Centers of Marginality in Fifteenth-Century Castile: Critical

CENTERS OF MARGINALITY IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CASTILE: CRITICAL REEVALUATIONS OF ENRIQUE IV DE TRASTÁMARA, LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA, AND ALFONSO DE CARTAGENA by BYRON H. WARNER, III (Under the Direction of Noel Fallows) ABSTRACT The concepts of center and periphery are not always mutually exclusive; one often resides within the other. This idea is central to my critical evaluations of three historical personages of fifteenth-century Castile: Enrique IV de Trastámara, doña Leonor López de Córdoba, and Alfonso de Cartagena. Each of these figures had a central political function in the kingdom, yet each also lived a dual existence at the margins of Castilian court. In this dissertation, this duality is examined using a combination of historical sources and contemporary psychology. Certain nuances in the historiographical genre of the Castilian chronicle of the fifteenth century stand out as distinct from the chronicle of previous centuries. One of these is the liberal addition of personal commentary by the chroniclers themselves, breaking to a degree with the paradigm of unadorned, historical “fact-telling.” These personal and often politically charged opinions have significantly contributed to the polarization of modern interpretations of the events and people described in these histories. The incorporation of recent psychological research allows for new readings of the chronicles and new interpretations of the mysteries surrounding Enrique IV, Leonor López, and Alfonso de Cartagena. INDEX WORDS: Fifteenth century, medieval, Middle Ages, chronicle, Enrique IV de Trastámara, doña Leonor López de Cordoba, Alfonso de Cartagena, Castile CENTERS OF MARGINALITY IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CASTILE: CRITICAL REEVALUATIONS OF ENRIQUE IV OF TRASTÁMARA, LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA, AND ALFONSO DE CARTAGENA by BYRON H. WARNER, III BA, Belmont University, 1999 MA, The University of Kentucky, 2002 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2010 © 2010 Byron H. Warner, III All Rights Reserved CENTERS OF MARGINALITY IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CASTILE: CRITICAL REEVALUATIONS OF ENRIQUE IV DE TRASTÁMARA, LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA, AND ALFONSO DE CARTAGENA by BYRON H. WARNER, III Major Professor: Noel Fallows Committee: Dana Bultman Leslie Feracho Catherine Jones Elizabeth Wright Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2010 iv DEDICATION For my wife, Tracy, my parents and siblings, Byron, Cynthia, John, Anne, and Dr. John E. Keller. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The support of every kind I received during every stage of this protracted research project was crucial to its completion. Without the intellectual support and enthusiasm of my adviser, Dr. Noel Fallows, and the members of my committee, Dr. Dana Bultman, Dr. Leslie Feracho, Dr. Catherine Jones, and Dr. Elizabeth Wright, this dissertation would have never left the ground. I own an enormous debt of gratitude to my wife, Dr. Tracy Brown, for her constancy. She has always been there to bolster me emotionally. I can neither sufficiently thank her for financial buttressing during the last year as I inched toward completion, nor for her patience with my vague answers when she asked me for an approximate completion date. I would like to thank my parents, who have long encouraged my pursuit of higher education, and who have dedicated an endless stream of resources to help me achieve my goals. To my brother and sister, thank you for your moral and intellectual support. Thank you to my many friends who have offered similar encouragement and help along the way, in particular, Carl Wise, and Patrick and Holly Moore, who provided me with books and articles I required as I completed my final chapter overseas and without the aid of a local library. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. David C. Julseth and Kim Jackson, who advised me and pointed me in the right direction during my undergraduate career. Finally, I would like to thank the late Dr. John Keller, who, in 2002, picked me up when I was down, and convinced me that I did indeed have what it takes to succeed as a medievalist in higher academia. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………………….vii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………..viii CHAPTER 1 THE CHRONICLE IN SPAIN: HISTORY AND POLITICS ......................................1 2 THE CASE OF ENRIQUE IV OF CASTILE .............................................................33 Enrique IV and the Court Fool…………………………………………………...36 Enrique IV: a Psychological Analysis...................................................................48 3 THE CASE OF DOÑA LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA ......................................69 4 THE CASE OF ALFONSO DE CARTAGENA .......................................................109 5 CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................133 WORKS CITED ..........................................................................................................................140 vii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: DIAGNOSIS CRITERIA FOR POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER .............135 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Enrique IV of Castile ....................................................................................................137 Figure 2: Enrique IV of Castile ....................................................................................................138 Figure 3: Cantiga 34, plates 1 and 2 from the Cantigas of Holy Mary ......................................139 Figure 4: Cantiga 107, plate 3 from the Cantigas of Holy Mary .................................................139 Figure 5: Cantiga 108, plate 3 from the Cantigas of HolyMary ..................................................139 1 CHAPTER 1 THE CHRONICLE IN SPAIN: HISTORY AND POLITICS As noted by Jane Connolly, the Memorias of doña Leonor López de Córdoba are often presented at a considerable critical disadvantage: “Critics often read Leonor‟s account against the corresponding narrative in Pero López de Ayala‟s Chronicle of Enrique II (c. 1400), invariably giving the chronicle a privileged position”1 (6). Critics and historians have clung to a notion aggressively promoted by the chroniclers themselves, that the chronicle of the Spanish Middle Ages is a relatively objective and complete source of historical information among the scraps (literally, at times) of data medievalists have to work with. Connolly continues, “where the two narratives disagree preference is given to the chronicle with Memorias being viewed as a „reconstruction‟. […] Nonetheless, the chronicle does not receive the same label – reconstruction – as the Memorias” (6). The point is well taken and not, I believe, overstated. The historical bias toward the chronicle and kindred historiographical subgenres (e.g. annals, historical monographs) as repositories of reliable facts about the past is one of familiarity and cultural comfort. The structure and the format of the chronicle, the emotional detachment from the events related, and the chronological ordering of things all lend a generic air of authority and objectivity to the chronicle. Other voices attempting to make themselves heard through lesser-known or less popular genres, such as the fifteenth-century “autobiography”, the medium for López de Córdoba‟s Memorias, are suffocated and judged as unreliable, self-serving “reconstructions” of the “true” events recorded in official histories. 1 My thanks to professor Connolly for providing me with a copy of this paper, which is as yet unpublished. 2 The binary oppositional relation truth/fiction will be one theoretical focus of this chapter, underpinned by an investigation of the chronicle as a literary and historical genre. The biography of the Middle Ages will be discussed in a separate chapter. The notion that every history is still “story”, and that this “story” is controlled by those in power is not a new concept. The chronicler Fernán Pérez de Guzmán recorded this thought in his Generaciones y semblanzas (c. 1450-1455) when he wrote that one of the problems with the writing of chronicles is that “es mandado de los reyes e principes; por los conplazer e lisonjar o por temor de los enojar, [the chroniclers] escriuen mas lo que les mandan o lo que creen que les agradara que la verdat del fecho como paso” (5). It goes without saying that the simple fact of human agency in history‟s recording precludes genuine objectivity and rather lends itself to discourse merely labeled as objective, that is, one in which the narrator never intervenes. This historical discourse is an example of Roland Barthes‟ idea „Writing Degree Zero,‟ which suppresses the “I,” sheds all markings of literary writing, and thus “aims at a presentation of the human predicament” (Moriarty 40), seeming to tell itself all on its own. This has long been an effective camouflage for propaganda, for conveniently obscuring or elucidating information, and for blurring the boundaries between truth and falsehood. How the chronicle plays a part in this from the genre‟s early days up through the late Middle Ages can be better comprehended if its parts are broken down and we can see what makes it work as a historical genre unto itself, that is, how it is distinct from other kinds of

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