subsequently to the baptism of the infantes of Granada, he wrote that
their mother que era la reina Zoraya, fue reconciliada al gremio de la Santa Fe católica,
por haber sido cristiana; y Ilamóse doña Isabel como antes. See Pedro Salazar y
Mendoza, Crónica del Gran Cardenal de España D. Pedro González de Mendoza (Toledo,
1625), Liber I, cap. xxi.
49 This episode is recorded in two chronicles of the reign of Juan II. One of the two
daughters is identified as María, but the other is unnamed. F. Pérez de Guzmán,
Crónica del rey D. Juan el Segundo, in Biblioteca de Autores Españoles vol. LXVIII pt. 2
(Madrid, 1953), p. 290; A. García de Santamaría, Crónica de Juan II de Castilla, ed. J.
de M. Carriazo (Madrid, 1982), p. 127.
50 P. de Escavias, Hechos del Condestable D. Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, ed. J. de M. Carriazo
(Madrid, 1940), pp. 467–75.
 The Making of Isabel de Solis 241

51 M. Lafuente Alcántara, Historia de Granada, comprendiendo la de las cuatro provincias,

Almería, Jaén, Granada y Málaga, desde remotos tiempos hasta nuestros días vol. 3
(Granada, 1845), pp. 33–4.
52 G. Argote de Molina, Nobleza de Andalucía (Jaén, 1957), p. 588.
53 F. Bermúdez de Pedraza, Antigüdad y excelencias de Granada (Madrid, 1608), f. 72r/v.
54 F. Bermúdez de Pedraza, Historia eclésiastica de Granada y su origen (Granada, 1638),
ff. 172v–173r.
55 See the Tratado de los Reyes de Granada in the Semanario erudito . . . de . . . Valladares
vol. 12 (Madrid, 1788), pp. 57–144. Although presented as a work commissioned by
Queen Isabel, Carriazo has underlined the fact that this text presents various con-
tradictions; for example, the fact that is author admits to having used the work of
Hernando de Baeza (p. 59), while was only written in 1505, fifteen years after the
death of Pulgar and one year after that of the queen. However, the style of the
Tratado is very close to that of Pulgar. See J. de M. Carriazo, ‘Historia de la Guerra de
Granada’, in Historia de España dirigida por D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal vol. XVII, pt. 1
(Madrid, 1969), p. 394.
56 Tratado de los Reyes de Granada, pp. 124–5. In referring to the baptism of the princes,
he reiterates that Abu’l-Hasan los había tenido en una cristiana hija del alcaide de
Martos (p. 143).
57 Garibay’s work was published in Antwerp in 1571; see n. 44 above, p. 10. On the
manuscripts of the Tratado one should consult Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Crónicas
generales de España descritas por . . . (Madrid, 1918), pp. 179–80.
58 See Emilio Lafuente, in the introduction to his Relaciones de algunos sucesos de los
últimos tiempos del reino de Granada, p. vii; A. de la Torre, Los Reyes Católicos y
Granada (Madrid, 1944), p. 9; R. Salicru, El sultanat de Granada i la Corona d’Aragó,
1410–1458 (Barcelona, 1998), pp. 385–6.
59 See Lafuente Alcántara (n. 51 above), vol. 3, p. 390.
13
The Conquest of Granada in
Nineteenth-Century English and
American Historiography
Richard Hitchcock

What was the perception of the capture of Muslim Granada by the Catholic
Kings in the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century, at a time when
Spain present and past was being opened up to the English and to the
American scholar and tourist? To what extent were those who related these
events concerned with historical accuracy, and how much were their accounts
coloured by other considerations, be they political, religious or nationalistic?
In the light of these rather specific questions, it will be seen that I shall not
be engaged in any scrutiny of the veracity or otherwise of the sources them-
selves, nor with a reconstruction of a narrative in the light of recent scholar-
ship. Extensive attention has been paid to the process of the transfer of
authority from Muslim to Christian in the Iberian peninsula in 1491, culmin-
ating in the detailed stemma-based interpretation of Carmen Pescador del
Hoyo (1955), following the text of a newly-discovered document, and the crit-
ical appraisal of Arabic sources that L.P. Harvey has dedicated to the subject
towards the end of his Islamic Spain (1990). When the divergent accounts of
contemporary historians, chroniclers, and eye-witnesses are assessed, they
affirm the existence of two agreements made in 1491, a private arrangement
between Ferdinand and Boabdil, and a lengthier public document itemising
the terms of surrender.1 However, there still seems to be no consensus of opin-
ion about the exact date of the Christian occupation of the city. From evi-
dence available, it can be assumed that it occurred in several stages between
1 and 6 January, 1492; there may well have been more than one kind of entry,
the so-called ‘entrada secreta’ and the ‘entrada oficial’.2
There are then, discrepancies in matters of detail, and unanimous reso-
lution of these is unlikely ever to be agreed upon, although hitherto popular
features in the narrative, such as the intervention of the mysterious Granadine
warrior to prevent the ratification of the terms of the surrender, and the story
of the ‘último suspiro del moro’ appear, by consent, to have been relegated to
the level of unauthenticated belief. The legendary appurtenances have been

242
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 243

added at different times over the centuries, through balladry and perhaps for
propagandist purposes. The tradition of the ‘Moor’s last sigh’, for example, is
attributed to Luis de Mármol Carvajal in his Historia del rebelion i castigo de los
moriscos (1600), a legend perhaps, as Pescador del Hoyo suggests.3 In the nine-
teenth century, however, when maurophilia was at its height, the legendary
and historical became intertwined, as fact and fantasy wove an intricate web.
The turn of the sixteenth century seems to have been a crucial time in
the establishment of versions of events that were, via intermediaries and in
time, to dominate the English-language historiographical tradition of the
nineteenth century. In Juan de Mariana’s Historia general de España (1601), and
the English translation of it (1699), the profile of a literary progenitor may be
observed. The work was learnéd, read, known and held in high esteem, being
reprinted six times in the seventeenth century before the English translation of
Captain Stevens was published in 1699, and again four times in the eighteenth
century, the later publications being in a handy format.4 It may be said to form
the bedrock, in one way or another, of many of the subsequent accounts.
Captain Stevens’s English rendering remains to-day a fascinating and readable
narrative, not an archaic literary fossil to be gazed at in the display case of a
library. The enthusiasm of Mariana for his subject is clearly communicated; his
ability to bring an episode to life and to invest characters with vitality, whilst
moving with apparent ease through a labyrinthine sequence of events, can be
compelling. Nonetheless, as the ninteenth century progresses, there is a
notable decline in the extent of the direct influence which he exerts, for rea-
sons that may not have been wholly unconnected with the vocation of the
author although, as a substrate, his relation of events was a prevailing presence.
The eighteenth century may supply some crucial links in the chain of trans-
mission. There is no doubt, for instance, that Pérez de Hita’s Guerras civiles de
Granada (First Part: Historia de los bandos de los Zegríes y Abencerrajes, 1595) con-
tinued to enjoy popularity, particularly perhaps, because of the ballads with
which the narrative is liberally interlarded; the astonishing number of around
seventy editions prior to 1800 testify to its lasting capacity to appeal.
Florian’s famous Gonzalve de Cordoue (1791) was indebted to Mariana,
Mármol, and Zurita, was widely disseminated and itself became renowned.5
Masdeu’s Historia critica de España incorporated in abundance what had gone
before, and retained its standing in the century that followed, attracting the
accolade of Coppée a hundred years later.6

For comparative purposes, tables have been prepared; these are intended to be
a representative, rather than an exhaustive, selection of historical accounts of
the momentous occurrences in Granada at the end of the fifteenth century. As
such, the choice is not arbitrary, but it does show a distinct early-century bias,
if only because of the significance attached to the three main figures of Conde,
244 Medieval Spain

Irving, and Prescott. The influence of Conde which emanated from his origin-
al Spanish edition of 1820–21, was transmitted also through the French trans-
lation-cum-adaptation of de Marlès (1825). English-language readers had to
wait until 1855, when Mrs Jonathan Foster published her History of the
Dominion of the Arabs in Spain, translated from the Spanish of Dr J.A Condé. Apart
from Conde’s work, the most influential treatments of the conquest of
Granada by the Catholic Kings which were written in the first part of the
century, were in English. As the century progressed, however, this English-
language hegemony waned. In the 1890s, for example, the English-language
reader had Lane-Poole, whereas his Spanish-language counterpart could have
the benefit of the works of scholars such as the brothers Lafuente Alcántara,
Simonet, Oliver Hurtado, Modesto Lafuente, together with a host of others,
historians and Arabists, whose careers have been so admirably put into focus
by Manzanares de Cirre (1971) and Monroe (1970).7 Perhaps the waxing of
the Spanish-language star is due, in part, to the enormous popularity, even
charisma, enjoyed by José Zorrilla. His Granada, poema oriental (1852), in
which the theme under discussion is interpreted poetically in two lengthy
volumes with extensive footnotes quoting contemporary authorities, might
well, at least, have provided the impetus for some of the studies that followed.
Candidly, it could be argued that more can be learnt from the overtly literary
work of Zorrilla than from Lane-Poole’s Moors in Spain (1878), which, with its
florid, archetypically rhetorical and deliberately archaic style may be said to
rely overmuch on its predecessors.
Some eight points have been selected, some specific, some less so, in the
process of the transfer of the control of the city from ruling Muslim monarch to
the Christian king of Aragón who was besieging Granada, between November
1491 and January 1492. A computer-based study might reveal the percentage
of material in the accounts selected which may be properly classified as ‘histor-
ical’ as opposed to ‘legendary’ but, from the perspective of today, it seems diffi-
cult to justify the opprobrium heaped upon them by Gaspar Remiro in 1915. A
comparative appraisal of the way in which the chosen literary informants han-
dle the material accessible to them, may take us further forward.

Two sources, prior to Conde, are supplied. They are Bourke and Power, and
each belong to different traditions. Bourke’s sequence of events reflects that of
Mariana, although he was clearly no slavish imitator. It is rather dry though
not lifeless, and the author indulges in occasional telling exclamations. ‘Such
is the fate of fallen majesty!’ is his wry comment on Boabdil’s exile. Power’s
version of what may have happened is less weighty, and does not show the
same standard of scholarship as Bourke does. Then came José Antonio Conde,
the greatly maligned and discredited Arabist historian who does not even
merit a mention in the studies of Collins and Harvey; yet, his achievement
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 245

was remarkable. He was regarded as one of the finest scholars of his gener-
ation, both at home and abroad. He was a friend of the dramatist Moratín, and
a visit to him was ‘de rigueur’ for European scholars, before or after his exile
with the afrancesados to Paris in 1813. In Madrid, though, he was not allowed
to move about freely until after 1816. John Bowring, then a young man, met
him in Madrid when he, Conde, was living ‘in obscurity and poverty’, and was
impressed by his erudition.8 He was an Arabist of impeccable pedigree, a
numismatist and the translator of Arabic sources relating to the history of
Spain. His history of the Muslims of Spain, which he was unable to finish in its
entirety before his death in 1821, was to be the culmination of his life’s work.
Official denial of access to Arabic manuscripts, and obstacles placed in his way
in later years, may have led him to use existing sources to a greater degree than
that originally intended; it can be remarked, for example, that he was substan-
tially indebted to Mariana. In the circumstances, this is not perhaps surpris-
ing. He had consulted the available texts for the early Nasrid period, but
admitted one notable lack. As early as 1807, he had petitioned Charles IV for
an exact copy to be made in the Paris Royal Library of the manuscript of
‘Ahmed El Mocri Almagrebi’, better known as Al-Maqqari. De Sacy and
Langlès undertook the task, and Conde learnt that it had been completed by
1818. Unfortunately, despite all his efforts, Conde was never ‘able to gain pos-
session of his precious copy’.9 It is also to be reckoned with that he died in
1820, after the first volume of his projected three-volume work was brought
out. The second volume may not have been too adversely affected through his
death, but the third, in which the account of the conquest of Granada figures,
gave several headaches to the publisher, who felt obliged to go ahead with the
printing of it, despite the lack of notes, and the customary revision of the
author. Whatever the lamentable circumstances of the situation, this section
of Conde’s magnum opus fits comfortably within the Spanish tradition of his-
toriography. Musa who had, by this time, emerged out of and blended into the
character of Mariana’s ‘phanatick Moor’, is given prominence and singled out
as the patriotic hero. ‘El intrépido Muza’, ‘el valiente Muza’, is very much the
defender of Islam and of the old system, counselling resistance until the last
possible moment, one ‘last-ditch’ offensive against the Christian camp, and
delay in coming to terms with the enemy until all hope of relief from fellow-
Muslims from elsewhere had vanished. The long speech that Musa delivered
after the Capitulations had been signed, is noble, tragic and pathetic, all qual-
ities that would have excited romantic ardour.

Tormentos y afrentas más graves nos prepara nuestra fortuna enemiga, el

robo y el saqueo de nuestras casas, la profanación de nuestras mezquitas,
los ultrages y violencias de nuestras mugeres y de nuestras hijas, opresión,
mandamientos injustos, intolerancia cruel y ardientes hogueras en que
abrasarán nuestros míseros cuerpos; . . . [la muerte es cierta y de todos muy
cercana pues por qué no empleamos el breve plazo que nos resta donde no
246 Medieval Spain

nos quedemos sin venganza?]. Vamos a morir defendiendo nuestra liber-

tad; la madre tierra recibirá lo que produjo . . . No quiera Dios que se diga
que los Granadíes nobles no osaron morir por su patria.10

The scene was set in the 1820s for Washington Irving, the American scholar,
traveller, historian, and diplomat, whose Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada
(1829) did not perhaps achieve the ‘best-seller’ status in England that its
London publisher, John Murray, expected of it. This work was widely admired
for its style, its picturesque evocation of an exotic period of history, and for the
sheer literary exuberance which was characteristic of its author. His account of
the conquest, the most detailed one in English of the time, is not noticeably
different from those of Conde and Mariana, both of whom he acknowledges
by name. Muza’s speech is virtually identical to the Spanish version of Conde,
but it is not a mere translation of it as Irving, as always, embellished the narra-
tives of his predecessors. He invents a solution for Muza’s mysterious disap-
pearance: he died fighting Christians who ‘challenged him to stand and
declare himself’.11 A fight against the odds, characteristic of the graphic
desciptions in the novels of chivalry of the fifteenth century, ends with the
Christians’ admiration of ‘the valour of the Moor’. They ‘would have spared
his life’, but he was ‘determined not to be taken prisoner’, and ‘he threw him-
self, with an expiring exertion, into the Xenil; and his armour sank him to the
bottom of the stream’. Irving, tongue-in-cheek perhaps, concluded that the
‘unknown warrior’ may have been Muza, but ‘the fact, however, has always
remained in doubt’.12
Irving, despite himself reviewing his Chronicle of the Conquest, in the
Quarterly Review of 1830, ran foul of the critics. This is not the occasion to com-
ment on his own justification of the use of ‘the venerable Fray Antonio
Agapida . . . , who is cited with such deference, yet whose name is not to be
found in any of the catalogues of Spanish authors’. He was attacked for
inventing a chronicler, although many, such as memorably Ginés Pérez de
Hita, had done the same thing before him, for the same period of Spain’s
past. Irving’s review of his own work, which was written at the request of
his publisher, and for which he was paid, included the observation: ‘His
[i.e., his own] great object appears to have been to produce a complete and
authentic body of facts relative to the war in question, but arranged in such a
manner as to be attractive to the reader for mere amusement’.13 What is
paradoxical, perhaps, is that the invention, which in the case of Pérez de Hita
and indeed of Cervantes, served to create the illusion that what was being
chronicled had a sound and unimpeachable basis in history, had the reverse
impact. Agapida is ‘pura invención’, yet his chronicle is not! Irving’s account
has a substantial foundation in historical fact, and is far less fanciful than
that of Pérez de Hita, for example, but customarily it has been considered to
be a fictional romance. In a letter to Everett in 1828, he wrote of his own
creation:
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 247

It is in the form of a Chronicle, made up from all the old Spanish historians
I could lay my hands on, colored and tinted by the imagination so as to
have a romantic air, without destroying the historical basis or the chrono-
logical order of events. I fancy it is as near the truth as any of the chronicles
from which it is digested, and has the advantage of containing the striking
facts and achievements, true or false, of them all. Of course, it will have no
pretensions as a grave historical production, or a work of authority; but I
cannot help thinking that it will present a lively picture of the war, and one
characteristic of the times, so much of the materials having been drawn
from contemporary fiction.14

Even here, Irving is undervaluing his own achievement, since his Conquest of
Granada is essentially a reliable historical account, albeit one founded on an
amalgam of secondary sources – as indeed all accounts were in that epoch – yet
under the guise of fiction. Stanley T. Williams criticized it. ‘All is empty
pageantry’, he wrote, but the censure is unmerited.15 Irving was astute
enough to realize that some of his sources were unverifiable, but his work still
remains within the realms of history, rather than those of historical novel or
romance.
Samuel Astley Dunham, an English historian who died in 1858, wrote many
works, using material mainly from other authors, according to his brief entry
in the Enciclopedia Espasa-Calpe; his History of Spain and Portugal (1832),
brought him most renown. In his introduction, he wrote: ‘Let any one person
peruse a single book by Morales, Mariana, Ferreras or Masdeu, and he will find
that, unless he form an abstract as he proceeds of the general history, . . . his
memory will retain no distinct impression’.16 His entire history was praised by
Prescott as a ‘work of singular acuteness and information’.17 Dunham was
apparently unfamiliar with Irving’s version of events, but he was evidently a
reader of Spanish, and aware of what may now be regarded as the established
sources for the capture of Granada, the relevant sections of Mariana, Mármol,
and Masdeu. He mentions Muza, but does not indulge in fulsome detail; his is
an informed account, with an eye for detail and one that is attractive to read.
The traumatic events are narrated succinctly, and are resonant of Conde’s
spirit. It may be judged to be an objective, unpretentious statement of knowl-
edge of his subject as he perceived it to be at the time of writing.
Thomas Roscoe adopted a far more partisan approach. It appears that he
devoted a lifetime to Spain and the study of it, having published Gonzalo the
Traitor: a Tragedy in five acts in 1820, a biography of Cervantes (1839), and a
long poem: The Last of the Abencerrages and the Fall of Granada, which came out
in 1850. It is this obsession with maurophilia that had led him to dedicate
nearly three hundred pages to the ‘War of Granada’ in Jennings’s Landscape
Annual for 1835, or Tourist in Spain. ‘Examining the best sources of intelli-
gence,’ the author ‘has detailed the circumstances of the fall of the Moors, as
they are recorded in the annals of the country’ (p. vii). Furthermore, ‘the
248 Medieval Spain

author’s admiration of the noble theme . . . itself impelled him to a deeper and
warmer tone, and to a more frequent use of that imagery and those epithets,
resulting from the more impassioned interest which he felt’ (p.viii). Roscoe’s
work, embellished with the drawings of David Roberts, vividly expresses the
preoccupations of his age, a lament for things past, in which historical sources
and capricious images are harmoniously blended. Roscoe quotes from
Mariana on the same page as he supplies the text of Lockhart’s by then famous
ballad, ‘The Flight from Granada’. He is an enthusiast, happy to incorporate
any element that might contribute to the appeal of his narrative; not a scrupu-
lous historian, perhaps, but one whose descriptions of the personal and polit-
ical crises of the winter of 1491 are not noticeably discrepant from those of
Irving and Dunham.
Prescott’s magisterial study of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella springs
another surprise, for his version is evidently dependent on earlier sources.
There were, as with Conde, extenuating circumstances, as Prescott had been
deprived of his sight since 1826. He was what might be termed a ‘liberal arts
scholar’, happy to expatiate on literary topics, quoting extensively from
historical and literary sources, not above even including ‘Mr Lockhart’s pictur-
esque version of the Moorish ballads.’ He was wary of Irving, mildly resentful
that Irving had stolen his thunder by publishing on Columbus and Granada
thus, in his words, stripping these ‘brilliant portions’ of his ‘whole plan’
‘of the charm of novelty’.18 Muza is consigned to oblivion, but there is
heavy romantic lament in Prescott’s description of Boabdil’s departure
from Granada. The plethora of footnotes is a striking feature of his book, the
studied and outward display of scholarship; yet one has no hesitation in locat-
ing his work within the same historiographical tradition as those of his
maligned predecessors. In the section of his history relevant to the capture of
Granada by the Catholic Kings, Prescott was not breaking new ground. He was
retreading the old, albeit with immense liveliness and assurance, and who will
ever forget the reference to Boabdil’s ‘more masculine mother’?19
The year 1843 marked the publication, under the auspices of the Oriental
Translation Fund, of al-Maqqari’s Nafh at-tib, or at least a portion of it, in the
English translation of Pascual de Gayangos. This was the work that Conde had
so desperately endeavoured to get his hands on in the last years of his life.
Gayangos now presented an English rendering of chosen sections, with copi-
ous learnéd notes. As an account of the period under discussion, one may
readily appreciate that it falls into a different category to those of Irving and
Prescott. Al-Maqqari compiled his history of al-Andalus in the seventeenth
century, freely drawing on earlier authorities, as was the practice in the Arabic
historiographical tradition. Here, Gayangos places virtually the entire chapter
in quotation marks, suggesting that al-Maqqari is presenting the uninterrupt-
ed view of one of a multitude of named and unnamed sources that he drew
upon. Whatever was the precise source of information for his account, it goes
without saying that the occurrences are being presented from a Muslim view-
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 249

point. Al-Maqqari concentrates on the fact that Granada was being besieged.
The inhabitants of the city were in despair because, with the onset of winter
and the impossibility of gathering any crops, ‘provisions grew every day more
scarce, and in the month of Safar of the same year (Dec. A.D. 1491) the priva-
tions of the people became almost intolerable’.20 Essentially, the Christians
had starved the Granadans into submission.
There are, contrary to what one might expect, no references to two separate
treaties, but there is a patent sympathy for the inhabitants of Granada, who
are shown to have had an overriding concern that the treaty should be worth
more than the paper on which it was written. Not only should the Pope (the
Lord of Rome) be a ‘guarantee’, but the king (Ferdinand) ‘should bind himself
by oath, after the Christian fashion, to observe the treaty. The deputies sent by
the people of Granada insisted on the insertion of this clause; but it was
reported that when they came to discuss the article together, the Christians
bribed the Moslem envoys, and gave them considerable sums of money, to
have it omitted in the capitulation’.21 What al-Maqqari provides, then, is a
dispassionate and revealing account of the surrender, including the terms of
the capitulation, that elucidates political aspects from a perspective to which
English readers had hitherto had no access. It seems unlikely, however, that
the publication of the translation of al-Maqqari’s compilation made much
impact on the public perception of events surrounding the conquest of
Granada. In the first place, the book was for private subscribers only – each
and every edition being specially overprinted with the individual subscriber’s
name –; the work was not for the casual reader. It was, secondly, heavy, expen-
sive, and neither aimed at nor designed for those who wished to acquire a
passing acquaintance with Spanish history. Gayangos was one of the leading
Arabists of the century, a serious scholar with a mission to disinter Spain’s
Muslim past, and to reclaim it for students of history. An anglophile, he had
laid the foundation of his career in London in the 1830s, where he composed
a number of articles on related topics, including Arabic literature, for the
Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.22 The
material in this encyclopaedia was erudite, informed and accessible, whereas
The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain was an invaluable source-
text, and not for wide dissemination. This translation was eventually made
known throught the works of the Dutch orientalist, Reinhart Dozy, and mater-
ial from it came to be integrated in Spanish histories from the 1850s onwards.

Between Gayangos in the 1840s and Coppée in the 1880s, there is a distinct
hiatus. Mrs Foster’s translation of Conde appeared in 1855, and this provided
further publicity for his version of events. English-language readers from the
late 1840s had John Murray’s guides to inform them, as is demonstrated by
the title of Richard Ford’s Hand-book for Travellers in Spain, and Readers at
250 Medieval Spain

home.23 When Charlotte M. Yonge published The story of the Christians and
Moors of Spain,24 she expressed the belief that she was reviving interest in a
long neglected subject: ‘it has seemed to me that the eight hundred years’
struggle between the Moslem and the Christian was little recollected at the
present day; nor, indeed, could I find its history, romance, and poetry any-
where brought into combination’ (p. vi). She resumes her sources:

Washington Irving has dealt with the romance of the Arab conquest,
Southey with the Cid, Lockhart with the ballad lore, Perez de Hyta with the
civil wars of Granada; but, as far I have seen, no one has tried to combine in
a general view Spanish and Moorish history, together with tradition,
romance, and song (p.vi).

She was eager to be a purveyor of knowledge and, for her, historical accuracy was
not paramount, nor was it neglected. Bt the time that she was writing, the works
of Mariana, Mármol, and Masdeu had been assimilated, and made available to
English-language readers through Conde, Irving, Dunham, and Prescott. To her,
also, poetry was acceptable, however nationalistic, because it was poetry.
Romance was still hanging in the air, so that her version of events reads some-
what like a historical novel. A work that needs to be taken in conjunction with
this one is Stanley Lane-Poole’s The Moors in Spain.25 Of Charlotte Yonge’s book,
Lane-Poole wrote: ‘a glance at her pages, while exciting my imagination, showed
me that her book was written so much on the lines which I had drawn for my
own work that I could not read it without risk of involuntary imitation’.26 As his
work was the source of knowledge for historians, these warm words of commen-
dation would have had some effect. In his introduction, Lane-Poole acknow-
ledged his deep indebtedness to two authorities, Dozy’s Histoire des Musulmans
d’Espagne and al-Maqqari’s History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain.
Gayangos’ notes to the latter are singled out for particular praise. They ‘present a
mass of valuable material which can be obtained nowhere else’.27 Lane-Poole
draws a veil over the ‘many Arabic historians, whose works have been consulted
in the composition of the present volume, but who can hardly be recommended
to the general student, as very few of them have found translators’.28 Lane-
Poole’s popular and readable narrative, however, seems to fit more into the trad-
ition of writing of the first half of the nineteenth century, and does not make the
original contribution one might be led to expect from someone writing sixty
years after Irving, and forty years after Prescott.
When Henry Coppée of the Lehigh University, the stern American presi-
dent of the Smithsonian Institution, entered the fray in 1881, he applied to
the subject erudition and discrimination. His scholarship, founded on a wide
range of appropriate sources, both in English and in Spanish, reflects that of
contemporary Spanish scholars, and so began a new era.
Reverting, in conclusion, to the subject-headings of the tables, there is no
consensus of opinion on the events surrounding the transfer of power from
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 251

Muslim to Christian in Granada. There was a meeting between a represent-

ative (or representatives) of Boabdil and Ferdinand’s envoys for the purposes
of the capitulation treaties, Gonzalo de Córdoba and Zafra. Terms of surrender
were agreed and signed, but not, conceivably, all on 25 November 1491. Even
this summary description would be disputed in the Arabic historiographical
tradition. The matter of there having been two treaties, although evidently
accepted in the seventeenth century,29 was not to be a major factor in nine-
teenth-century accounts, until Coppée. The details of the capitulations are
remarkably homogeneous initially, when they evidently reflect earlier
sources. As the century progresses, they are ascribed lesser significance, as a
consequence of Irving’s and Prescott’s treatment of them, until La Fuente in
Spain and Coppée in America, in the 1880s, recognized their importance, and
resuscitated an interest. Muza’s prominence, which was fuelled by literary and
non-historical sources, added to the romantic appeal of this ‘tragic episode’
(Conde, Irving, and Roscoe, but not Dunham or Prescott). The absence of this
figure in Prescott’s account may well be regarded as the equivalent of pro-
nouncing the death-knell on him; Muza’s exclusion takes some of the colour
out of later accounts. As for Boabdil’s surrender, the descriptions of the items
sent with the letter, which suggest a bribe, embellished the story, so were
attractive to Bourke, Conde and Irving, but were subsequently ignored, sur-
prisingly perhaps, in the case of Roscoe. Most accounts agree that Boabdil had
to act before the specified end of the treaty period. It is impossible to disen-
tangle satisfactorily the complexities surrounding the details and date of the
Christian entry or entries into the city of Granada. The accounts under discus-
sion suggest, on balance, that there were two entries, the second of which was
a formal one by the King and Queen with the full pageantry of court, on either
2, 3, 5, 6, or 8 January 1492. It is curious to ponder that the reproach of
Boabdil’s mother is common to everyone, except Mariana and al-Maqqari.
The omission of this infamous reproof in Mariana’s account is striking, as his
may be regarded as the principal fount from which later versions emanated.
Even Coppée retains this ‘epigrammatic rebuke’, – perhaps with reluctance
given the ‘modernity’ of his focus on events – commenting that this ‘has done
more than the events themselves to stamp Boabdil . . . with impotence and
dishonour’.30 One can speculate that had Prescott chosen to disregard the
story of the ‘Moor’s Last Sigh’ which, it may be added, is the outstanding
feature of Lane-Poole’s vivid narrative as late as 1878, then the ‘legend’ of ‘el
último suspiro del moro’ might have died a death, along with the patriotic
hero, Muza.
There appears to have been no consistent display of religious partisanship
in the accounts chosen to illustrate the treatment of the conquest of Granada
in nineteenth-century English-language histories, beyond those that one
might reasonably be expected to encounter given the circumstances of the
epoch. There are divergences, certainly, and the writers have clearly used their
licence to add, subtract, elaborate or invent. Most express an awareness of
252 Medieval Spain

their readership and write under the impelling force, more distant in some
than in others, of historical veracity. They were responding, with varying
degrees of inquisitiveness, to the exotic appeal of the demise of the ‘Moorish’
empire in Spain, and their collective objective was, by and large, to render
Spain and its mysterious past accessible to a public, whose desires in this
regard had been met hitherto by the Gothic novel.

Mariana (1699)

1. Capitulations: date and place 25 November 1491, at the Castle of

2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
9. Tone
Moclín.
10 articles listed. The Moors have
60 days to comply. 500 ‘Sons of the
Principal Hostages’ to be delivered
up as Hostages, including Boabdil’s
son.
Incitation to sedition by a certain
unnamed ‘Phanatick Moor’.
By letter with two horses, a
‘Cymiter’ and some Furniture.
Received on 1 January 1492.
Ferdinand and Elizabeth, the Prince
and full retinue, 2 January 1492.
Ferdinand and Elizabeth,
4 January ‘in the same manner as
they had done before.’ Also there
was a ‘solemn Entry’ on Friday 6
January 1492 (8 of Rabib Haraba
[sic], 897.
Offer to kiss hand refused by
Ferdinand. Speech of surrender.
Keys of castle ‘put into’ Ferdinand’s
hands.
Not mentioned. Boabdil went to the
Valley of Purchena, thence to
‘Africk’.
Sympathetic to Christians.
Possession of City achieved ‘by the
special Providence of God.’
‘Particularly Joyful and Fortunate to
all Spain, no less unhappy to the
Moors.’
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 253
Bourke (1811)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
9. Tone
Power (1815)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
25 November 1491.
10 ‘stipulations’. ‘Fortresses of
Alhambra and Albazin [sic] should
be delivered up within sixty days.’
500 hostages; no reference to
Boabdil’s son. 9 clauses identical to
Mariana.
Treaty in danger ‘the very evening
after it was signed’. Plot by the
‘Imans’, ‘to make one desperate
effort to save their city.’
Letter with a sabre enriched with
diamonds and two horses
splendidly accoutred, received by
Ferdinand, 1 January 1492.
Ferdinand, on 2 January, ‘at the
head of his force, in battle-order;
Queen and royal children a few
paces behind.’
Offer to kiss Ferdinand’s hand
‘dispensed with.’ Meeting ‘within
sight of the Alhambra.’
Farewell of city at summit of Mount
Padul; mother (Aixa’s) rebuke.
Neutral; reference to ‘humiliated
and degraded prince.’
Omitted.
5 ‘articles of capitulation’ proposed
by Gonzalo de Córdoba. Grenadines
should acknowledge the Catholic
Kings as Sovereigns, and release
Christian prisoners; Muslims
‘always governed by their own laws .
. . without being ever forced to quit
Spain.’ Boabdil to have ‘Alpuxares’.
‘Such was the capitulation
which the Spaniards observed but
badly.’
254 Medieval Spain
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
9. Tone
Conde (1821)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
People ‘excited by the Imans.’
Similar phrasing to Bourke.
Boabdil ‘executed capitulation
some days before the time agreed
upon.’
Isabella and Ferdinand, on 2
January 1492.
Ferdinand agreed to Boabdil’s
demand to block up one of gates of
Albazyn.
Mount Padul. Mother (Aixa’s)
rebuke.
Generally sympathetic to Muslims.
25 November 1491, 22 Muharram
897.
10 clauses listed, same ones as in
Mariana, same order, in slightly
more detail. Agreement made
between Abul Casim, Gonzalo de
Córdoba and Zafra.
Opposition personified by Musa;
impassioned speech to the
multitude; mysterious subsequent
disappearance, through the ‘puerta
Elvira.’
Boabdil advised by his
‘caballeros’ to write to Ferdinand
‘para evitar alborotos.’ Letter
accompanied by a present ‘presente
de caballos castizos con ricos jaeces
y alfanges.’
4th day of Rabic I, 897 (4 January
1492).
5 January. Ferdinand (without
Isabella), with full retinue.
Boabdil kissed the King’s right arm.
Speech of submission; hand-over of
keys outside the city.
Lamentations at Padul; mother’s
rebuke.
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 255
9. Tone
Irving (1829)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
9. Tone
Sympathetic to Muslims. Not
noticeably different to former
accounts in the Spanish
historiographical tradition. No
Arabic texts cited.
25 November 1481 [sic].
Agreed to suspend attack for seventy
days, allowing time for help to come
from outside. 9 clauses listed,
follows Mariana (acknowledged
elsewhere). 400 hostages required
including ‘the son of the King of
Granada.’ Negotiators were Abul
Cazim, Gonzalvo de Córdoba and
Zafra.
Muza’s impassioned speech,
substantially a translation of Conde
(acknowledged), but attributed to
‘Arabian historians.’ Agapida’s
embellishment: ‘the venerable Fray
Antonio Agapida, endeavours to
clear up the mystery ‘of Musa’s fate;
he sank with his armour in the
Xenil.’
Caused by famine and no
prospect of help from elsewhere; 30
December 1491; the 400 hostages,
two Arabian steeds and ‘a
magnificent cimeter’.
1 January 1492.
Colourful, embellished account. 6
January 1492, King, Queen and full
retinue.
Boabdil ‘saluted the right arm of
Ferdinand.’ Boabdil’s son
ceremoniously released. Keys
handed over at a small mosque,
‘now the hermitage of St Sebastian.’
Valley of Porchena. ‘Indignant’
rebuke of his mother, Ayxa la Horra.
Neutral, though dramatic.
256 Medieval Spain
Dunham (1832)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
9. Tone
Roscoe (1835)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
22nd day of Muharram, 897: hence
25 November.
‘city to be surrendered in two
months, unless relieved in the
interim.’ Seven conditions ‘among
others.’ No reference to any
obligations on the part of the
Christians.
Brief reference to Muza’s
opposition, and mysterious
disappearance ‘from the gate Elvira.’
Lack of resources. No letter or
gifts mentioned.
‘Fourth day of the moon Rabia I, 4
January 1492.’
8 January; solemn entry into the
city of Ferdinand ‘and his royal
consort.’
‘rode out to meet Fernando, whom
he saluted as his liege Lord.’ Keys
handed over by Abul Cassem.
On the road to the Alpujarras: ‘his
mother, the Sultana Zorayda’
rebuked him. Quotes the Spanish
text of Mármol Carvajal, referring to
Abu Abdalla’s death in Africa:
‘Escarnio y gran ridículo de la
fortuna, que acació la muerte a este
rey en defensa de reyno ageno, no
habiendo osado morir defendiendo
el suyo [sic].’ ‘But Abu Abdalla,
however criminally ambitious and
weak, was no coward.’
Neutral; not florid; not a plagiarism,
but apparently modelled on Conde
although in an abbreviated form.
Not given.
Negotiations between Ali Omixa,
Zafra and Gonzales of Cordoba.
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 257
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
Granada to be surrendered within
two months, unless help arrived.
Three clauses itemised, constituting
‘the favourable nature of the
concluding articles in the proposed
convention.’
Rhetorical description of
opposition. ‘The voice of Muza rose
like thunder, or rather like a blast
amidst a forest of saplings.’
Melodramatic display by Muza;
mysterious disappearance ‘through
the gate of Elvira.’ Notes that there
are ‘numerous rumours and
traditions,’ and that ‘both Spanish
and Arabian chroniclers’ give their
versions of the end of ‘the last great
hero of the Moors.’ These include
suicide by jumping from a pinnacle,
founding a new country and a race
of heroes overseas, and death in
Xenil avoiding Christian pursuers.
No letter or presents: ‘a
messenger to Ferdinand’ indicating
immediate surrender.
No date. Abil Omixa gave up the
keys of the city.
6 January 1492.
Boabdil ‘prevented from leaving his
saddle’. Received by Ferdinand ‘with
marked courtesy and attention.’
‘Prevented’ also from kissing the
King’s hand.
The Mountain of Padul; his
mother’s reproach. Quotes Mariana
verbatim when describing Boabdil’s
flight from Purchena: ‘not having
resolution to endure a private life in
the country where he had so long
reigned as king.’ The quotation does
not quite match Stevens’ version:
‘For they who have once been Kings,
cannot ever patiently submit to lead
a private life’ (458).
258 Medieval Spain
9. Tone
Prescott (1838)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
Presented as a tragedy; sombre and
sad.
25 November 1491. ‘Ratified by
respective monarchs.’ In the ‘little
hamlet of Churriana,’ according to
Pedraza, Salazar de Mendoza,
Cardonne, Conde, Marineo Sículo,
and Mármol.
Similar to those granted to Baza.
City to be surrendered in sixty days.
Eight ‘principal terms of surrender’
listed. Comments: ‘Mármol and
Zurita agree in every substantial
particular with Conde, and this
coincidence may be considered as
establishing the actual terms of the
treaty.’
Agitation in the city. No references
to unnamed knight nor to Musa.
No letter nor presents
mentioned.
2 January 1492. Ferdinand
‘glittering in gorgeous panoply.’ The
queen in the rear at the village of
Armilla, (six Spanish sources given
for this detail).
No distinction made from the
above. Cardinal Mendoza with his
troops entered first.
Boabdil met Ferdinand on the banks
of the Xenil; prevented from
dismounting by Ferdinand. Keys of
the Alhambra handed over with
brief speech.
En route to the Alpuxarras ‘burst
into tears’; reproached ‘by his more
masculine mother.’ Repeats the
legend of ‘El último Sospiro del
Moro,’ first introduced by Irving.
Recaptures the flavour of Irving’s
narrative, using similar language.
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 259
9. Tone
Al-Makkari (Gayangos) (1843)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
Enhances poignancy of situation by
quoting Lockhart’s ‘picturesque’
Moorish ballad, first reproduced by
Roscoe (168–9). Praises Irving’s
‘beautiful Spanish Sketch-Book’
(1832) and quotes from the chapter
on Boabdil.
Not noticeably more rigorous in
historical approach than his
predecessors, despite impressive
array of sources listed in footnotes.
Eminently readable ‘à la Irving’ and
many others.
Not specified.
The Pope should be a guarantee for
the faithful execution of the treaty.
Sixty-seven articles in the
capitulation, 21 of which are listed.
Same terms as those for Guadix.
None; Granada was under siege, and
provisions were scarce. General
agreement among the inhabitants
to surrender. No hope of
reinforcements.
Not a premature surrender. The
Sultan ‘left the Alhambra’ on the
second day of Rabi’ the first, 897 (3
January 1492). Christian sovereign
immediately took possession of it,
and also 500 hostages ‘to guard
against any treachery on the part of
the inhabitants.’
3 January 1492.
Not specified. The King of Castile
made daily visits to the Alhambra,
returning every night to his camp
outside the city.
Abu Abdillah Muhammad, the
Sultan of Granada, ordered to live at
Andarax in the Alpujarras. He took
refuge amongst the Baní Marín in
260 Medieval Spain
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh
9. Tone
Coppée (1881)
1. Capitulations: date and place
2. Capitulations: details
3. Disturbance in Granada
4. Boabdil’s premature surrender
to Fernando
5. Christian occupation of city
6. Formal entry of Catholic Kings
7. Humiliation of Boabdil
Fez. Built ‘palaces in imitation of
those of Granada.’ Died in Fez in
940 (1538 A.D.).
Not mentioned.
Objective account from Arab
historian’s viewpoint. Unadorned in
Gayangos’s translation. Sombre
codicil: ‘Not many years elapsed
before the Christians violated the
treaty entered into . . . ’ ‘Muslims
forced to embrace Christian religion
in 904 (beginning 18 August 1498).’
25 November 1491, and 23
November 1491.
There were two instruments of
surrender, one public, one private,
containing the special terms made
with Boabdil and his family. The
source is La Fuente’s Historia de
España, IX, from original
documents in Simancas. The first
was the ‘Capitulación para la
entrega de Granada’ which has 47
‘articles’; the second was the
‘Capitulación Segreta’ (sic),
containing 16 articles. English
translations in full are given in
appendices (454–72). The city was
to be surrendered within 75 days.
The crowd were ‘enraged against
Boabdil.’ No further details.
Entrance into Granada fixed for
2 January 1492, ‘but was postponed’
to 6 January.
Cardinal Mendoza headed the party
on 2 January; met Boabdil on the
descent from Alhambra.
6 January, following La Fuente, who
cites ‘autores contemporáneos’.
Ferdinand ‘gracefully declined the
hand-kissing in sign of homage.’
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 261

Keys handed to Ferdinand with a

speech (taken from Conde, the
Spanish text). A signet ring given by
Boabdil to the Count of Tendilla.
8. The Moor’s Last Sigh Tearful farewell, with the mother,
Ayesha’s ‘epigrammatic rebuke’, and
the now statutory reference to the
‘último suspiro del Moro.’ Perhaps
embarrassed to repeat these details:
‘we need not linger upon a thrice-
told tale.’
9. Tone Notably more objective approach
than Prescott, although not above
retelling the well-known stories.
Echoes of the early-century
historiographic tradition, but
receptive to the Spanish scholarship
of Miguel Lafuente Alcántara, Oliver
Hurtado, and others brought
together in La Fuente.

Select annotated bibliography

Bourke, Thomas: A Concise History of the Moors in Spain, London: Rivington (1811). Has
the appearance of a scholarly work, but although there are some instructive notes in
an appendix, no sources at all seem to be listed; pp.255–7.
Bowring, John: Observations on the State of Religion and Literature in Spain, made during a
Journey through the Peninsula in 1819, in New Voyages and Travels, ed. Sir Richard
Phillips, London, 1820–23, vol. 3.
Bowring, Lewin B: Autobiographical Recollections of Sir John Bowring, with a Brief Memoir,
London: Henry S. King (1877).
Brabazon, E.J.: Historical Tales from the History of the Muslim in Spain, London: Jarrold
(n.d. [1853]), Ch. 31, pp.310–32.
Carrasco Urgoiti, María Soledad: El Moro de Granada en la literatura (Del siglo XV al XX),
Madrid: Revista del Occidente (1956).
Conde, José Antonio: Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España, Madrid: García
(1820–21), 3 vols, vol. III, Chs 42 and 43, pp.251–65; also, Paris: Baudry (1840),
pp.662–7, and translated into English by Mrs Jonathan Foster, London: Bohn
(1854–55), 3 vols, vol. III, pp.396–403. The translation is often free and embellished.
Coppée, Henry: History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, Boston: Little, Brown
(1881), 2 vols, vol. II, 269–73. Coppée’s preface dated Lehigh University, 1 December
1880, indicates an erudite and critical approach to his sources; he is aware of Prescott
and Irving (XV); severely critical of Gayangos, ‘an elegant and critical Arabic scholar’,
for not having written a history of Muslims in Spain; notices that Maqqari’s work is
‘collated’ rather than written by him (XVII); understanding of Conde’s work: ‘owing
to untoward circumstances, it is full of mistakes and repetitions’ (XVIII); dismissive of
Cardonne (many errors, much carelessness); uses Abulfeda, España Sagrada, Nicolás
262 Medieval Spain

Antonio (1783 edition), Mariana, Masdeu ‘the first critical history of Spain ever writ-
ten’, and above all, Modesto La Fuente’s ten volume Historia General de España.
[Dunham, Samuel Astley]: The History of Spain and Portugal, London: Longman, Rees,
Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, and John Taylor (1832–33), 5 vols. Being vols 29,
30, 32, 35 and 38 of The Cabinet Cyclopaedia, conducted by Rev. Dionysius Lardner;
vol. II (1832) Book III, pp.116–19. Dunham’s account contains the unusual feature of
a conversion table for the Muslim and Christian calendars, with vehement accompan-
ying ‘observations’, claiming ‘scrupulous accuracy’, and insisting that ‘all [his italics]
historians previous to Pagi and Masdeu have committed considerable errors, – none
more than those of Spain’, (pp.XV–XXV). The date of the Granadan attempt to ‘pro-
cure favourable terms of capitulation from the Castilian’ is put at 25 November 1491
(the 22nd day of Muharram, 897) (p.117), and the date of the surrender by Abu
Abdalla of the city itself on 4 January 1492 (the 4th day of the moon Rabia I) (p.118).
His computation for the latter is:
Which year (897) opens . . . November 3, 1491:
Muharram . . . 30 November ... 28
Safir . . . 29 December ... 31
Rabia I ... 4 January ... 4
__ __
63
__ 63
__
Hence January 4, 1492.
The account is an adapted and abbreviated version of Conde.
Ford, Richard: A Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain, and Readers at Home, London: John
Murray (1845), 2 vols, and ed. Ian Robertson, Fontwell, Sussex: Centaur Press (1966)
and Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press (1966), 3 vols, vol. II,
pp.539–43.
[Gayangos, Pascual de]: ‘Moors’ in The Penny Cyclopaedia for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, Vol. XC, London: Charles Knight (1839), pp.384–90. The first work in
English using al-Maqqari as a source. Acknowledges also Conde, Casiri, Masdeu and
Cardonne.
Gayangos, Pascual de: The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain; by Ahmed Ibn
Mohammed al-Makkari, London: Oriental Translation Fund (1843), 2 vols, II,
pp.387–90. Chapter VII, pp. 368–92, in which the war of Granada is related, purports
to be taken by Makkari from Abu Abdillah Muhammad Ibn al-Haddad ‘Al-Wadi-Ashi’
(from Gaudix).
Harvey, L.P.: Islamic Spain, 1250–1500, Chicago: University Press (1990), pp.310–23.
This account is noteworthy for its inclusion of translations of forty-eight clauses in
the treaties of 1491, some given in full and some, for reasons of space, abbreviated
(pp.315–21).
Hitchcock, Richard: ‘Hispano-Arabic Historiography: the Legacy of J.A. Conde’, in Arabia
and the Gulf: from Traditional Society to Modern States. Essays in Honour of M.A. Shaban’s
60th Birthday, ed. Ian Richard Netton, London: Croom Helm (1986), pp.57–71.
Hoffman, Louise M.: ‘Irving’s Use of Spanish Sources in The Conquest of Granada’,
Hispania, XXVIII (1945), 483–98.
Irving, Washington: A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada from the MSS. of Fray Antonio
Agapida, London: John Murray (1829), 2 vols, and ed. Miriam J. Shillingsburg, Boston:
Twayne (1988), vol. 13 of The Complete Works; pp.361–81 of the 1829 edition; see also
Sylvia L. Hilton, Washington Irving: un romántico entre Europa y América, Madrid:
C.S.I.C. (1986).
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 263

La Fuente, Modesto: Historia General de España desde los tiempos primitivos hasta la muerte
de Fernando VII, continuada desde dicha época hasta nuestros días por Don Juan Valera,
Barcelona: Muntaner y Simón (1877–85), 6 vols: vol. II (1883), pp.301–3. This work
was originally published 1850–59 in 30 vols. Makes good defect in Prescott’s history
‘el último historiador que sepamos del reinado de los Reyes Católicos’ by giving the
texts of the capitulations from the ‘original’ in Simancas (pp.616–21). Claims to be
the first to reproduce them in their entirety. Comments on the lack of historical docu-
mentation for Muza, whose ‘discurso no parece inverosímil’ but believes Conde to
have translated his version from an Arabic historian who had made it up ‘para
mostrar que aun había fe y patriotismo en aquel crítico trance’ (302). Uses earlier
Spanish sources, and trusts Conde.
Lane-Poole, Stanley: The Moors in Spain, with the collaboration of Arthur Gilman,
London: Putnam (1888). Quotations are from the fifth edition, London: Fisher
Unwin (1893), Ch. 13, pp.245–68. In his introduction, Lane-Poole acknowledges his
deep indebtedness to two authorities, Dozy’s Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne and Al-
Maqqari’s History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. Gayangos’s notes to the latter
are singled out for particular praise. They ‘present a mass of valuable material which
can be obtained nowhere else’ (p.x). Lane-Poole draws a veil over the ‘many Arabic
historians, whose works have been consulted in the composition of the present vol-
ume, but who can hardly be recommended to the general student, as very few of them
have found translators.’ (p.xi). By all appearance, however, Lane-Poole’s was not an
original narrative.
Manzanares de Cirre, Manuela: Arabistas españoles del siglo XIX, Madrid: Instituto
Hispano Arabe de Cultura ([1971]).
Mariana, Juan de: Historia General de España, Compuesta primero en Latín, después
buelta en Castellano, Tomo Primero, Madrid: viuda de Alonso Martín (1617); Tomo
Segundo, Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta (1616). This contains brief additions up to the
year 1612. The Spanish edition was first brought out in 1601.
Mariana, John de: The General History of Spain, trans. Capt. John Stevens, London:
Richard Sare (1699), Book 25, Chs 9 and 10, pp.456–9.
Mármol Carvajal, Luis de: Rebelion i castigo de los moriscos de Granada, Granada (1600).
Monroe, James T.: Islam and the Arabs in Spanish Scholarship, Leiden: Brill (1970).
Oliver Hurtado, José y Manuel: Granada y sus monumentos árabes, Málaga: Oliver
Navarro (1875), pp. 158–62. ‘Por último, se ajustaron varios pactos y conciertos en el
pueblo de Churriana por los comisionados de ambas partes, y se trataron las capitu-
laciones públicas con otras secretas convenidas con Abu Abdillab[sic], para asegurar a
él, a su familia y descendientes la posesión de sus respectivos bienes patrimoniales y
de varios lugares en la Alpujarra’, (p.159).
Pescador del Hoyo, Ma. Del Carmen: ‘Cómo fué de verdad la toma de Granada, a la luz
de un documento inédito’, Al-Andalus, XX (1955), 283–344.
George Power, Esq., Surgeon to His Majesty’s Forces: The History of the Empire of the
Musulmans in Spain and Portugal, London: Stockdale (1815), pp.372–5. Dedicated to
the Duke of Wellington. Sources mentioned include Florian, Marigny, and Cardonne.
Introduction is dated ‘Coimbra, 1812’. Not derivative of Bourke, but there seems to be
a common source or sources.
Prescott, William H.: History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Monarchs of
Spain, London: Richard Bentley (1838), Vol. II, pp. 174–81.
Roscoe, Thomas: The Tourist in Spain. Granada, illustrated from drawings by David
Roberts, London: Robert Jennings (1835), 288pp., devoted almost wholly to ‘the cir-
cumstances of the fall of the Moors’ (p.VIII), pp.260–9.
264 Medieval Spain

Sargant, E.B. and Whishaw, Bernhard: A Guide-Book to Books, London: Henry Frowde
(1891), pp.286–90.
Soons, Alan: Juan de Mariana, Boston: Twayne (1982).
Starkie, Walter: Grand Inquisitor, being an Account of Cardinal Ximenez and His Time,
London: Hodder and Stoughton (1939), pp.170–82.
Swinburne, Henry: Travels through Spain in the Years 1775 and 1776, 2nd edn, London:
Elmsley (1787), pp.234–7.
Yonge, Charlotte M.: The Story of the Christians and Moors of Spain, London: Macmillan
(1878), Chapter 26, pp.284–99. ‘The only popular history of this period in English of
which I have heard’, according to Lane-Poole.

Notes
1 L.P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250–1500 (Chicago: University Press, 1990), p.313.
2 Ma. Del Carmen Pescador del Hoyo, ‘Cómo fué de verdad la toma de Granada, a la
luz de un documento inédito’, Al-Andalus, XX (1955), 283–344, at p.289.
3 ibid., p.340.
4 Alan Soons, Juan de Mariana (Boston: Twayne, 1982), p.135.
5 María Soledad Carrasco Urgoiti, El Moro de Granada en la literatura (Del siglo XV al
XX) (Madrid: Revista del Occidente, 1956), p.129.
6 Henry Coppée, History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1881) 2 vols, Vol. II, p.xxi.
7 Manuela Manzanares de Cirre, Arabistas españoles del siglo XIX (Madrid: Instituto
Hispano Arabe de Cultura, 1971; James T. Monroe, Islam and the Arabs in Spanish
Scholarship (Leiden: Brill, 1970).
8 Lewin B. Bowring, Autobiographical Recollections of Sir John Bowring, with a Brief
Memoir (London: Henry S. King, 1877), p.380.
9 José Antonio Conde, Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España, 3 vols (Madrid:
García, 1820–21), trans. Mrs Jonathan Foster (London: Bohn, 1854–55) 3 vols, Vol. I,
p.26.
10 Conde, Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España, Vol. III, p.257.
11 Washington Irving, A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada from the MSS. of Fray
Antonio Agapida (London: John Murray, 1829) 2 vols, Vol. II, p.366.
12 ibid., p.367.
13 Washington Irving, A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada from the MSS. of Fray
Antonio Agapida, ed. Miriam J. Shillingsbury in The Complete Works (Boston:
Twayne, 1988) Vol. 13, p.xxiv.
14 21 October 1828: Washington Irving, Letters, Vol. II 1823–38, ed. Ralph M.
Aderman et al. (Boston: Twayne, 1979), p.343.
15 Quoted in Louise M. Hoffman, ‘Irving’s Use of Spanish Sources in The Conquest of
Granada’, Hispania, XXVIII (1945), p.484.
16 Samuel Astley Dunham, The History of Spain and Portugal (London: Longman, Rees,
Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1832–33), 5 vols, Vol. I, p.vi.
17 William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic
Monarchs of Spain (London: Richard Bentley, 1838) Vol. I, p.5.
18 ibid., p.xv.
19 Prescott, Vol. II, p.180.
20 Pascual de Gayangos, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain; by Ahmed
Ibn Mohammed al-Makkari (London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1843) 2 vols, Vol. II,
p.387.
 Nineteenth-Century Views of the Conquest of Granada 265

21 ibid., p.388.
22 Pascual de Gayangos, The Penny Cyclopaedia for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
(London: Charles Knight, 1833–43), 27 vols.
23 London: John Murray, 1845, 2 vols.
24 London: Macmillan, 1878.
25 London: Putnam, 1888.
26 ibid., 4th edn, London: Fisher Unwin, 1890, p.xi.
27 ibid., p.x.
28 ibid.
29 Francisco Vermudez de Castro, Historia eclesiastica, principios y progresos de la ciudad
y la religion catolica de Granada (Granada: Heylan, 1638) ff. 166–170v.
30 Coppée, History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, Vol. II, p.273.