Medieval Spanish Literature: History, Society, and Culture

Posted on Oct 9, 2024 in Latin

Introduction

The Middle Ages is the historical period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the discovery of America. From a literary perspective, this thousand-year span is reduced by almost half, as the first Castilian literary works date from the 10th century.

Historical Events

After the fall of the Roman Empire, several Germanic peoples settled in Spain. One of these, the Visigoths, unified the peninsula into a kingdom with its capital in Toledo. Civil war led to the Muslim conquest of the Peninsula, which lasted eight centuries. During this time, Christian and Muslim kingdoms coexisted in the north and south, respectively. Medieval Spain was thus ethnically diverse, with:

  • Jews: A highly influential, cultured, and enlightened minority devoted to intellectual pursuits and finance.
  • Mozarabs: Christians living in Muslim territory who retained their religion.
  • Muladíes: Christians who converted to Islam and lived in Muslim territory.
  • Mudéjares: Muslims who lived among Christians without converting.

Thought and Society

The Church, particularly monasteries, preserved cultural heritage. The medieval world had a theocentric worldview. Feudalism, the dominant social organization, was based on vassalage in exchange for land or income. Social classes included:

  • Nobility: Derived influence from economic and military power. Divided into high and low nobility, the former including knights and warriors.
  • Clergy: Divided into upper (Church dignitaries) and lower (common clergy).
  • Peasantry: The majority, engaged in farming and residing in rural areas, often under feudal lords.

From the 13th century, a new social group, the bourgeoisie, emerged. Their economic activity was linked to commerce, and their growing economic power led to political autonomy in some municipalities.

Culture

Medieval culture was disseminated through:

  • The Way of St. James: A road network linking Europe to Santiago de Compostela. It facilitated cultural exchange through pilgrims, merchants, clergy, poets, and artists.
  • The Toledo School of Translators: Founded in the 12th century, it became a cultural hub. Under Alfonso X, Muslims, Jews, and Christians collaborated to translate works from Arabic into Latin and Castilian.
  • Universities.
  • Birth of the Romance languages: Castilian, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, Asturian-Leonese, Navarro-Aragonese, and Mozarabic emerged.

Medieval Poetry

Popular Poetry

Lyric Poetry

Mozarabic Lyric

Mozarabic was the language of Christians in Muslim territory. Jarchas, considered the oldest form of European literature in a Romance language, were written in Mozarabic. These short compositions appear at the end of Arabic or Hebrew poems called moaxajas, dating from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. They focus on love, often featuring a woman lamenting her lover’s absence. The vocabulary is emotional, with frequent interrogative and exclamatory sentences. Some are in dialogue form, often with the mother.

Galician-Portuguese Lyric

Emerging at the end of the 12th century, it typically features a parallelistic structure with repeated verses. Galician-Portuguese lyric poetry includes cantigas of three types:

  • Cantigas de amor: Sung by a man, they develop the theme of courtly love.
  • Cantigas de amigo: Sung by a woman, they lament the absence of a lover.
  • Cantigas de escarnio e maldizer: Satirize vices, defects, or individuals.
Castilian Lyric

Castilian lyric poetry includes mayas, serranillas, canciones, and albaes, but the most representative are the villancicos. These strophic poems consist of a chorus and verses that develop its content, generally focusing on love. Serranillas are influenced by the Provençal tradition.

Narrative Poetry

The Epic and Mester de Juglaría

Epics are verse narratives recounting heroic exploits. Part of oral culture, they were recited by minstrels. They arose in Castile in the 12th century, influenced by the Chanson de Roland and Germanic warrior songs like the Nibelungenlied. Features of epic poetry include:

  • Historicist character.
  • Heroic figure: Embodies the fate of their people and the ideals of the feudal class.
  • Structure: Long lines of 14-16 syllables, divided into two hemistiches separated by a caesura, with assonance rhyme.

Only three Castilian epic poems survive:

  • Cantar de Roncesvalles.
  • Mocedades de Rodrigo.
  • Cantar de Mio Cid.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, the epic declined as the feudal world disappeared. Poets sought new themes and forms, leading to the birth of the romance.

The Ballads

In the 14th century, as the epic declined and public tastes changed, epic poems fragmented into romances. These are poems of variable length, written in eight-syllable verses with assonant rhyme in even-numbered verses and free rhyme in odd-numbered verses. They first appeared in 1421. Themes include:

  • Historical:
    • Border ballads: Narrate events on the frontier during the Reconquista (e.g., Abenamar, moro de la morería).
    • Morisco ballads: Depict the perspective of the conquered Moors with drama and sensibility (e.g., Paseábase el rey moro por la ciudad de Granada).
  • Novelesque: Include some of the finest and best-known ballads (e.g., Romance del Conde Arnaldos, Romance de la infantina).

Romanceros are printed collections of ballads, classified into:

  • Old ballads: Texts from oral tradition, anonymous.
  • New ballads: Written by known authors with artistic intent.

Stylistic features include:

  • Emphasis on action over description.
  • Dialogue structure.
  • In medias res beginnings.
  • Truncated endings.
  • Use of present tense for past events.
  • Lyrical repetitions.
  • Use of questions and exclamations to heighten drama.

Learned Poetry

Narrative Poetry

The Mester de Clerecía

In the 13th century, the mester de clerecía emerged, composed of clerics and intellectuals. Their works were didactic and moral, aiming to disseminate knowledge from Latin texts. The most prominent feature is the use of the cuaderna vía: four-line stanzas with 14-syllable verses, divided into two hemistiches of seven syllables, with consonant rhyme. These works were composed for recitation, not singing, and unlike the mester de juglaría, they were written down. The clergy’s language was Latin, but the need for effective communication with the congregation led to the use of vernacular language, elevating the status of Romance languages. The most important works include:

  • Libro de Alexandre: Introduces the legend of Alexander the Great to Spanish literature.
  • Libro de Apolonio: Presents an adventure story.
  • Poema de Fernán González.
Gonzalo de Berceo (13th century)

One of the most important writers of the mester de clerecía and the first known poet by name. Born in Berceo, he was linked to the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla from a young age. His work can be categorized as:

  • Lives of Saints: Vida de San Millán de la Cogolla.
  • Doctrinal works: El sacrificio de la misa.
  • Marian works: Milagros de Nuestra Señora.

Gonzalo de Berceo’s style is simple and popular. Key features include:

  • Simple style.
  • Use of first-person narration to engage the audience.
  • Use of minstrel techniques like vocatives, formulas, and expressions from oral literature.
  • Use of rhetorical devices like metaphors and comparisons.
  • Use of the cuaderna vía.

Milagros de Nuestra Señora, his most extensive and important work, exalts the Virgin Mary’s role as intercessor for human salvation. It consists of an introduction and twenty miracles, each featuring the Virgin as intercessor for her devotees. The miracles have a similar structure: introduction (setting the scene), the miracle, and an exhortation to the Virgin Mary’s cult and its benefits.

The Archpriest of Hita (14th century)

Libro de buen amor is the most important work of the mester de clerecía in the 14th century. The rise of the bourgeoisie introduced new values alongside religious ones: enjoyment of life’s pleasures and love relationships are reflected in literature. Juan Ruiz’s work showcases this bourgeois world. The author identifies himself as Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita. The central theme is love, both divine and earthly. It consists of over 7,000 verses and, despite its apparent lack of unity, is structured as an autobiographical narrative of love. The protagonist’s adventures are driven by his desire for conquest. The narrative is interspersed with:

  • Enxiemplos (exempla).
  • Satires.
  • Didactic digressions.

The didactic and moralizing intention proclaimed in the prologue is sometimes overshadowed by the celebration of love and life’s joys. The mix of serious and burlesque tones makes it difficult to discern the true intention. It is primarily written in cuaderna vía. Key stylistic features include:

  • Predominance of complex sentences and frequent use of interjections.
  • Repetitions from oral language for humorous, ironic, or affectionate nuances.
  • Abundance of nouns with connotative values.
  • Use of jargon, Arabic, and Catalan vocabulary.
  • Use of rhetorical devices like metaphor, antithesis, and parallelism.

Lyric Poetry

The Provençal Lyric

Composed for singing, it was always accompanied by music and performed by troubadours, who were clerics or knights of noble origin. Originating in southern France, it is a courtly lyric, written in Occitan, with courtly love as its main theme. It idealizes the beloved, to whom homage is paid. The poet devotes his life to love and praises his lady, who is unattainable and treats him with disdain, causing unbearable pain.

Cancionero Poetry

Emerging in the 15th century, known as the Autumn of the Middle Ages or pre-Renaissance, it marks a shift in thought, breaking with the medieval worldview. The theocentric conception of life is replaced by anthropocentrism, celebrating the individual. Spain experiences political turmoil:

  • The nobility is both cultured and warlike.
  • The marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon marks the beginning of the unification of the Iberian Peninsula.
  • The Reconquista ends.

In the 14th century, Italy experiences a flourishing of arts and ideas:

  • Rediscovery of Classical Antiquity: Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Dante Alighieri are at the forefront of this revival. Classical antiquity provides support for an optimistic worldview based on human dignity, confidence in intelligence and morality, and interest in nature.
  • Anthropocentric humanism: A movement that believes in human virtue and the value of effort, allowing individuals to cope with nature and fortune and shape themselves.

This learned poetry, composed for reading, recitation, or singing at court, is characteristic of the 15th century. Its features include:

  • Variety of verses and themes.
  • Artificial language: Uses many figures of speech and highly Latinate syntax with abundant hyperbaton.
  • Cultivation of Castilian verse forms.

This poetry was collected in numerous cancioneros, including:

  • Cancionero de Baena: Collects poetry from the first half of the century.
  • Cancionero General: Includes works from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Important authors include the Marquis of Santillana, Juan de Mena, and Jorge Manrique.

Jorge Manrique

Jorge Manrique was a nobleman and soldier, born in Paredes de Nava (Palencia). Upon his father’s death in 1476, he composed Coplas a la muerte de su padre, his most famous work. He died three years later in the assault on the castle of Garci Muñoz. In Coplas a la muerte de su padre, Jorge Manrique reflects on the passage of time, the ephemerality of worldly goods, the instability of fortune, and the equalizing power of death. This elegy explores themes from classical and medieval literary tradition:

  • Death as a character.
  • Fame or exemplary memory: The legacy left by individuals through their deeds and virtues.
  • Ubi sunt? (Where are they?): A topic of biblical origin expressing grief over the loss of those who have preceded us.
  • Tempus fugit (transience of life).
  • Planctus: Lamentation over the loss of loved ones.

Stylistic features include:

  • Stanzas of six lines with rhyme scheme ABCABC, known as coplas de pie quebrado (broken-foot couplets). The four-syllable verses create a funereal pace.
  • Sober and calm tone, using plain language without artifice.
  • Use of rhetorical devices.

Medieval Prose

Origins

The first Castilian prose writings dating from the reign of Ferdinand III, who left the Latin and establishing Castilian as the language of official documents.
The Prose Alfonsi

Alfonso X promotes the use of Castilian as a link between Christians and Jews and Arabs.
Topics on which Alfonso X the Wise wrote:
· Right: the Book of Acts was written or seven games to give the people of clear legal rules and reasoned in language.
· Science: Astronomy include treaties.
· Games and entertainment: his workThe book Axedrez and dice and tables, translated from Arabic.
· History: wanted to tell the process of humankind from its origins to his time. Produced two works that were incomplete: the General and the General Chronicle Estoria.
Don Juan Manuel

Don Juan Manuel continued the work begun by his uncle, Alfonso X and can be considered the most representative of the XIV century prose.
His work offers a wide variety of themes: vanity, hypocrisy, justice … All of them treated with a clear didactic purpose.
It has a clear conscience as a writer, so his works show their willingness to care for the style. Is concerned by language, with a large vocabulary, a precise adjectives and excessive use of copular sentences, which gives his writing a slow pace.
Book Patronio or Lucanor Count
These apologists, that is, stories with didactic intent which normally have a moral end.
The young Earl seeks advice from Patronio, which raises a number of situations, which responds Patronio setting an example. The stories end with a moral.
All stories have frame structure.