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Durham E-Theses Anomalous women in fteenth-century castilian ballads Hoogesteger, Naomi May Jensen How to cite: Hoogesteger, Naomi May Jensen (2006) Anomalous women in fteenth-century castilian ballads, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2326/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk ANOMALOUS WOMEN IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CAsTILIAN BALLADS Naomi May Jensen Hoogesteger The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which it was submitted. No quotation from it, or information derived from it may be M A by Research in Spanish published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and any information derived from it should be acknowledged. University of Durham September 2006 Supervisor: Dr. Andrew M Beresford - 3 MAY Z007 TABLE OF CONTENTS C~I. lliTRODUCTION 1 C~ 11. WOMEN IN THE RELIGIOUS BALLAD 14 CHAPTER Ill. IDEAL WOMEN IN THE SECULAR BALLAD 31 C~ IV. PROVOCATIVE DONCEUAS 46 C~ V. SERRANAS AND WOMEN IN THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 66 CHAPTER VI. DISSATISFIED WOMEN 90 C~ VII. THE ETIINICALLY MARGINALISED WOMAN 116 CONCLUSION 128 BmuoGRAPHY 129 APPENDIX 140 ACKNO~DGEMENTS 158 ABSTRACT In this thesis I examine anomalous women in fifteenth-century ballads. As well as taking into account the exterior socio-political factors moulding the romancero development, I look closely at the internal workings such as the literary tools affecting women's depiction. Scholarship has already produced a number of studies with respect to women in the romancero. However, there has not yet been a comprehensive study, and so in this thesis I am looking to establish paradigms of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and attitudes with respect to their literary depiction. Having logged the details of almost three hundred ballads, only a dozen or so stand out as containing women not conforming to an ideal and orthodox type that dominates the genre. I consider these ideal women (religious and secular) in Chapters 11 and m respectively. The subsequent chapters address women who are anomalous women within sub-categories. 'Provocative Doncellas' includes El caballero burlado, also known as La hija del rey de francia, Rosaflorida, and iHelo, helo por do viene. 'Serranillas and Women in the Natural Environment' looks at Estdse la gentil dama and Fontefrida. The chapter on 'Dissatisfied Women' considers Romance de la bella malmaridada, Rosa Fresca, and Romance de Durandarte. Finally, I consider Mora Moraima as a paradigm of the 'Ethnically Marginalised Woman'. For the most part I use Brian Dutton's El cancionero del siglo XV: c. 1360- 1520, although some versions Dutton's cancioneros are incomplete, therefore I note when I use another source for the text. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION In this thesis I examine anomalous women in fifteenth-century ballads. As well as taking into account the exterior socio-political factors moulding the romancero development, I look closely at the internal workings such as the literary tools affecting women's depiction. Scholarship has already produced a number of studies with respect to women in the romancero. However, there has not yet been a comprehensive study, and so in this thesis I am looking to establish paradigms of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and attitudes with respect to their literary depiction. Fifteenth-century Spanish balladry offers a fascinating reflection of both popular and culto literary depictions of life in the Middle Ages. Two main characteristics make it a form appealing beyond other types of literature. First, the ballads contain themes appealing to the masses: sex, honour, war, religion, hunting, and fantastical elements. The earlier historical and Carolingian ballads (based on the French epics) principally reflect fact. A further attractiveness lies in their vitality. Ram6n Menendez Pidal suggests their dynamic framework enabling them to embrace the themes is key to their widely held dissemination, allowing them to become popularised: El romancero no se estanc6 ciertamente en estas irnitaciones de la epopeya francesa, ni se content6 con aquellos recuerdos y renuevos de la antigua materia epica castellana, sino que continua haciendo, a su modo, lo que la vieja epopeya habia hecho: poetiz6 la vida heroica actual, y este es otro de los aspectos mas caracteristicos del romancero espaftol, cornparado con las demas colecciones de baladas, a saber, su vigorosa inspiraci6n en la vida politica y rnilitar de la naci6n en los siglos XIV y xv. ( 1973: 28) Secondly, from a literary standpoint, due to the trajectory of its development, the ballads are a unique combination of both erudite and vernacular evolution. Frank Lynn Odd, in the introduction of his PhD thesis claims: 'propounding theories of origin, tracing the derivation and development of individual romances, establishing historical content and relevancy, delineating the cross currents of contamination, signalling the outcroppings of refundiciones' is often superfluous to investigations on the romancero (1974: m). I disagree: contextualising and evaluating Spanish balladry as an art form both historically and sociologically from a literary perspective is intrinsic to the comprehension of the thematic content, motifs, and evolution of the form, whichever the pertinent aspect may be and so I will address these supposed redundant points in my analyses. It was originally believed that ancient ballads, cantilenae, yielded the epics. In 1914, H. R. Lang returned to the theory that the tradition is ancient and that the romances inspired the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century chronicles. This theory was based on ballads' octosyllabic and quartet composition, a form used by Galician poets. When the Spanish ballad first became a popular area of study in the nineteenth century, however, the Romantic view rejected Lang's philosophies and hypothesised that it should be principally attributed to communal composition, a theory known as el pueblo poeta, detracting all ownership, responsibility, and attribution to the individual poet. According to Lucy A. Sponsler, neotraditionalist scholarship then adopted the converse theory that older ballads were condensed versions, or excerpts, from the epics (1975: 12). This formula ties in with the emotive aspect of the ballad, which elicits the passion of the listener and performer in a hyperbolic manner. The minstrels created the epics for the courts because, according to Sponsler (although she does not provide evidence), 'only nobles had time to listen to lengthy epics' (1975: 24). Truncated versions modified by the juglares were subsequently performed for, and adopted and disseminated by, the common people, who then became the main architects of the ballad. This would also explain the genus of bellicose compositions that dominated the slightly earlier wave of composition. Principally, the focus of literary production on women IS evident. Yet, although they comprise over half the medieval population, they do not appear to play a significant role in the active creation of medieval literature. Indeed, Miguel Angel Perez Priego notes: Es ciertamente llamativa la casi total ausencia de la mujer como creadora en ese panorama literario. La mujer que, como tema lirico, objeto a un tiernpo de los loores y las quejas del poeta amante, es el autentico centro de la creaci6n poetica, diriamos que solo de una manera fugaz aparece como verdadero sujeto literario. (1989: 7) Eileen Power suggests a reason for this could be because 'it is certain that the overwhelming majority of peasant women or general domestic servants received no education' (1975: 86). However, the ballads' linguistic characteristics enabled women to contribute to the form, overcoming a need for academic perpetuation. An absen~e of adjectival phrases, yet an abundance of verbs of movement meant the texts were easily committed to memory so women had no need to know how to write them down. The lyrical verse of the Spanish ballad facilitates easy recollection, as opposed 2 to a conventional intellectual method of remembrance or distribution. The octosyllabic assonantal rhyming metre of the romance was already well instilled into the culture of the peninsular by the popular Mozarabic lyrics or jarchas of the eleventh century. Otto Zwartjes cites Alvaro Galmes Fuentes whose extensive study on the jarchas concludes the connection between the two forms of literature: 'de otra parte, parece obvio que las rimas romances no esten encuadradas en un sistema metrico ajeno, sino en su propio sistema, lo que vendria a confirmar nuevamente la metrica romance de las jarchas' (1995: 1604). We can also infer from the conclusion that rhyming assonance in both these oral forms of literature is imperative for its survival. Broadly, Barbara Mujica defines the romancero as 'una colecci6n de poemas de tipo epico-lirico breve que deriva del cantar de gesta' (2002: 40). However, its origins are still held in debate. As touched upon in Menendez Pidal's quotation above, it is held the characteristics of the romancero, which Frank Lynn Odd claims to be 'uniquely and revealingly Spanish' in fact, are not (1974: IV}. Ballads have a tradition in other European countries as well: namely Scotland, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, and William James Entwistle is convinced by their 'unity as a literary type' (1939: 17). Although Menendez Pidal says there are many differences in their composition and style, the more current theories of C.