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From Jewish to Converso Humour in Fifteenth-century Spain

1990; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 67; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382902000367223

1469-3550

Eleazar Gutwirth,

Sephardic Jews and Inquisition Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. C. Carrete Parrondo, Fontes Judaeorum Regni Castellae iii, Proceso inquisitorial contra los Arias Davila segovianos: un enfrentamiento social entre judíos y conversos (Salamanca-Granada 1986), 32. In further references the page number will be given in the text. On this Inquisition file (A.H.N., 1430,7) see, for example, E. Gutwirth, ‘Jewish-Converso Relations in XVth c. Segovia’, Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Section B, (Jerusalem: World Union Jewish Studies, 1982), 49–53. Idem, ‘Elementos étnicos e históricos en las relaciones judeo-conversas en Segovia’ in Jews and Conversos, ed. Y. Kaplan (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), 83–102. Eleazar Gutwirth, ‘On the Background to Cota's “Epitalamio Burlesco” ’, Romanische Forschungen, XCVII (1985), 1–14. 2. Much has been written on Jewish humour, in general taking as a point of departure the analysis of certain modern Jewish writers. See, for example, the issue of Revue de la Pensée Juive, (II, 6, Jan. 1951) devoted to Jewish Humour, for example, A. Spire, ‘L'humeur dans l'oeuvre d'Israel Zangwill’, 24–38. Some general considerations may be found in Salcia Landmann, Der jüdische Witz (Olten-Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter Verlag, 1960; eighth edition 1970), Einleitung, 13–52. S. Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (London: Hogarth Press, 1960) contains jokes which might be described as Jewish but are not obviously useful for an analysis of the material which will be presented here. See also on general theory, the chapter on ‘Matter and Manner, Theories of Laughter’ in Neil Schaeffer, The Art of Laughter (New York: Columbia U.P., 1981). Robert Alter has emphasized the aspect of ‘Domestication of myth’ in modern literature written by Jews in the United States of America in his Defenses of the Imagination (Philadelphia: JPS, 1977), 155. His analysis has a certain relevance to the humour of allusion. See also ibid., 16. Scholarly interest in medieval Jewish humour has tended on the whole to limit itself to literature and within this to satire and parody. See, for example, N. S. L. Libowitz, ‘Satire and Criticism in the Zohar’, HaSofeh (Budapest), XI (1927), 36ff; Joseph Chotzner, Hebrew Satire (London—New York: Kegan Paul, 1911). See also his Hebrew Humour and Other Essays (London: Luzac, 1905). Haim Schwarzbaum, The Mishle Shualim of Berachia Ha-Nakdan, (Kiron: Institute for Jewish and Arabic Folklore Research, 1979). For comparative purposes one may consult M. W. Bloomfield, ‘The Gloomy Chaucer’ in H. Levin, Veins of Humor (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1972), 57–68. For the literary techniques of satire and parody in medieval Hebrew poetry written in Spain and possible Arabic models, see also J. Dishon, ‘A Critical Study of the Writ of Excommunication’ in Biqqoret W-Farshanut, IV, (1974), No. 6, 48–52. 3. España en su Historia ‘cristianos, moros y judíos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1948), 569. 4. See for example Douglas Collin Muecke, Irony (London: Methuen, 1970); W. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: Chicago U.P., 1975). 5. Choice of Pearls, ed. Abraham Meir Haberman (Jerusalem: Sifryyat Poalim, 1947), 15, 42, 425. For medieval Spanish criticism of laughter in the Ysopete, Bocados de oro, Zifar, Ayala's Rimado and Juan de Mena see, Margarita Morreale, ‘ “Cortegiano Faceto” y “Burlas cortesanas: expresiones italianas y españolas para el análisis y descripción de la risa” ’, BRAE, XXXV (1955), 57–83, at 73, n. 11 and 78 nn. 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67. These attitudes should be distinguished from those of medieval moralists on the fool and folly on which see, for example, M. O'Rourke Boyle, ‘Fools and Schools: Scholastic Dialectic Humanist Rhetoric; From Anselm to Erasmus’, Medievalia et Humanistica, XIII (1985), 173–95. 6. Shem Tov Falaqera, Iggeret Musar (Hebrew), ed. Abraham Meir Haberman (Jerusalem: Meqise Nirdamim, 1936), 33. 7. ed. Abraham Meir Haberman (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1946), 25. 8. Cf. D. Pagis, ‘And Drink thy Wine with Joy: Hedonistic Speculation in Three Wine Songs by Samuel Ha-Nagid’ (Hebrew) in Studies in Literature Presented to Simon Halkin, ed. Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1973). 9. Some aspects of the humour of Bible writings are dealt with in Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1965), see index sv Humour. See also The Day God Laughed: Sayings, Fables, and Entertainments of the Jewish Sages, ed. Hyam Maccoby (New York: St Martin, 1978). Israel Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature (New York: AMS Press, 1907); J. Dishon, ‘Excommunication ...’ 10. A. Mirsky, ‘The Principles of Hebrew Poetry in Spain’ in The Sephardi Heritage, ed. Richard D. Barnett (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1971), 186–274. On the vigour of fifteenth-century European satire see for example ‘La littérature, expression de la société (xivè-xvè siècles)’, Introduction to Rene Schneider and Gustave Cohen, La formation du genie moderne dans l'art de l'occident (Paris: Albin Michel, 1958), 15, 18, 22. See also A. Bossert, La littérature allemande au moyen age, (Paris: Hachette, 1893), 406, 407, 426. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología de poetas líricos castellanos, ed. Enrique Sánchez Reyes, in Obras completas, ed. Rafael de Balbín Lucas (Santander: Aldus, 1944) 138ff, 258ff, 303ff. 11. Tcharni Carmi, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), 27. 12. D. Yellin, Introduction to the Hebrew Poetry of the Spanish Period (3rd edition) (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1978), 102–03. On allusion see also Alejandro Diez Macho, ‘La metáfora y la alusión bíblicas según la Poética Hebraica de Mose ibn Ezra’, Sefarad, V (1945), 49–81. 13. Yellin, op. cit., 110. See also S. A. Bonebakker, ‘Aspects of the History of Literary Rhetoric and Poetics in Arabic literature’, Viator, I (1970), 75–95, at 89. 14. A. M. Hershman, R. Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet and his Times (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1943), 95. 15. MS British Library, Or. 1404 f.18 (the Rylands Haggadah). A facsimile appears in Encyclopaedya Judaica, XI, 940. On these Haggadot see Mendel et Thérèse Metzger, La Haggada enluminée (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973). 16. On Solomon Ha-Levi see Y. Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Philadelphia: JPS, 1978), 139–51 and the bibliography cited in the notes. 17. See I. Abrahams, ‘Paul of Burgos in London’, Jewish Quarterly Review, XII (1900), 255–63; M. Roest, ‘Brief van Salomo ha-Lewi (later als Christen, bisschop Paulus de Burgos) aan Meir Alguadez’, Israelitische Letterbode, X (1884–85), 78–85. 18. Baer, op. cit., 140–41. 19. Contrast medieval Latin wine songs such as the well known ones from the Carmina Burana, ‘Estuans Intrinsecus/ira vehementi’ or ‘Denudata veritate succintaque. . .’ See also Frederick Brittain, The Medieval Latin and Romance Lyric to AD 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1951), 139–40 for the XIIIth C. Sequence for a Drunkard's Mass, ‘vinum bonum’. See also the ‘Vagantendichtung’ section of Paul Klopsch's ‘Die Mittellateinische Lyrik’ in Lyrik des Mittelalters, ed. Heinz Bergnen, (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1983) 168ff. The similarities in the sensibility of what Ernst Robert Curtius has termed ‘hangover humour’ and Solomon's Purim letter deserve separate treatment as they may serve actually to show the changes operative in the conventions of Hebrew poetry after the political christianization of the peninsula. See E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953), Excursus 4. 20. On the Epistle and the author see E. Gutwirth, ‘History and Apologetics in XVth Century Hispano-Jewish thought’, Helmántica, XXXV, 107 (1984), 231–42. See also Y. Baer, A History, vol. 2, 150. 21. R. W. Emery, ‘New light on Profayt Duran the Efodi’, Jewish Quarterly Review, LVIII (1967–68), 328–37. 22. Fritz Baer, Die Juden im Christlischen Spanien, I (Berlin: Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, 1924) 259. 23. Baer, A History, II, 150ff; 154ff; 474. 24. Investigaciones sobre Juan Álvarez Gato, BRAE, Anejo IV, 2nd edition (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1974), 261: ‘... hemos de tomar en cuenta otro factor de subido interés. Se trata de la utilización de palabras de la Biblia, hábilmente trenzadas en el fluir de sus versos, recurso muy frecuente, según vimos... y que en la poesía se hace peculiarmente denso hasta el punto de dejar escaso margen de posibilidad a su uso inconsciente’. On the use of irony by Fernan Díaz de Toledo, see Nicholas G. Round, ‘Politics, Style and Group Attitudes in the Instruccion del Relator’, BHS, XLVI (1969), 289–319. It is unfortunately not possible to deduce anything about the table jokes of Alfonso de Cartagena (son of Pablo de Santa María) from the description by Sánchez de Arévalo in his De questionibus hortolonis. In this book of about 1443–47 Cartagena is said to have observed with approval the custom whereby scholars meet at the table to engage in discussions spiced by jokes. See Richard H. Trame, Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo (1404–1470) Spanish Diplomat and Champion of the Papacy (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1958), 59–60. 25. The text was published about six times. Francisco Cantera edited it in his El poeta Ruy Sánchez Cota (Rodrigo Cota) y su familia de judíos conversos (Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1970) and M. Ciceri published it again in ‘Un epitalamio satírico de Rodrigo Cota’, Cultura Neolatina, XLII (1982), 239–63. See also E. Gutwirth, ‘On the Background to Cota's Epitalamio Burlesco’, Romanische Forschungen, XCVII (1985), 1–14. 26. ‘Humour in La Celestina’, Romance Philology, XXXII (1978–79), 274–91, at 277. See also Nicholas G. Round, ‘Conduct and Values in La Celestina’, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies on Spain and Portugal in Honour of P. E. Russell (Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literatures, 1981), 38–52. But see also Keith Whinnom, ‘Interpreting La Celestina: The Motives and Personality of Fernando de Rojas’, ibid., 53–68. 27. 'Francisco Cantera Burgos and Carlos Carrete Parrondo, ‘La judería de Hita’, Sefarad, XXXII (1972), 249–305, at 264. 28. Yolanda Moreno Koch, ‘La comunidad judaizante de Castillo Garcimuñoz 1489–1492’, Sefarad, XXXVII (1977), 351–71. 29. Francisco Cantera and Carlos Carrete, ‘Las juderías medievales de la provincia de Guadalajara’, Sefarad, XXXIII (1973), 3–44, at 27. 30. Moshe Lazar, ‘Catalan-Provençal Wedding Songs’, in Sefer Hayym Schirmann, ed. Shraga Abramson and Ahron Mirsky (Jerusalem: Schocken Institute, 1980), 159–73 and idem, ‘Epitalames bilingues hebraico-romanes dans deux manuscrits du XVe siècle’, Mélanges de philologie romane dediés à la memoire de Jean Boutière (1899–1967) (Liege: Soledi, 1970), 333–46. Jaume Riera, Cants de Noces dels Jueus Catalans (Barcelona: Curial, 1974). 31. Bonafed's ‘Controversy with the honourables of Saragossa’ (Hebrew), ed. H. Schirmann, Qobes al Yad, N.S. IV (O.S. XIV) (Jerusalem: Megise Nirdamin, 1946). On Benveniste see the poem in Hayym Schirman, Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Provence (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Devim, 1956), vol. II. 32. Gonçalo Perez Jarada, Governor of Trujillo in his declaration before the tribunal of the Inquisition (12/XI/1489) refers repeatedly to ‘burlas’. He gave two pieces of clothing to a Segovian Jew because ‘se burlauan con el cauallero ... como truhan’. The beadle of the local synagogue ‘facia en la cibdad andar por la plaça della con vnas oracias al reues vestidas e vn medio paves e vna lanca a vista de la mayor parte de los vecinos desta que a la sason estauan en ella corriendo con las dichas armas de vna parte a otra’. Hayym Beinart, Trujillo (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980), 294, 307. 33. Francisco Márquez Villanueva, ‘Jewish “Fools” of the Spanish Fifteenth Century’, Hispanic Review, L (1982), 385–409. 34. ‘Une Description possible de l'humeur’, Cahiers Roumains d'Etudes Littéraires, III (1978), 37–47 at 45–46. For the difficulties in defining humour as Spanish, see A. A. Parker, ‘The Humour of Spanish Proverbs’, in The Wisdom of Many. Essays on the Proverb, ed. W. Mieder and Alan Dundes (New York: Garland, 1981) 284–99.