Copyright by Jeffrey Michael Evatt 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Jeffrey Michael Evatt certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Primacy of National Sentiment in the Embajada a Tamorlán and Andanças é viajes Committee: Madeline Sutherland-Meier, Supervisor Matthew J. Bailey Michael P. Harney Cory A. Reed Denise A. Spellberg The Primacy of National Sentiment in the Embajada a Tamorlán and Andanças é viajes by Jeffrey Michael Evatt, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2006 For my family and friends I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the members of my Committee. Professor Matthew Bailey provided valuable insight into the role of the individual during this period. Professor Michael Harney oriented my discussion of travel literature. Professor Cory Reed encouraged my attention to the primary texts. Professor Denise Spellberg offered important suggestions about the role of religion and of Islam in particular. I am deeply grateful to each of them. My greatest debt of gratitude, however, is to my supervisor, Professor Madeline Sutherland-Meier. Her scholarly insight, organizational guidance, stylistic advice, and, above all, patience were extraordinary. Without her support I would have never have completed this dissertation. I would also like to remember the late Professor Inés L. Bergquist, who, more than any other single individual, taught me how to teach. v The Primacy of National Sentiment in the Embajada a Tamorlán and Andanças é viajes Publication No._____________ Jeffrey Michael Evatt, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Madeline Sutherland-Meier At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula was incomplete. The population had suffered cruelly from outbreaks of bubonic plague during the second half of the previous century. Castile and the rest of Christian Europe faced the threat of the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the advance of the Ottoman Turks. Yet less than a century later, the two principal Christian kingdoms of the Peninsula would be united under a single monarchy. Columbus would have completed his voyage to the Americas, and the Catholic Monarchs would have begun the process of expansion that would eventually lead to the establishment of one of history’s great empires. In this study, I consider this development in the context of two fifteenth-century travel narratives. Ruy González de Clavijo set sail from Spain in 1403 as an emissary of King Enrique III to the Mongol Emperor Timur at Samarkand. He recorded his experience in a text that came to be known as the Embajada a Tamorlán. In 1436, Pero vi Tafur would begin the first of several journeys to various points to the East, including the Holy Land. Tafur wrote of his voyages in his Andanças é viajes de un hidalgo español. In this study, I demonstrate how these two texts contribute to and reflect the changes in attitudes toward cultural and religious diversity that took place during the fifteenth century. I trace the evolution of the concept of the author from relative anonymity of earlier works to the clearly defined and authoritative voices of these two writers. I show that both writers demonstrate respect for and interest in aspects of life beyond their own borders in areas ranging from the mundane (such as dietary habits and travel by sea) to the sacred (religion). Crucially, I conclude that both works are informed far more by an incipient feeling of Castilian nationalism than by religious or other considerations. In all of these ways, Clavijo and Tafur reflect the evolving public discourse of their day and seek to influence it, setting the stage for the voyages of Columbus and subsequent travelers. vii Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Transformation in Fifteenth-Century Castile.......................................................2 1.1. The Beginning of the Fifteenth Century: Internal Divisions ...................4 1.2. Threats from Abroad................................................................................8 2. This Study: The Texts........................................................................................13 2.1. The Embajada a Tamorlán.....................................................................14 2.2. Pero Tafur and his Andanças é viajes....................................................15 3. This Study: Objective and Organization............................................................17 3.1. Objective................................................................................................17 3.2. Organization...........................................................................................19 4. The Works’ Antecedents: Travel Writing..........................................................22 4.1. Classifications of Medieval Travel Writing...........................................25 4.2. Two Touchstone Texts...........................................................................30 CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLVING ROLE OF THE AUTHOR 38 1. Individuals, Writers, and Readers in the Fifteenth Century...............................39 1.1. Was the Renaissance Individual a Myth? ..............................................39 1.2. The Emergence of the Author................................................................43 1.3. Travel Reading.......................................................................................50 2. On His Majesty’s Service: Clavijo and the Embajada a Tamorlán ...................54 2.1. A Direct Response to a Specific Threat.................................................55 2.2. Clavjio and his Men: The Possibility of Collective Authorship............58 2.3. Self-Reference and Individuality ...........................................................73 3. The Independent Traveler: Primacy of the “Yo”...............................................78 3.1. Curiosity and Self-Improvement as Justification...................................83 3.2. The Author as Unifying Element of the Text ........................................88 3.3. The Text as Entertainment.....................................................................94 viii CHAPTER 3: DEALING WITH DIFFERENCE 97 1. The Question of Religion.................................................................................103 1.1. Convivencia or Coexistence?...............................................................104 1.2. Alliances of Convenience: the Poema de mío Cid...............................107 1.3. Alfonso X: Emperor of the Three Religions........................................111 1.4. Religious Tolerance During the Fourteenth Century...........................113 2. Clavijo as Interested Observer.........................................................................116 2.1. Religion and Difference: Western and Eastern Christianity................117 2.2. Religion and Difference: Christianity and Islam .................................122 2.3. Cities and Their Inhabitants.................................................................128 2.4. An Abstemious Spaniard at Timur’s Court .........................................133 3. Tafur: Traveling on One’s Own Account ........................................................145 3.1. The Past as Other: Tafur in Rome........................................................146 3.2. The Guided Pilgrim: Tafur in the Holy Land ......................................154 CHAPTER 4: NATIONAL UNITY AS OBJECTIVE AND CONSEQUENCE 164 1. Guiding Fictions: The Forging of a Nation......................................................167 1.1. Religious Identity versus Territorial Identity: The Visigoths..............171 1.2. The Muslim Conquest: Heterogeneous Invaders.................................174 1.3. Saint James: From Religious to National Icon ....................................180 1.4. Life and Legend of Fernán González...................................................182 1.5. Between Vassal and Mercenary: Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar ...................185 2. Ruy González de Clavijo: Ambassador for Castile .........................................188 2.1. Clavijo as Seafarer ...............................................................................191 2.2. Clavijo the Linguist..............................................................................200 2.3. Timur as Political Model .....................................................................205 3. Pero Tafur: Nobleman as Traveler and as Merchant .......................................211 3.1. Tafur the Spaniard................................................................................212 3.2. Andanças As a Tool for Social Advancement .....................................217 3.3. Tafur the Merchant ..............................................................................221 ix CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 227 1. The Role of the Individual ...............................................................................229 2. Religion and Nation .........................................................................................232 3. Universal Questions.........................................................................................236 APPENDIX: MAPS 239 WORKS CITED 241 VITA 252 x Chapter 1: Introduction [E]l Almirante salió a tierra en la barca armada y Martín Alonso Pinçón