TEXTS AS MONUMENTS in MEDIEVAL CASTILE Holly Sims A
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WRITING A PAST TO REMEMBER: TEXTS AS MONUMENTS IN MEDIEVAL CASTILE Holly Sims A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies (Spanish) in the College of Arts & Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Frank Domínguez Lucia Binotti Carmen Hsu Rosa Perelmuter Samuel Sánchez y Sánchez © 2019 Holly Sims ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Holly Sims: Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile (Under the direction of Frank Domínguez) This dissertation examines textual and architectural memorials produced by monarchs and nobles in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries in Castile. In response to political instability, elites composed works of prose and poetry to defend their standing and commemorate their prestige. They aimed these works at the other members of their sociopolitical networks, which coalesced around the bonds of kinship that united individuals to a lineage, a household, and the body politic. The texts are similar in use to religious foundations, such as monasteries and funerary chapels, built by a noble family to proclaim the virtue of its lineage. To analyze the intended effect of these textual and architectural memorials, this dissertation relies on a qualitative method of studying social networks and also takes into account each author and patron’s historical and social contexts. This study demonstrates that the Castilian elites’ prose, poetry, and religious foundations are analogous elements in a commemorative process that begins with their creation and extends their influence over the course of generations. iii To my parents and sister. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is a work about memory. In studying how individuals commemorated themselves and others in their sociopolitical networks, I have been reminded of all the ways in which the members of my own networks have “remembered” me as I have worked on this project. I would like to thank them for their love, encouragement, and guidance. First, I am grateful for my parents, Andy and Beth, and sister, Heather, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. They have supported me every step of the way, offering help when I have needed it, cheering me on, and always believing in me. This dissertation would not have been possible without their constant support and love. I would also like to thank my grandparents, Charles and Jeanette Holland and John and Margie Sims. They instilled in me a love of reading and have encouraged me in every endeavor. I am grateful for their example to our family and to me. Numerous other family members and friends have rallied around me. I appreciate the support that each one has extended to me and would especially like to thank Carlee Forbes, Anne Harford, Hailey Hedden, Kate Heil, Angela Hinze, Eden and Cole Justad, Caroline Lindley, Lauren Odomirok, Tressa Thudumu, Ashley Whitman, and Sarah Verrill. Part of this dissertation is adapted from my article, “Family Matters: Textual Memory and the Politics of Loss in Gómez Manrique’s Consolatorias,” published in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 95.3 (2018). I would like to thank the publisher for granting permission to use this article in my dissertation. v I also wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee. Drs. Lucia Binotti, Carmen Hsu, and Rosa Perelmuter provided valuable feedback that helped me improve the original idea for this dissertation. Special thanks goes to Dr. Samuel Sánchez y Sánchez for his support and friendship over these many years. Finally, I am grateful to Dr. Frank Domínguez, my dissertation advisor, who has helped me find the appropriate direction for this project. His guidance has improved this dissertation at every stage and has made me a better scholar in the process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………..…………...1 I. Historical Context…………………………………………………..…………...…..2 II. Class Identity and Casas of the Nobility…………………………..…………...…..4 III. Methodology and Chapter Summaries…………………………..……………….12 CHAPTER 1: MEMORIES OF ALFONSO X AS EMPEROR IN THE PRIMERA CRÓNICA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA AND THE ROYAL CHAPEL IN SEVILLE…………..…………………………………………..19 I. The Wise King of the Prologue……………………………………………..……..21 II. The Cid and the Emperor………………………………………………………....27 III. Alfonso X’s Imperial Status in the Royal Chapel…………………………..……32 CHAPTER 2: THE COMMEMORATION OF VIRTUE IN DON JUAN MANUEL’S LIBRO DE LAS TRES RAZONES, LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA’S MEMORIAS, AND THEIR FUNERARY CHAPELS….………………………………...……………..……..…42 I. Self-Justification through Suffering………………………………………….....…44 II. Divine Assurances of Prosperity…………………………………………..…...…55 III. Virtue Enshrined in Religious Foundations and Funerary Chapels……..…….…60 CHAPTER 3: CONFLICTING TEXTUAL AND ARCHITECTURAL MEMORIES OF ÁLVARO DE LUNA IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CASTILE………………………………………….…71 I. The Commemoration of Luna’s Virtue…………………………………..…..……73 II. Noble Responses to Luna’s Rise to Power………………………..………………83 III. The Redemption of Luna’s Memory…………………………..…………………96 vii CHAPTER 4: THE CONSOLATION AND COMMEMORATION OF FAME IN THE MANRIQUE CLAN’S POETRY AND FUNERARY PRACTICES…………………………………..…107 I. The Consolation of the Manrique Clan’s Fame…………………..………………109 II. Defense of the Manrique Clan’s Property and Status……………..…………….126 III. Commemoration of the Manrique Lineage………………………………..……137 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………..……………………151 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………....………156 viii INTRODUCTION In medieval Castile, memory of an individual depended on two related factors: how well or poorly a person lived up to the ideals of his or her class and how those acts were commemorated, both in writing and through the construction of monuments. These memories can provide an accurate description of an individual, but they can also be suspect, as Fernán Pérez de Guzmán reminds us in Generaciones y semblanzas (1455). Describing texts, this author cautions that “…la buena fama quanto al mundo es el verdadero premio e galardón de los que bien e vertuosamente por ella trabajan, si esta fama se escrive corrupta e mintirosa, en vano e por demás trabajan los maníficos reyes e príncipes…” (66). Fama refers to “…the public talk that continually adjusts honor and assigns rank or standing …” (Fenster and Smail 3-4).1 Elites quested for fama as an indication of preeminence within their social class and decried infamy as a threat to their status. For nobles, fama was closely connected to a clan’s origin because its members sought to uphold the virtue of their lineages in accordance with the chivalric ideals of their class. Nobles proclaimed their status—and inscribed their fama—in laudatory works of prose and poetry and magnificent architectural structures. However, these forms of memory encountered opposition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The elites’ texts often contradict each other. Their writers lived in a 1 The concept of fama derived from classical antiquity and “…meant public opinion, idle talk, rumor, and reputation as well as fame” (Fenster and Smail 2). Fama has traditionally been interpreted as a verbal act, such as the extreme examples of slander and encomium that Pérez de Guzmán describes in Generaciones y semblanzas. However, Gianni Guastello (2017) has also examined fama in medieval literature, art, and architecture. For more information on fama, see María Rosa Lida de Malkiel (1952), Helena Béjar (2006), and Heather Kerr and Claire Walker (2015). 1 politically unstable world in which individuals often questioned their opponents’ fame and entire clans clashed over competing alliances and jurisdictional rights. Religious foundations, such as monasteries and funerary monuments, enshrined members of a noble clan, but they could also be altered by later generations or destroyed by opponents, as happened to the funerary chapel built by Álvaro de Luna in Toledo Cathedral. Writing a Past to Remember: Texts as Monuments in Medieval Castile examines why monarchs, nobles, members of a clan, and members of the royal administration created these texts and religious foundations and studies how these forms of memory influenced succeeding generations. These practices developed within a specific historical context and in response to the importance of a noble’s property to his or her casa, which will be explained in the first two sections of this introduction. The final section will address the methodology used in this dissertation and will describe its chapters. I. Historical Context The Castilian elites composed their works of prose and poetry against an historical backdrop of political instability. Power struggles between monarchs led to outright civil war, such as the rebellion of Alfonso X’s son and eventual heir, Sancho IV, in 1275 and the assassination of Pedro I by his illegitimate half brother, Enrique Trastámara, in 1369. These violent events jeopardized the prosperity of clans loyal to the Castilian monarchs but created new opportunities for others as a result of the so-called mercedes enriqueñas, or temporary grants of land that Enrique II dispensed to nobles who supported his cause in the civil war against Pedro I (Valdeón Baruque, Los Trastámaras 31). 2 In the fifteenth century, these political struggles increased exponentially. The very same nobles who had benefitted from mercedes enriqueñas beset the Trastámara monarchs with challenges to their authority. During the reign of Juan II, nobles revolted against the king’s favorite,