Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Spread of Lay Literacy in Late Medieval Castile

1985; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 62; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382852000362079

1469-3550

Jeremy Lawrance,

Early Modern Spanish Literature

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, Arcipreste de Talavera, o Corbacho, ed. J. González Muela (Madrid: Castalia, 1970), 135. 2. From Script to Print. An Introduction to Medieval Vernacular Literature (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1966), 4. 3. H. M. McLuhan, 'Sight, Sound and the Fury', The Commonweal 60 (9 April 1954), 7–11. 4. Leo Spitzer, 'Note on the Poetic and the Empirical I in Medieval Authors', Traditio, IV (1946), 414–22; Franz H. Bäuml, 'Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy', Speculum, LV (1980), 237–65, see pp. 252–53. Also relevant is the stimulating essay by J. A. Burrow, 'Bards, Minstrels and Men of Letters', in Literature and Western Civilisation, II: The Medieval World, ed. D. Daiches and A. Thorlby (London: Aldus, 1973), 347–70, which discusses the emergence of 'men of letters' such as Boccaccio and Chaucer, who for the first time wrote for 'circles more deeply penetrated by the habits of literacy than had existed before' (361), and the novel kind of literature this involved. 5. 'The Western Literary Public and its Language', in his Literary Language and its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 235–338. 6. For an excellent résumé, see M. B. Parkes, 'The Literacy of the Laity', in Literature and Western Civilisation, II: The Medieval World, 555–77. 7. For the continued convivencia of MS and printed, auditory and visual methods of diffusion in the Golden Age, see Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino, Construcción crítica y realidad histórica en la poesía española de los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid: Castalia, 1968). 8. The following are the noteworthy authorities on the history of libraries, in chronological order: Fray Liciniano Sáez, 'Coste de los libros', in his Demostración histórica del verdadero valor de todas las monedas que corrían en Castilla durante el reynado del señor don Enrique III, y de su correspondencia con las del señor don Carlos IV, etc. (Madrid: Vda. de Ibarra, 1796), Nota XIII, 368–79; Rudolf Beer, Handschriftenschätze Spaniens (Vienna: Hölder, 1894); J. Pérez de Guzmán, 'El libro y la biblioteca en España durante los siglos medios', La España Moderna, año 17, número 202 (octubre 1905), 111–52; M. Schiff, La Bibliothèque du marquis de Santillane (Paris: E. Bouillon, 1905); J. Domínguez Bordona, 'Noticias de manuscritos y bibliotecas en Castilla durante el reino de los Trastámara y Reyes Católicos', in his Introduction to Exposición de códices miniados españoles. Catálogo (Madrid-Barcelona: Sociedad Española de Amigos de Arte, 1929), 112–31 ; T. and J. Carreras Artau, 'Las bibliotecas españolas de la Edad Media', in their Historia de la filosofía española: filosofía cristiana de los siglos XIII al XV, 2 vols (Madrid: Asociación Española para el Progreso de las Ciencias, 1939), I, 68–97; P. Bohigas El libro español: ensayo histórico (Barcelona: G. Gili, 1962), 43–142; and V. Beltrán de Heredia, 'Fomento de la creación de bibliotecas en Castilla', in his Bulario de la Universidad de Salamanca (1219–1549), 3 vols (Salamanca: Univ., 1966–67), I, 169–77. I am not aware of any study specifically devoted to the spread of literacy in medieval Castile; available histories of lay education are quite rudimentary. 9. Even the very best historians can be daunted. See for instance Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada and María Concepción Quintanilla?Raso, 'Bibliotecas de la alta nobleza castellana en el siglo XV', in Livre et lecture en Espagne et en France sous l'Ancien Régime, Colloque de la Casa de Velazquez (Paris: Éditions A.D.P.F., 1981), 47–59: 'al menos por lo que al siglo XV se refiere, los documentos son escasos, poco expresivos … sería temerario lanzar ideas e interpretaciones de conjunto, porque los casos conocidos son pocos, relativamente heterogéneos y bastante dispares en su cronología y ubicación geográfica … con lo que hoy se sabe, hay ya que reconocer a estas relaciones un valor insuficiente', etc. Admirable and salutary cautions, which must be deeply pondered by any student of the subject. But I hope to show that the difficulties, though formidable, are not insuperable. 10. Generaciones y semblanzas, ed. R. B. Tate (London: Tamesis, 1965), 15, my italics. 11. Escorial, MS B-ii-7, fols 103–05. 12. Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, Generaciones y semblanzas, ed. J. Domínguez Bordona (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1954), 65, note 1. Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa died in 1410; his daughter Catalina married Santillana, and many books bearing the arms of Figueroa subsequently passed to the Mendoza library. 13. Schiff, La Bibliothèque du marquis de Santillane, 176–79 (177). 14. Copla 922. My quotations are from Pero López de Ayala, Libro rimado de palaçio, ed. J. Joset, 2 vols (Madrid: Alhambra, 1978). 15. Exposición de códices miniados, 114. 16. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional (hereafter BN) MS 17975, fol. 16v. Villena repeats the term leedor a moment later, apparently in the visual sense: 'por quitar el enojo de los leedores, acatando que en el presente tiempo non quieren tancto estar en el leer de las estorias quanto cumple al entender dellas'. 17. J. N. H. Lawrance, ed., Un tratado de Alonso de Cartagena sobre la educación y los estudios literarios, (Barcelona: Univ. Autónoma de Barcelona, 1979), 41. 18. Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV, ed. P. D'Ancona and E. Aeschlimann (Milan: Hoepli, 1951), 118, 'Cardinale di Mendoza spagnolo' [talking about Santillana]: fece fare in Ispagna in casa sua una librería di libri toscani che volle che fussi comune a chi ne voleva'. See Schiff, Bibliothèque, lvii-lviii for further testimonia. 19. Haro's library was partially reconstructed from an inventory of 1553 (BN MS Res 141) by A. Paz y Melia, 'Biblioteca fundada por el conde de Haro en 1455', RABM, I (1897), 18–24, 60–66,156–63,255–62,452–62; IV (1900), 535–41,662–67; VI (1902), 198–206, 372–82; VII (1902), 51–55; XIX (1908), 124–36; and XX (1909), 277–89. Paz's work is badly in need of revision; I hope to publish shortly a new study of Haro's library. For the Benavente library there is an inventory of c.1450 (Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional (hereafter AHN), Osuna leg. 4210/2, fols 60–67), printed in Sáez, Demostración histórica … Enrique III, 374–79, and Beer, Handschriftenschàtze, 103–09; for a partial reconstruction see J. H. Elsdon, 'The Library of the Counts of Benavente' (dissertation, U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, 1955; 3rd. typescript edition, Ann Arbor, 1962). A new study is promised by Isabel Beceiro (see her 'La biblioteca del conde de Benavente a mediados del siglo XV y su relación con las mentalidades y usos nobiliarios de la época', in En la España medieval, II: Estudios en memoria del profesor D. Salvador de Moxó (Madrid: Univ. Complutense de Madrid, 1982), 135–45 [139, note 11]). 20. The reconstruction based on titles mentioned by Villena in his surviving works by E. Cotarelo, Don Enrique de Villena. Su vida y obras (Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1896), 151–75, though interesting, is suspect. Indirect evidence that Villena patronized the Florentine cartolai is given by the claim, in the gloss to his Eneida, that he was responsible for introducing the Appendix Vergiliana into Castile: 'non eran falladas en Castilla, e trájolas el dicho don Enrrique, que las fizo venir de Florencia,onde se falla habundancia destas obras poéthicas' (BN MS 17975, fol. 5V, glosa b). On the burning of part of his library by Juan II, see T. de Puymaigre, 'Enrique de Villena et sa bibliothèque', Revue des Questions Historiques, XI (1872), 526–34; E. Gascón Vera, 'La quema de los libros de don Enrique de Villena: una maniobra política y antisemítica', BHS, LVI (1979), 317–24. 21. AHN Osuna leg. 215/10 (1), printed in Sáez, Demostración histórica … Enrique III, 374, and Beer, Handschriftenschätze, 402. 22. AHN Osuna leg. 216/6 (2), printed in Sáez, Demostracion histórica del verdadero valor de todas las monedas … de Enrique IV, &c. (Madrid: Vda de Ibarra, 1805), 543–44. Ladero and Quintanilla, 'Bibliotecas de la alta nobleza castellana en el siglo XV, 49–50, confuse the issue by ascribing the first of these two inventories to a Pedro de Zúñiga (d.l453), and the second to a Leonor Manrique, wife of Alvaro de Zúñiga II (d.l468). As far as I can tell from the documents, Sáez was right both times. 23. J. Domínguez Bordona, Manuscritos con pinturas: notas de los conservados en colecciones públicas y particulares de España, 2 vols (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1933), I, 358, plate 302, and Exposición de códices miniados, p. 203, item XCIX; G. Moldenhauer, Contribución al catálogo de manuscritos españoles existentes en bibliotecas portuguesas (Madrid: Tipografía de Archivos, 1928), p. 20 and plate. A richly illuminated fifteenth-century Book of Hours in the Escorial (MS Vitr 10) also bears the arms of Zúñiga; unfortunately, I was unable to to inspect it on my last trip to investigate. 24. The document, which is here published for the first time, is at AHN Osuna 216/1 (I): 'Copia del testamento de D. Gonzalo de Zúñiga, obispo de Jaén, otorgado en Sevilla a 1 de noviembre de 1456 ante Juan Rodríguez de Brazeras' (letra procesal, s. XV, 8 fols), fols 4–4V. This Gonzalo de Zúñiga was of course the famous Battling Bishop of the romance viejo 'Día era de San Antón', of whom legend recorded: 'suele decir misa armado', and that he died a captive of the Moor in Granada (C. C. Smith, ed., Spanish Ballads (Oxford: Pergamon, 1964), 129–31). 25. Exposición histórica del libro: Un milenio del libro español. Guía del visitante, redactada por M. López Serrano y F. Tolsada, Ier. Congreso Ibero-Americano de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Propiedad Intelectual (Madrid: Dirección General de Archivos y Bibliotecas, 1952), p. 32, item 108. 26. M. López Serrano, Libro de la montería del Rey de Castilla Alfonso XI (Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional, 1974), 24–36; Domínguez Bordona, Exposición de códices miniados, 227–28, item CLXXXVIII; B. J. Gallardo, Ensayo de una biblioteca española de libros raros y curiosos, ed. M. R. Zarco del Valle and J. Sancho Rayón, 4 vols (1863; rpt. Madrid: Gredos, 1968), III, 21, item 2304; D. Ángulo Íñiguez, 'Miniaturas del segundo cuarto del siglo XV (Biblia romanceada I.i.3 de la Biblioteca de El Escorial)', Archivo Español de Arte y Arquitectura, V (1929), 225–31. 27. A. Redondo, 'La Bibliothèque de Don Francisco de Zúñiga, Guzmán y Sotomayor, 3e. duc de Béjar (?1500–1544)', Mélanges de la Casa de Velazquez, III (1967), 147–96; the inventory of 234 books donated by Fadrique Enríquez de Ribera to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas in Seville in 1531 is in the Archivo de Medinaceli, fondos Alcalá leg. 16–38, still unpublished (see J. González Moreno, 'Don Fadrique Enríquez de Ribera', Archivo Hispalense, 2a. época, XXXIX [1963], 201–80; see pp. 256–60). 28. F.J. Sánchez Cantón, La biblioteca del marqués de Cenete iniciada por el cardenal Mendoza (1470–1523) (Madrid: CSIC, 1942). Two further sixteenth–century inventories of noble libraries with clear implications for fifteenth-century collecting have recently been published: that of Juan de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, of 1507 (Ladero and Quintanilla, 'Bibliotecas de la alta nobleza', 51–53 and 56–59), and that of Pedro Fernández de Córdoba, Marquis of Priego, of 1518 (M. C. Quintanilla Raso, 'La biblioteca del marqués de Priego', in En la España medieval: Estudios dedicados al profesor D. Julio González González, ed. M. A. Ladero Quesada [Madrid: Univ. Complutense de Madrid, 1980], 347–83). 29. On the oligarchy of the fifteen casas grandes, see L. Suárez Fernández, 'The Kingdom of Castile in the Fifteenth Century', in Spain in the Fifteenth Century, ed. R. Highfield (London: Macmillan, 1972), 80–112; see esp. pp. 96–104. 30. Cancionero de Gómez Manrique, ed. A. Paz y Melia, 2 vols (Madrid: A Pérez Dubrull, 1885), II, 326–39; Pérez de Guzmán, Generaciones y semblanzas, ed. Tate, 99–101 and xi–xii. 31. Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV, 235–38; J. N. H. Lawrance, 'Nuño de Guzmán and Early Spanish Humanism: Some Reconsiderations', Medium Aevum, LI (1982), 55–84. 32. There is a fair amount of writing on the Bible: see C.–O. Nordstrom, The Duke of Alba's Castilian Bible. A Study of the Rabbinical Features of the Miniatures (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1967). 33. Cited from Giannozzo Manetti's Apologia Nunnii (1439), a Latin biography of Guzmán's early life composed from notes by Guzmán himself (and hence related in the first person) : Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica MS Pal Lat 1601, fols 94–134v (fol. 109). 34. Beer, Handschriftenschätze, 116–17; G. Beaujouan, 'La Bibliothèque de l'école médicale du monastère de Guadalupe à l'aube de la Renaissance', in G. Beaujouan, Y. Poulle-Drieux and J. Dureau-Lapeyssonnie, Médecine humaine et vétérinaire à la fin du Moyen Age (Geneva-Paris: Droz, 1966), 365–468 (431–34). 35. BN MSS 7815 and 955 (Alonso de Cartagena's translations of Cicero, De officiis and De senectute and parr of Boccaccio's De casibus virorum illustrium for Juan Alfonso de Zamora, 1420s); BN MS 2208 (anon. translation of Valerius Maximus for Alfonso González de León, 1434); and BN 9219 (Alfonso de Toledo, Invencionario, for Juan Díaz de Alcocer, 1467). 36. 'Chronique du livre espagnol: Inventaires de bibliothèques et documents de librairie dans le monde hispanique aux XVe, XVIe et XVIIe siècles', Revue Française d'Histoire du Livre, XXVIII (1980), 535–57. 37. 'The Education of the Nobility in Later Medieval England', in his The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), 228–47. 38. A. Cárdenas and others, Bibliography of Old Spanish Texts: Literary Texts, (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1977), 110–12. 39. 'General Introduction' to Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century now in the British Museum, X: Spain. Portugal (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1971), ix–xxxv; see p. x. 40. Ph. Berger, 'La lecture à Valence de 1474 à 1504', Mélanges de la Casa de Velazquez, XI (1975), 99–118. 41. Un tratado de Alonso de Cartagena, 37. 42. Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century, x–xi. 43. K. Kohut, 'Zur Vorgeschichte der Diskussion um das Verhältnis von Christentum und antiker Kultur im spanischen Humanismus: Die Rolle des Decretum Gratiani in der Übermittlung patristischen Gedankengutes', Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, LV (1973), 80–106. P. Bohigas, 'Idees de fra Francesc Eiximenis sobre la cultura antiga', Estudis Franciscans, XLII (1930), 80–85, concludes with the remark that Eiximenis 'fa poques concessions a la cultura laica' (85). 44. On Isabel's library, see F. J. Sánchez Cantón, Libros, tapices y cuadros que coleccionó Isabel la Católica (Madrid: CSIC, 1950). Less keen than in the case of Cenete's library (see note 28), Sánchez Cantón surprisingly seems not to realize that the major part of Isabel's library was nothing other than the Royal Library of her father Juan II. His introduction, which treats us to fanciful and embarrassing praise of the Catholic Queen's literary tastes, thus attributes to her the more interesting tastes of her bibliophile father. 45. F. Branciforti, 'Regesta delle opere di Pero López de Ayala', in Saggi e ricerche in memoria di E. Li Gotti, 3 vols (Palermo: Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani, 1962), I, 289–317; see pp. 309–13. 46. ed. Murillo (Madrid: Castalia, 1978), I, 578; see E. C. Riley, Cervantes's Theory of the Novel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 163–64 for further examples (Castíglione, João de Barros) on the superior didactic and exemplary value of classical history ('hazañas ciertas') over romances. 47. A. R. D. Pagden, 'The Diffusion of Aristotle's Moral Philosophy in Spain, ca. 1400-ca. 1600', Traditio, XXXI (1975), 287–313; P. E. Russell and A. R. D. Pagden, 'Nueva luz sobre una versión española cuatrocentista de la Etica a Nicomaco: Bodleian Library MS Span D. 1', in Homenaje a Guillermo Guastavino (Madrid: Asociación Nacional de Bibliotecarios, 1974), 125–46. 48. BN MS 7815; Escorial MS M-ii-5; Madrid, Biblioteca de Palacio MS II-1785; London, British Library MS Harl. 4796; Tulio de officiis y de senectute en romance (Seville: Pegniczer & Herbst, 1501). 49. K. A. Blüher, Seneca in Spanien (Munich: Francke, 1969), 85–117. 50. I say translations in the plural because besides Juan García de Castrojeriz's well-known gloss, copied and printed many times in the fifteenth century, there was also, apparently, a translation by Alfonso Tostado de Madrigal, Bishop of Ávila. As far as I know the unique MS is in London, Victoria and Albert Museum MS L.2463 : 'Libro que trata del regimiento de los príncipes. Bolviólo en castellano el maestre Alfonso de Madrigal e fizole comento e diólo al rey don Juan para su fijo'. This interesting item has not been noticed by Hispanists; it deserves investigation. 51. Pearl Kibre, 'The Intellectual Interests Reflected in Libraries of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries', Journal of the History of Ideas, VII (1946), 257–97, notes the popularity of classical translations (269ff, 281ff.), law (278–79), Roman history (281), and so on. 52. J. N. H. Lawrance, 'Juan Alfonso de Baena's Versified Reading List: A Note on the Aspirations and the Reality of Fifteenth-Century Castilian Culture',/HP, V (1981), 101–22. 53. The nature of the diffusion of prose romances is of course much disputed (e.g. R. M. Walker, 'Oral Delivery or Private Reading? A Contribution to the Debate on the Dissemination of Medieval Literature', FMLS, VII [1971], 36–42). The disappearance of fifteenth-century MSS of the romances is sometimes explained by the theory that they were 'handled' out of existence. The only MS fragment of the Amadís to survive was used as stiffening for the binding of a printed book, which may suggest that such antique MSS were simply used as waste paper once the splendid folio printed editions cornered the market (A. Rodríguez Moñino, 'El primer MS del Amadís de Gaula. Noticia bibliográfica', BRAE, XXXVI [1956], 199–216). But the absence of the romances from the inventories still needs explanation, especially in view of the prominence of romances in French, Italian, Navarrese, Portuguese and Catalan inventories of the time. 54. The research in Spanish libraries which forms the basis of this study was funded by a generous grant from the Research Fund in the Humanities of the British Academy. I also thank my society, Magdalen College Oxford, for constant support. Professor Ian Michael and Dr Clive Griffin made invaluable suggestions, too numerous to mention individually. To them, and to the Hattens, and to Martha: muchísimas gracias.