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Meditations on Political Violence in the Chronicles of Pero López De

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Meditations on Political Violence in the Chronicles of Pero López De On Violence and Tyranny: Meditations on Political Violence in the Chronicles of Pero López de Ayala Verónica Rodríguez Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2016 © 2016 Verónica Rodríguez All rights reserved ABSTRACT On Violence and Tyranny: Meditations on Political Violence in the Chronicles of Pero López de Ayala Verónica Rodríguez On Violence and Tyranny examines historiography as a vehicle for the production of a theory of tyrannicide in the aftermath of the murder of Pedro I de Castilla (1369). The thesis of this work is that by considering the royal chronicle as a vehicle and locus for political theorization, we can appreciate the formulation of a theory of tyrannicide as a medium for dynastic legitimation that is not reducible to political propaganda. Rather, it becomes a meditation about monarchy itself, the limits of power, and the underlying causes and consequences of political violence. The chronicle of the king Pedro's rule conceives an economy of violence coded in terms of saber (political wisdom), justice and the law, as a means to face the ideological, political, and social challenges that civil war and regicide pose to a community. I will focus on two fragments of the chronicle, a pair of letters attributed to a wise Moor that the chronicler chose to include in a second stage of his composition and that establish extra textual connections to other political genres such as the specula principum and political prophecy. Through them, I will explore how a theory of tyrannicide allows the chronicler to confront three major problems that regicide poses. First, how to explicate the dynastic break that king Pedro’s murder brought about, and minimize the discontinuity that the advent of a new, and illegitimate, dynasty (the Trastámaras) represented for a historical tradition that deeply valued the continuity of history. Second, how a theory of tyrannicide served to repair the broken ties provoked by the civil war. And third, how to represent that founding violence, the violence against a sovereign, to render it legitimate, but not available for anyone else to exploit. Table of Content List of Illustrations ii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Violence Justice and Memory 34 Making Violence Visible: Tyranny and Political Violence 37 Temor and Espanto: The Relationship between Violence and the Law 47 Remembering Violence: Memorials as Strategies of Legitimation 52 Fear of Violence and the Coronation of Enrique II 59 Chapter Two: The Specula Principum and the Political Wisdom of Kings 62 Mirrors for Princes and Political Theory 65 The Glosa Castellana al Regimiento de Príncipes, a Castilian Political Treaty 70 The Emergence of a Political Language 76 The Glosa Castellana, the Medieval Exemplum and Political Life 80 Of Kings and Tyrants: The Biblical Origins of Kingship and Tyranny 86 Of Imperfect Kings and Wicked Tyrants: Tyrannicide in the Specula Principum 95 Ethics and Rulers: A Theory of the Princeps 97 Chapter Three: The Letters of Benahatín. Reading Political Theory in the Middle Ages 106 The Chronicle of Two Kings: Dynastic Break and Historical Continuum 110 Beyond Propaganda: Historiography and Political Ideology 114 Authenticity Versus Veracity in the Letters of Benahatín 119 Violence and History 124 Historiography and the Specula: Making King Pedro’s story exemplary 130 Chapter Four: Political Prophecy and History 142 Prophecy, Power and Knowledge: The Tradition of Political Prophecy in Medieval Europe 145 Merlin and Political Prophecy in the Iberian Peninsula 150 Political Prophecy in Ayala 153 Merlin, the ave robadora and the Destiny of Pedro I 158 Conclusion 174 Bibliography 177 Appendices 192 i List of illustrations Figure 1: Folio 22v. The Crusaders Bible. 91 Figure 2: Map of the Iberian Peninsula 217 ii Acknowledgements Many people guided and supported my through the process of researching and writing this dissertation. I am especially thankful to my mentor and advisor. Professor Jesús R. Velasco, who carefully read and commented every one of my drafts. Our conversations challenged me to think and rethink my ideas, to polish those that were not yet clear, and discard those that were not useful. Professor Patricia Grieve opened the doors of her house to many of us throughout our years at Columbia to encourage conversations that would later help me refine the argument of this work. Her comments to my first draft transformed the dissertation into what it is today. I am thankful to the other three members of my committee who were eager readers and offered sharp and valuable comments. Alessandra Russo taught me to read much more than the written word. Teodolinda Barolini, who was always welcoming and eager to help; her keen comments have prompted me to broaden the scope of my work. I want to thank also Seth Kimmel for being an avid reader, even though he did not know my work or me when he first arrived at Columbia. Thank you also to all the people that offered me their friendship and emotional support. I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without the love and support of Vasily Romanov, who cheered me every day and understood how time consuming and tiring this project could be at times. The lengthy and witty conversations with Elisa González, Cecilia Zenteno, María José Prados, Héctor Santiago, Lizaira Hernández and Esther Rodríguez- Miranda were a comfort after hours of solitary work. And finally to my family, Antonia Torres, Sergio Rodríguez, Patricia Rodríguez and Elvin Rodríguez, who love me despite all my flaws. iii Dedication A Antonia Torres y Sergio Rodríguez, quienes trabajaron duro para darnos las mejores oportunidades. Los amo. To Vasily Romanov, who made me smile even in the toughest days. iv INTRODUCTION When Pero López de Ayala (1332-1407) evaluates the reign of Pedro I (1350-1369) in the closing lines of his official royal chronicle, he chooses to highlight the violence that characterized the king’s rule and death. Don Pedro, albeit legitimate king of Castile, gained the animosity and fear of his subjects because of the numerous deaths he ordered without any proper trial or judicial guarantees. So, on the night of the king’s death (March 1369), as he attempted to escape the besieged castle of Montiel, he found himself surrounded by enemies. Among them was his half brother and contender to the throne, Enrique de Trastámara (1334-1379), who stabbed Pedro to death as he desperately attempted to defend himself. The illegitimate child of Alfonso XI used this regicide to found the Trastámara Dynasty with himself as Enrique II. Shortly after this account Ayala states: “E mato muchos en su rregno, por lo qual le vino todo el daño que auedes oydo. E por ende diremos aqui lo que dixo el propheta Dauid: "Agora los rreyes aprendet, e seed castigados todos los que judgades el mundo” (XX.viii).1 He urges all who listen to learn from the history of Pedro, but what is there to learn from revisiting a recent history of political violence? Since Pedro I’s murder is not represented as the death of a legitimate king, but as that of a tyrannical ruler, how is the discourse of tyranny instrumental in overcoming the discontinuities that regicide represents as the founding moment of a new dynasty? How does the chronicler work with the legal and political ideas available to him in order to both identify and examine a problem, tyrannicide, that up to that moment resisted legal and historical theorization? These are the questions that I will examine in the present work. 1For the chronicle of Pedro I and Enrique II, I cite by the edition of Germán Orduna, Crónica del rey don Pedro y del rey don Enrique, by year and then chapter. 1 Pero López de Ayala was the official chronicler for the reigns of Pedro I, Enrique II, Juan I and Enrique III. He probably started working on the chronicles during the final year of Enrique II’s life, at that king’s request. This first version, completed around 1383, is known as the Abreviada (abridgement) or Primitiva.2 However, during the reign of Enrique III (1390-1406), Ayala embarked on a major revision and expansion of his chronicles of the reigns of Pedro I and Enrique II, producing what has been known since the 17th century as the Vulgar.3 These revisions dwell significantly on the theme of political violence, justice and tyranny, sometimes by making the violent acts performed or ordered by Pedro I more visible, or by inserting political comments that offer a diagnosis of the state of the kingdom. This process of the construction of the Crónicas poses two secondary questions that illuminate the overarching problems exposed above: • Why does it becomes imperative for Ayala, who was also the canciller mayor de Castilla at the time, to revisit the years that led up to the civil war and the victory of the Trastámaras? • And what could a theory of tyrannicide offer to the contemporaries of these revisions? Enrique III, grandson of Enrique de Trastámara, was the first king of the new dynasty to enjoy the full recognition of his legitimate claim to the throne. Although the majority of the 2 Germán Orduna (1981) dates the chronicle to the last year of Enrique II’s life based on the preface to the chronicle of Juan II by Alvar García de Santa María, ca 1454. Michel Garcia’s chronology dates the beginning of the project to the final years of Juan I, probably after the crushing defeat in the battle of Aljubarrota against the Portuguese. See Obra y Personalidad, 164-171. For the Crónica of Juan II see also Gómez Redondo Historia de la Prosa 2207-2333.
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