The Eve of Spain Grieve, Patricia E. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Grieve, Patricia E. The Eve of Spain: Myths of Origins in the History of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Conflict. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.60329. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/60329 [ Access provided at 26 Sep 2021 20:36 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The Eve of Spain The Eve of Spain Myths of Origins in the History of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Conflict PATRICIA E. GRIEVE The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2009 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 246897531 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grieve, Patricia E. The eve of Spain : myths of origins in the history of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish conflict / Patricia E. Grieve. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-8018-9036-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-8018-9036-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Spain—History—711–1516. 2. Spain—History—House of Austria, 1516–1700. 3. Legends—Spain. 4. Spain—Ethnic relations—History. 5. Christians—Spain— History. 6. Muslims—Spain—History. 7. Jews—Spain—History. I. Title. DP99.G75 2009 946Ј.02—dc22 2008024724 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Frontispiece: The Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic. Manuscript on parchment. Signed and dated. Messina, 1582. Courtesy Hispanic Society of America. Map by Joan Martines. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. All of our book papers are acid-free, and our jackets and covers are printed on paper with recycled content. For Emily, and for the members of my family, the Smiths, from whom I learned the power of stories This page intentionally left blank contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Prologue 1 act one: fall and redemption (711‒1492) 1 Setting the Stage 21 Of Women, Kings, and Nation 31 Origins of a National Myth 38 2 Granada Is the Bride 46 Using History to Shape a National Past 50 La Cava and the King... and Pelayo and His Sister 53 “She Came to Him in His Prison Cell” 58 The Jewess of Toledo and Rising Anti-Semitism 60 3 Blood Will Out 65 The Return of the Goths 72 Corral Casts Spain’s Founding Myth 80 Training Isabel, the Princess of Asturias 83 Isabel, the Warrior Queen 90 Bad Women and Good in the Late Fifteenth Century 96 The Inquisition and the Holy Child of La Guardia 98 The Fallen and the Promise 104 act two: promise and fulfillment (1492‒1700) Interlude 109 4 Desiring the Nation 122 The Influence of Pedro de Corral’s Chronicle of King Rodrigo in the Sixteenth Century 122 The Woman’s Body and the Fate of the Nation 125 The Loss of Spain in the Oral Ballad Tradition 129 viii Contents Philip II’s Chronicler, Ambrosio de Morales, and the Development of the Heroic Pelayo 139 Philip II and the Power of Prophecy 148 5 Here Was Troy, Farewell Spain! 158 A Tale of Tales 158 Miguel de Luna and Spain’s Prophetic History 166 Father Juan de Mariana and Early Modern Nationalism 175 Spain’s Second Helen 180 Lope de Vega and the Stage of King and Nation 186 The Legend of the Fall of Spain after the Expulsion 191 Either Rise or Fall 197 act three: imagining spain (The Enlightenment to the Present) 6 Ancestral Ghosts and New Beginnings 205 The Challenge of Foundational Myths in the Age of Enlightenment 207 Fallen Women Take the Stage 210 Orientalism, Romanticism, and Visigothic Spain 213 The Search for Spanish National Identity in Medieval Spain 223 Pelayo, the Role of Women, and Contemporary Spain 231 The Founding Myth and the New Millennium 235 Epilogue: Cultural Dialogues 241 Notes 245 Bibliography 281 Index 303 illustrations “La Alhambra. Vista general desde Albaicín,” 1863 3 Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moorslayer), 1610 5 Title page of Crónica del rey don Rodrigo, 1499 7 Title page of Crónica del rey don Rodrigo y de la destruyción de España y como los moros la ganaron, 1527 22 Witiza, 1684 42 View of Toledo, 1572–1593 48 “La Alhambra. Puerta en la Sala de Justicia,” 1863 71 50 excelentes, Seville, 1497–1504 95 Hebrew Bible folio, Spain, 1490–1500 103 Charles V, ca. 1600 112 The Apotheosis of the Spanish Monarchy 116 Philip II, 1597 118 The Battle between Christians and Moors at El Sotillo, ca. 1637–1639 147 View of El Escorial, 1572–1593 151 Battle of Lepanto illustration in Felicissima victoria concedida del cielo al señor don Juan de Austria, 1578 160 Philip III, 1687 162 Title page of El fénix católico don Pelayo el restaurador, 1648 177 Pelayo illustration in El fénix católico don Pelayo el restaurador, 1648 181 Juan José de Austria as Atlas Supporting the Spanish Monarchy, 1678 200 “La Alhambra. Patio de los Leones,” 1863 214 Florinda, 1853 216 Commemorative stamps on the early history of Spain, 2000 239 This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments My sincerest thanks to all who have helped me in this project. I am fully cognizant that my personal revels in the discovery of yet another version of the stories of Pelayo, La Cava, Raquel, and others were matched by an obliviousness to what I un- doubtedly inflicted on my family, friends, and colleagues as I recounted hundreds of details and tried to sort out thorny issues of dates, transmission of sources, and frequently contradictory versions of the legend. Teodolinda Barolini, Robin Bower, and Michele Moeller Chandler are the dear friends who most encouraged me to start this project in earnest, and who continued to provide support at various stages of the project—and always when it was most needed. I especially thank Robin Bower, Marcia Welles, Josiah Blackmore, and George Greenia for reading the entire manuscript. For the many tips, hints, obscure refer- ences, and acts of kindness and encouragement through what must have seemed to them, as well as to me, a project without end, I am grateful to Gonzalo Sobejano, Kathryn Yatrakis, Austin Quigley, Julio C. Rivas, Patrick McMorrow, Carmela Franklin, Michael Agnew, Mary Elizabeth Perry, Diana Sorensen, Alan Deyermond, Constance Wilkins, Martha Howell, David Freedberg, Jeffrey Hildner, Elizabeth Amann, Bryan Scoular, Robert Baldwin, Steven Wagschal, Jerrilyn Dodds, Edward Sullivan, Patricia Chiono, Susan Rieger, Eileen Gillooly, Partha Chatterjee, Debo- rah Martinsen, Alicia Zuese, Chela Bodden, Akeel Bilgrami, Diane Wolfthal, Joseph Connors, Keith Moxey, Alban Forcione, and James Shapiro for their advice and sup- port of many different kinds. My thanks to the research assistance over the years of Emily Francomano, Jorge Coronado, Emily Beck (now faculty colleagues), Michal Friedman, Maria Gerbi, and Kosmas Pissakos. I am indebted to the following li- braries: Butler Library of Columbia University; the Hispanic Society of America, es- pecially the library’s director, John O’Neill, and Patrick Lenaghan for their generous help with the illustrations; Chapin Library of Williams College (Bob Volz and Wayne Hammond); the library of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williams- xii Acknowledgments town, Massachusetts; the British Library; Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid; and Bib- lioteca del Museo de Lázaro Galdiano, also in Madrid. I am grateful for the support of Columbia University for various research funds, five semesters’ leave, and the much-needed and always appreciated support of various university administrators and colleagues, Nick Dirks, Margaret Edsall, Alan Brinkley, David Cohen, Roxie Smith, and especially Lee Bollinger, for the unexpected question that helped give the book its final framework. For the last seven years, it has been my privilege to hold the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Chair in the Humanities, and I am grateful to the Marcuses for their devotion to Columbia. Parts of this book were presented as lectures and conference papers, including talks at the Humanities Center of Harvard University, Indiana University, the University of Kansas, the Modern Language Association, various branches of the Columbia Uni- versity Alumni Association and Columbia College Alumni Association, Rutgers University, the University of Virginia, Queen Mary and Westfield College–London, the CUNY Graduate Center, and over the years, Columbia University’s Medieval Guild, the annual Department of Spanish and Portuguese Graduate Student Con- ference, the University Seminar on Medieval Studies, and the Heyman Center for the Humanities. I am grateful for the audience support and questions raised in those venues that helped me hone my arguments. Many people have helped me during the writing of this book, but errors and other shortcomings remain mine alone. I am especially grateful to my editor, Michael Lonegro, for his unwavering sup- port for my project, and his wise guidance throughout this process, and to Josh Tong, Robin Rennison, Juliana McCarthy, and Claire McCabe Tamberino for their help in bringing the book to fruition. I am especially grateful, too, for Melanie Mal- lon’s painstaking editing of the text. I have adopted her suggestions—logical, pre- cise, insightful, and often elegant—readily and with great appreciation for her efforts. Thanks go to Courtney Bond at the Johns Hopkins University Press, Tom Broughton- Willett for the index, and Bill Nelson for the map of Spain.