Juan Manuel, a selection 9780729300841, 0729300846

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UNIVERSIOAD DEALCALA 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 11111111

5902816675

Edited, with introduction and notes, by IAN MACPHERSON Professor of Spanish, University of Durham

TAMESIS TEXTS LIMITED LONDON

TAMESIS TEXTS Medieval Literature:

Series Editor, A. D. Deyermond

© Copyright, Tamesis Texts Limited London, 1980 ISBN 0 7293 0084 6

To Sheila O! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown: The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair State, The glass of fashion and the mould of form ...

Hamlet, Act III, Sc. i, 159-62

Dep6sito legal: M. 42871-1980 Printed in Spain by SELECCIONES GRA.FICAS Carretera de lrun, km. 11,500 • Madrid for T AMESIS TEXTS LIMITED LONDON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION My thanks are due to all colleagues and friends, in particular Alan Deyermond, David Crane, Daniel Rogers and Pat Holliday, who have genei:ously given of their time, patience and advice during the preparation of this volume. I also gratefully acknowledge the encouragement and financial support of the Research Fund Committee of the University of Durham.

Life of Juan Manuel The Succession in Spain and Portugal Don Juan the Public Figure Don Juan and Dominican Thought Don Juan the Man of Letters Works Editorial Criteria Selected Critical Bibliography Genealogical Tables

XI

XIII XIII

XVIII XIX

XXX XXXII

XXXVII XXXVIII XLI XLIV

ADVERTENCIA

3

PR6LOGO

5

GENERAL

LIBRO DEL CAVALLERO ET DEL ESCUDERO

8

LIBRO DE LOS EST ADOS

14

LIBRO DEL CONDE LUCANOR ET DE PATRONIO

48

I II III

Libro de los enxemplos Libro de los proverbios La salvaci6n de las almas

48 109 113

LAS MANERAS DEL AMOR

119

RAZON DEL REY DON SANCHO

127

DEFECTIVE MANUSCRIPT READINGS

133

NOTES

135

SELECTED ARTICLES ON JUAN MANUEL

161

GLOSSARY

165

ABBREVIATIONS

1. JOURNALS AND COLLECTIONS BAE BH BHS BICC BRAE CL Cull FiR HBalt HR JMS KFLQ MLN MPh NRFH PMLA RABM RF RPh SHRL SP 2.

Biblioteca de Autores Espafioles Bulletin Hispanique Bulletin of Hispanic Studies Thesaurus. Boletin de/ Instituto Caro y Cuervo Boletin de la Real Academia Espaiiola Comparative Literature Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos Filologia Romanza Hispania (U.S.A.) Hispanic Review Juan Manuel Studies (London: Tamesis, 1977) Kentucky Foreign Language Quarterly Modern Language Notes Modern Philology Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispdnica Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos Romanische Forschungen Romance Philology Studia hispanica in honorem R. Lapesa, 3 vols (Madrid: CatedraSeminario Menendez Pidal and Gredos, 1972-75) Studies in Philology

OTHER WORKS

Argote

Armas

Cavallero

Caza Estados

Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, ed. Gonzalo Argote de Molina (Sevilla, 1575). [Repr. in facsimile, with introduction by Enrique Miralles (Barcelona: Puvill, 1978)] Juan Manuel, Libra de las armas, in Obras de don Juan Manuel, ed. J. M. Castro y Calvo and Martin de Riquer (Barcelona: Clasicos Hispanicos, 1955), pp. 74-92 Juan Manuel, Libra del cavallero et del escudero, in Obras de don Juan Manuel, ed. J.M. Castro y Calvo and Martin de Riquer (Barcelona: Clasicos Hispanicos, 1955), pp. 8-72 Juan Manuel, Libra de la caza, ed. G. Baist (Halle, 1880) Juan Manuel, Libra de los estados, ed. R. B. Tate and I. R. Macpherson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974)

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GS Infinido Lucanor Maneras Partidas Pr6logo

IAN MACPHERSON

Andres Gimenez Soler, Don Juan Manuel. Biografia y estudio critico (Zaragoza: La Academica, 1932) Juan Manuel, Libra infinido y tractado de la asunci6n, ed. Jose Manuel Blecua (Granada: Univ. de Granada, 1952) Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, ed. Jose Manuel Blecua (Madrid: Castalia, 1969; 2nd ed., 1971) Las maneras de/ amor. Ch. 26 of Juan Manuel, Libra infinido, ed. Jose Manuel Blecua (Granada: Univ. de Granada, 1952) Alfonso X de Castilla, Las siete partidas, 3 vols (Madrid, 1807; repr. 1972) Juan Manuel, Pr6logo general, in Obras de don Juan Manuel, ed. J. M. Castro y Calvo and Martfn de Riquer (Barcelona: Clasicos Hispanicos, 1955), pp. 3-5

INTRODUCTION

The long, active life-span of Don Juan Manuel of Castile (1282-1348) marks him out as one of the most turbulent and controversial figures, both political and literary, of the fourteenth century. As a statesman and politician, he lived through the reigns of four kings of Castile, and five of Aragon; he became joint regent of Castile for a period during the minority of Alfonso XI and was a prominent figure in the continuing disputes over the Castilian succession: his grandfather reigned in Castile; his grandsons reigned there and in Portugal. In the course of a full and energetic life, he never allowed his constant involvement in affairs of state to divert him totally from his love of falconry and the chase. His concern for the Catholic Church and the Dominican Order led him to found and endow the monastery of Pefiafiel in 1318, and to display a continuing concern in his writings as to how best a Christian nobleman might devote himself to the problem of the salvation of his eternal soul. His love of books is amply demonstrated by his own contribution to fourteenth-century letters: he found time, particularly in the period 1327-37, to write, for the benefit of his contemporaries and for posterity, on subjects as diverse as chivalry, siege engines, the State, falconry, the Church, poetry, and the nature of society, and to assemble a collection of fifty-one exemplary tales, now known as El Conde Lucanor, which has led critics to describe him as the founder of the short story in Europe and which has assured him a place in the standard histories of literature. While his contemporary Juan Ruiz is by general assent a more imaginative and colourful figure, Juan Manuel may well lay claim to being the more versatile and, from a purely literary point of view, there is a case to be made that he was the greater innovator (see pp. xxxii-xxxvii).

LIFE OF JUAN MANUEL

Of the many factors which shaped the personality and historical role of Juan Manuel, it is possible to distinguish two which predominate.

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INTRODUCTION

The first of these was the accident of his birth into a family which was close to the throne of Castile, on familiar terms with the Crown of Aragon, and one of the most powerful and influential in the Iberian Peninsula. Don Juan's father was Manuel, the youngest son of Fernando III, el Santo, of Castile and Leon; his mother was Manuel's second wife, Beatrice of Savoy. When he was born, in Escalona, on 5 May, 1282, his uncle Alfonso X, el Sabio, reigned in Castile; the kings of Aragon (Alfonso III) and Sicily (Jaime II) were brothers of his father's first wife Constarn;;a of Aragon, daughter of the legendary Jaime I, el Conqueridor. Thus when he informs his son Fernando in Infinido that 'non ha omne en Espana de mayor grado que v6s, si non es rey' (V, p. 35), and that 'loado a Dios, de linage non devedes nada a ninguno' (V, p. 36), this need not be taken as an example of overweening pride: what Don Juan has to tell Fernando is a plain, though humourless, statement of what he sees with some justification as the literal truth. The reasons why he feels his own line particularly blessed are spelled out by him in the Razon de don Sancho (pp. 130-31). Juan Manuel was thrust inexorably into the forefront of political life in Spain as a nobleman of high power and influence at a time when the struggle for power between throne and nobility was at its height, and as a member of a family close to the thrones of Aragon and Castile at a time when dynastic disputes over the Castilian throne inevitably involved the Aragonese throne as well. Throughout his writings he refers constantly to the problems of conscience which have to be faced by a nobleman who finds himself, as a result of his birthright, in such a situation, and the necessity of facing up squarely and honestly to these problems. The dynastic disputes in Castile which followed the death of Alfonso X in 1284, just two years after Don Juan's birth, were the second major chance element affecting his destiny. Alfonso's eldest son Fernando de la Cerda had been killed in battle while still a young man, leaving two sons, Alfonso and Fernando, the Infantes de la Cerda, whose claims to the throne assumed by Alfonso X's second son Sancho, along with the political aspirations of those around them, were to involve Castile in a period -of political unrest and violence which continued through the reigns of Sancho IV (1284-95), Fernando IV (1295-1312) and Alfonso XI (1312-50), and from which no nobleman of influence and standing could easily dissociate himself. Juan Manuel and his half-sister Violante were orphaned by 1290,

when Don Juan was eight years old; the children were brought up under the guardianship of Sancho IV, and the warmth and affection which Don Juan felt for his cousin is clearly reflected in his account of his experiences as a twelve-year-old boy at the bedside of the dying king (Razon de don Sancho, pp. 127-32). From this point onwards Juan Manuel became increasingly involved in the political life of the Peninsula. Sancho's widow, Maria de Molina, struggled to preserve her young son Fernando on the throne, while the Crown of Aragon threw its weight behind the Cerda faction. Juan Manuel's advisers kept him out of the struggle for a few years, and it was at this period that he made his first marriage, in 1299, to Isabel of Majorca, granddaughter of Jaime I of Aragon; Isabel, however, died of consumption two years later, in 1301. Don Juan had inherited from his father, among other titles and properties, the Governorship of Murcia and the city of Eiche, on the Castilian-Aragonese border, along with the surrounding lands. When Jaime II of Aragon claimed Eiche and its territory in 1296, and handed them over as part of the kingdom of Murcia to the Cerda pretender to the throne of Castile, Juan Manuel, who believed his title to Elche to be an inalienable birthright, handed down by his father, threw himself into the political life of the country. His trip to see Jaime II in 1303 was made with the double purpose of discussing the position of Eiche and, after some courting of the pro-Cerda faction by Don Juan, the question of the succession to the Castilian throne. Don Juan returned from Aragon having agreed to recognize Jaime II's claims to Murcia (including Eiche), having promised Jaime his neutrality in the event of a CastilianAragonese war, and having in return for these concessions arranged a prestigious and advantageous second marriage with Jaime's daughter Constarn;:a, then still a little girl. This did not please the powerful Lara family, who had been negotiating a marriage between Don Juan and Juana Nufiez, la Palomilla (later to become his mother-in-law), nor the king, Fernando, who is alleged by Jaime II in a surviving letter of 1303 to have been plotting Don Juan's imprisonment or murder at this time. From this point, Don Juan's relationships with the Crown of Castile and the Laras were never better than an uneasy truce, which at times broke into open conflict. Don Juan's marriage to the Aragonese Princess Constaiwa took place in 1312, when the girl reached the age of twelve. In the same year Fernando IV died, of a seizure; his son, Alfonso XI, was only

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INTRODUCTION

IAN MACPHERSON

one year old, and the troubles of the kingdom continued. A joint regency of Maria de Molina, the Infante Juan (Alfonso's greatuncle), and the Infante Pedro (Alfonso's uncle) angered Juan Manuel by replacing him as Governor of Murcia by Diego Lopez de Haro. The death of the two Infantes in battle on the plains of Granada in 1319 provoked further internal troubles; Juan Manuel campaigned actively and singlemindedly for the Regency until he achieved his aims, and from 1321 to 1325 he became one of a new triumvirate of Regents, along with his friend Don Juan el Tuerto (the son of Sancho IV's elder brother Juan), and the Infante Felipe (Alfonso XI's uncle). Spain remained in a state of unrest, and Don Juan (Estados, I, lxii, pp. 20-21) describes an unsuccessful attempt on his life in 1322, at Villa6fiez, by his fellow-regent Felipe. Late in 1325, Alfonso XI was prematurely declared of age, and the three Regents relinquished their powers; the young king Alfonso and his advisers remained deeply suspicious of Juan Manuel and his close family ties with the Crown of Aragon for the rest of Don Juan's life. It was the alliance and friendship between Juan Manuel and Juan el Tuerto, to be strengthened by the proposed marriage of Juan el Tuerto and Juan Manuel's daughter Costanc;a, which led the advisers of the fifteen-year-old Alfonso XI to intervene with a proposal that Costanc;a should marry the young king. Juan Manuel, tempted by the influence and standing that such a marriage would bring him, agreed, and from this time on things began to go badly wrong for him and his unfortunate daughter. Alfonso enticed Juan el Tuerto to Toro, where he had him treacherously murdered in 1326, and began to make preparations to marry the Portuguese Infanta Maria (daughter of Afonso IV), rather than Costanca; Don Juan felt himself insulted, humiliated and dishonoured ~nd publ!cly declared himself to be no longer a subject of the Ki~g of Castile. Alfonso shut up Costanc;a as virtual hostage in the castle at Toro; Don Juan declared war on Alfonso, sought the aid of the Moors of Granada, and with the help of his friend and neicrhbour Don Jaime of Jerica (mentioned in Parts II and IV of L:canor) engaged in a series of rather indecisive skirmishes and sieges. Don Juan writes about this situation in Estados, I, lxx, pp. 33-34; he clearly felt very strongly that this was a case where the defence of his personal honour took precedence over all other obligations, and he saw no alternative to a final break with Alfonso, 'que ante

XVII

queria sofrir todo lo al que la desonra, et que el se tenia por uno de los que eran para ser muertos mas no desonrados' (p. 34). The years from 1327 to 1329 represent perhaps the lowest point in Juan Manuel's personal fortunes. Not only did the indecisive conflict with Alfonso continue, but the year 1327 also brought the death of Don Juan's second wife Constanc;a, followed quickly by that of her father Jaime II of Aragon, and a consequent weakening of the ties between the Manuel family and the Crown of Aragon. Jaime's son, Alfonso IV, proved a weak and indecisive king, and so dominated by his Castilian queen (Leonor, sister of Alfonso XI) that Juan Manuel could no longer count on Aragonese support in his political manoeuvres. This is the 'doloroso et triste tiempo' (p. 14) in which Juan Manuel sat down to write Estados, and it ushered in a period when Don Juan withdrew to a considerable extent from political life, avoided contact with Alfonso, and concentrated on his literary activities and his hunting. Estados, Infinido, Lucanor and Armas are all products of this period. The struggle with Alfonso dragged on intermittently until 1329, when through the intervention of the Bishop of Oviedo reconciliation between the two men was eventually effected, indemnities for the damage Don Juan had done to royal lands were cancelled, Costanc;a was released from Toro, and Don Juan was reinstated as Governor of Murcia. The king was prepared to concede a great deal in order to clear up the last serious source of disaffection in his kingdom. Later, what Don Juan was able to accept as a suitably prestigious and face-saving marriage for his daughter was contracted with the Infante Pedro (later Pedro I) of Portugal. In 1329, the year when a truce with Alfonso was eventually achieved, Juan Manuel was still without a male heir and had reached the age of forty-seven. His second wife Constanca had given him two sons, both of whom died young, and two da~ghters, Costanc;a and Beatriz. A third marriage contracted that year, to Blanca Nunez de la Cerda, granddaughter of Fernando de la Cerda, brought him in 1332 a legitimate male heir, Fernando, and seven years later a daughter Juana, as well as a group of influential, militarily powerful, and wealthy relations. His new wife Blanca was the daughter of the same Juana Nufiez de Lara whom he had so nearly married in 1303, and the marriage, at least in the short term, proved an astute political move: Juan Manuel's alliance with the Cerda and the Lara families strengthened his bargaining position 2

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IAN MACPHERSON

considerably in Castile and clearly influenced the favourable terms on which Alfonso was willing to negotiate peace in 1329. The rest of Don Juan's life is the story of an uneasy and intermittent coexistence with Alfonso XI. Don Juan turned his attention with Alfonso to the Moors on the frontier of Murcia, and fought with his king in the defeat of a Moorish army at the Salado, the last great battle of the Reconquest, and in the successful campaign which resulted in the recapture of Algeciras in 1344. Four years after Algeciras, on 13 June 1348, after a very full life of intrigue, military campaigns, three marriages and not a little personal frustration and disappointment, Don Juan died at the ripe old age of sixty-six. His body was interred, according to his own wishes, in the Dominican monastery of San Pablo de Pefiafiel. The tomb has not survived.

THE SUCCESSION

IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

Juan Manuel's only surviving legitimate son Fernando inherited his father's titles and estates, and reinforced the Aragonese connexion in 1346 by marrying Juana d'Espina, daughter of Ramon Berenguer, youngest son of Jaime II of Aragon. In Razon del rey don Sancho, p. 131, Don Juan proudly recounts the prediction made by his grandfather Fernando III: 'que nunca en este linage falleciesse heredero legitimo'. The prediction proved inaccurate, however, and the legitimate male line of the Manueles came to an end in 1360, when Blanca, the only child of Don Juan's son Fernando, died unmarried. In partial compensation, two of Don Juan's daughters gave birth to children who subsequently became kings. Costanc;a, daughter of Juan Manuel's second wife Constanc;a of Aragon, was eventually permitted by Alfonso XI to join her future husband Pedro I of Portugal in 1340, as part of the Portuguese-Castilian treaty of Seville. Her marriage brought her little joy, however, for she died in childbirth in 1345, and her husband Pedro took as his mistress a Galician lady-in-waiting, Ines de Castro, who had accompanied Costanc;a to Portugal. Nevertheless, Costanc;a's eldest son Fernando succeeded to the Portuguese throne in 1367, and became the first grandson of Juan Manuel to reign in the Peninsula. In Castile, Alfonso XI soon abandoned Maria, his new Portuguese wife, in favour of a spectacular affair with the beautiful

INTRODUCTION

XIX

Sevillian Leonor de Guzman, whom he installed openly in the royal palace (much to Juan Manuel's disgust and anger). Leonor de Guzman bore Alfonso five illegitimate sons and managed, late in 1350, two years after the death of Juan Manuel, to contrive the marriage of the eldest of these, Enrique of Trastamara, to Juan Manuel's daughter Juana. On Good Friday of that year, Alfonso XI died of bubonic plague during the siege of Gibraltar, and the War of Succession which raged in Castile between the legitimate heir Pedro, and his five illegitimate half-brothers eventually ended in 1369 with the murder of Pedro by Enrique in Montiel. The Trastamara faction _prev~iled, the son of Leonor de Guzman became Enrique II of Castile, fnst of the bastard line of Trastamara, and Juana's son, grandson of Juan Manu;l, later ruled Spain as Juan I (1379-90), the second of the Trastamaran line. The fates dealt curiously with Juan Manuel. His grandfather, Fernando el Santo, reigned in Castile; Don Juan spent a lifetime c~ose to the thr?ne without any real possibility of succeeding to it himself, and without ever feeling much respect for those of his relations who through what he saw as an accident of birth were call:d upon to reign in his lifetime. His desire to preserve the family name and properties through a legitimate male heir was frustrated withi~ two years of his death when his only surviving son Fernando died. Nevertheless, in 1367 his daughter Costanca's son Fernando I su~ceeded to the Portuguese throne, and twelve y;ars later the son of his daughter Juana and of an illegitimate usurper succeeded to the throne of Castile as Juan I.

* DON JUAN THE PUBLIC

*

*

FIGURE

The Juan Manuel characterized by his writings is a figure who has both feet set firmly in his own times. He accepts the attitudes and aspirations of his period, and is very much a product of the age and the class into which he was born. There is no questioning of the nature or structure of society, nor of its fundamental belief~; the noble~an, for Don Juan, must work from within society and aim at self-fulfilment and salvation within the divinely-ordained system. In this area, he is no innovator.

. _The ~tatus qua. For medieval man, society was known to be d1v1ded mto three estates--oradores (dedicated to the salvation of

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IAN MACPHERSON

the community), defensores (to govern it and defend it by arms), labradores (to support it by the sweat of their brow). This view of the world was known to be the will of God, who placed all men in a preordained position within the social framework, and to be a reflection of the Holy Trinity and the three Orders of Angels; it is an order which Juan Manuel never challenges. His world is the world of those around him, and he devotes much of his Libro de los estados to describing each of those three estates. That he should begin with the Second Estate is only to be expected, for this is the estate of which he has first-hand knowledge. Thus the bulk of Estados, I, is devoted to the defensores, with a few cursory chapters at the end sufficing for the labradores, since Don Juan admits to little specialist knowledge of their affairs and indeed not over much interest in them. In Part II, after some characteristically diffident remarks about his competence to do so, he turns to the affairs of the oradores, with an exposition of the duties of the clergy and an explanation in rational terms of the Christian interpretation of the divine creation. A hierarchy of the three estates can be distinguished, and within each estate further subdivisions prevail, extending from most to ·least perfect, from the highest rank to the lowest. In an early work, Don Juan uses the old knight to mark out the hierarchy: he informs the squire (Cavallero, xvii) that the most honoured estate is the First, the most honoured figure in it is the celebrant priest, and the higher the rank of the priest 'asi como obispo o arc;obispo o cardenal o papa' the higher his standing within his own estate. In Cavallero, xviii, the knight goes on to observe that 'el mayor et mas onrado estado que es entre los legos es la cavallerfa' (p. 9) thus giving perspective to what Don Juan has to say in the course of his works about the particular problems of his own estate. Don Juan is proud-he would argue justifiably proud--of having been placed by his Creator in a high and prestigious position in the Second Estate. His birthright marks him out as a leading figure among the nobles defensores of Spain, yet he takes pains to establish his secondary position in relation to all in the estate of oradores. The nobleman must accept his estate as a direct gift of God, confront any problems set by it, and set his face against the temptation to sidestep such problems by changing his estate for another against the will of God. In Lucanor, I, iii, p. 55, Patronio reminds his master that the path to salvation cannot be reached by turning his back on his estado and retreating to a monastery, above 0

XXI

a~l because. h~-:vould be called a coward and accused of evading his respons1b1ht1es.And how could a nobleman live with himself when he had been branded a coward, or when he had deliberately sought to run from the charge which God placed upon him? This would be unthinkable. The nobleman, then, must live out his life within his own estate, accepting that it is God's will that he do so. If he is to succeed within that estate, he must learn to recognize and understand the privileges which it brings and fully abide by the special responsibilities which it involves. Much of Juan Manuel's didacticism is concerned with these two considerations. The Nobleman's Privileges

. Juan J:1anuel is keenly aware of the privileges conferred by his birth, which for the great nobleman consist essentially of inherited status and wealth. Status. On the subject of his standing in the Second Estate Don Juan informs his young son Fernando in Infinido that sine~ 'los reys en la tierra son a semejanc,;ade Dios' (Ch. iv), he must behave well and respectfully towards them; nevertheless Fernando should be aware that 'el vuestro estado et de vuestros fijos herederos que mas se allega a la manera de los reys, que a la manera de los ricos omnes' (Ch. vi). He assures his infant son that:

yo en Espana non vos fallo amigo en egual grado; ea si fuere el rey de Castiella o su fijo eredero, estos son vuestros sefiores; mas otro infante, nin otro omne en el sefiorio de Castiella, non es amigo en egual grado de v6s; ea, loado a Dios, de linage non devedes nada a ninguno. (Infinido, vi) S~c_hstatements as these have frequently been brought forward by cntics as examples of unacceptable arrogance; it could nonetheless be observed that Don Juan is doing no more here than describe his situation as he sees it. What he tells Fernando is literally true. Juan Manuel, as the son of a Prince of the realm, as the grandson of Fernando el Santo, as the son-in-law of Jaime II of Aragon, as the ex-regent of Spain, was in a position second to none among the high nobility of Spain, ranking only behind the royal family. To equate himself in lineage with the royal family would be presumptuous; Juan Manuel is scrupulous throughout his writings never to do this, although in

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Armas he shows himself prepared to attempt some fairly determined sabotage of the royal branch of the family:

oi quando la reina dofia Beatriz, mi abuela, era enc;:intade mio padre, que sofiara que por aquella criatura et por su

linage avia a ser vengada la muerte de Jesucristo, et ella dixolo al rey don Fernando, su marido; et oi dezir que dixera el rey quel parec;:iaeste suefio muy contrario del que ella sofiara quando estava enc;:inta del rey don Alfonso, su fijo, que fue despues rey de Castiella. (Armas, p. 76) Don Juan elaborates on this insinuation in the third part of Armas, where the dying Sancho IV, according to Don Juan, was unable to confer his blessing on his young cousin because he himself had been cursed by his father, Alfonso X. Alfonso X in his turn had not received the blessing of Fernando el Santo; moreover, Sancho's mother, Violante of Aragon, suspected of poisoning her sister Constan9a, had not received the blessing of her father, Jaime I of Aragon. On the other hand, Don Juan reports Sancho's next words as: 'Et s6 bien c;:iertoque la [bendeci6n] avedes v6s complidamente de vuestro padre et de la vuestra madre, ea ellos heredaronla de los suyos' (Razon del rey don Sancho, p. 130). The reader is left to draw his own conclusions from a comparison between the discredited and accursed royal family and the blessed line of Prince Manuel, through whom the death of Jesus Christ was to be avenged. Wealth. Although Don Juan complains of family poverty, in particular of the circumstances whereby Fernando el Santo was able to leave his youngest son only his blessing, his sword Lobera, and the family coat of arms (Razon de don Sancho, pp. 130-31), there can be little doubt that by the time of his maturity he was in material terms one of the richest men in Spain. In an age when wealth depended largely upon possessions and seigniorage, Juan Manuel was one of the principal landowners of the country, Lord of Eiche, Pefiafiel, Alarcon, Escalona and other towns, Governor of the Frontier and of Murcia, and able to tell his son Fernando ([nfinido, vi) that:

de la vuestra heredat [podedes] mantener c;:erca de mill cavalleros, sin bien fecho del rey, e podedes ir del reino de Navara fasta el reino de Granada, que cada noche posedes en villa 9ercada o en castiellos de los que yo he. Et segund

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el estado que mantovo el infante don Manuel, vuestro abuelo, e don Alfonso, su fijo, que era su heredero, e yo despues que don Alfonso muri6 [et] finque yo heredero en su lugar, nunca se falla que infante, nin su fijo, nin su nieto, tal estado mantoviesen commo n6s tenemos mantenido. With a thousand horsemen on direct call, and lands stretching from Navarre to Granada, Juan Manuel could consider himself, with little fear of contradiction, one of the most wealthy and powerful ricoshombres of the Peninsula. In the course of his writings he does not show himself to be immodest about his lineage, his status, or his material wealth; these are privileges which he accepts, without false modesty, as a God-given birthright. The Nobleman's Responsibilities

Having been placed by his Creator in a high and privileged position in the Second Estate, Don Juan is keenly aware of the responsibilities of that position. While the nobleman's privileges occupy remarkably little of his attention, the conflicting responsibilities of a soldier-statesman who is at the same time a believing and practising Christian represent a subject to which he returns again and again. For Don Juan, the first duty of the nobleman is to face up honestly to his responsibilities, and to himself. If a man finds himself born into the world in the estado of aristocrat and soldier, it is his duty to himself, to all those who depend on him in a hierarchical society, to his associates and friends, and ultimately to his God, to be a successful aristocrat and soldier. This is the essential message of Don Juan's writings. Body. While the nobleman must be aware that 'la salud et la enfermedat et la vida et la muerte que todo esta en la voluntad de Dias' ([nfinido, ii), Don Juan insists that he should do everything possible to help himself to cultivate a healthy body as a proper frame for a healthy mind. Consequently the second chapter of Infinido is devoted to detailed and practical advice as to how the young nobleman should attend to his physical condition, by eating and drinking in moderation, by taking physical exercise before rather than after meals, by not overtaxing the body and by getting plenty of sleep (always a major concern of Don Juan, who complains frequently of the way in which insomnia appears to run in his family). The nobleman should be prepared to try all kinds of food, but should concentrate on wine and meat with as little

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INTRODUCTION

seasoning as possible; he should water his wine and not drink between meals; he should seek out a good Jewish physician and abide by his advice. In the famous section on the upbringing of the young Emperor (Estados, I, lxvii, pp. 28-31), Juan Manuel stresses the need to produce a complete man. Education should aim at striking a balance between a strong body and a cultivated mind, never concentrating on one to the exclusion of the other; thus the young Emperor, by alternating his efforts throughout the week between scholarly and knightly pursuits, 'non dexara por el leer lo que a de saber de cavalleria, nin por lo al el leer' (p. 31 ). These passages provide very clear illustrations of Don Juan's didactic approach. Both theory and practical detail concern him. A healthy body is a basic necessity for the nobleman; Don Juan states his case, taking care to give it perspective (it should accompany a cultivated mind, and the two must be treated as of exactly equal importance in the moulding of the ideal man). Having provided the perspective, Don Juan is unselfconscious about discussing the fine detail by which one half of this particular prescription may be filled.

they are, and especially with the problem of dealing with the cheat, hypocrite or false friend who approaches with elaborate offers of help and friendship when in fact his aim is to deceive, which provokes many of the exempla and provides the background to much of the didacticism of Lucanor. Exemplo xlviii is devoted exclusively to the testing of friendship. Juan Manuel's advice in such circumstances tends to be practical and worldly: learn to recognize the situation and identify the cheat or hypocrite, turn the situation to your own advantage if you can, steer well clear of him if you cannot. The relevance of the group of tales in Lucanor which deal with friendship is that Don Juan sees the need to understand the nature of other men as one of the most constantly recurring problems which the statesman has to face in the exercise of his affairs. This is a problem on which, by the nature of his estado, he cannot and must not turn his back; he must face up squarely to the necessity of daily contact with those less scrupulous and honest than himself, and learn to deal with them. Should he fail to do this, he will fail as a statesman. Equally important for the noble is the need to attend to his fama, his personal standing in the eyes of the world around him. Don Juan illustrates this most succinctly in Lucanor, I, xlvi, where the innocent but misundertood activities of the constipated philosopher among the ladies of easy virtue lead to the loss of his buena Jama, and Patronio advises his master: 'Et devedes saber que en las cosas que tafien a la fama, que tanto aprovecha o enpeye lo que las gentes tienen et dizen commo lo que es verdat en si' (p. 94 ). A preoccupation with what the world thinks to be the case rather than what has actually happened may seem rather odd at first sight; Patronio's point, however, is that if a nobleman is concerned with justifying his way of life, with justifying himself to himself, then the opinion which others have of him is critical. A man can live more easily with himself if he knows he has the respect of others.

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Neighbour. Having ensured for himself a body equipped to deal with the stresses and strains of daily life, the noble must confront the problems which that life will inevitably set him. Juan Manuel accepts that man is a social animal, and stresses throughout that since his position of responsibility will involve day-to-day contact with all sorts of men, from all walks of life, he must learn to deal with them. Some will be trustworthy, some not; some will wish him well, some will seek to undermine his position or to destroy him. There will be all manner of finer distinctions, and if he is to justify his role the nobleman must out of sheer necessity acquire the ability to 'cognoscer los omnes quales son en sf et qual entendimiento an' (p. 101). To this end, Don Juan compiled what can be regarded as a reference list of fifteen types of friendship soon after completing Lucanor; he appended this list as a postscript to Infinido~ and it appears in this anthology under the title Las maneras del amor (pp. 119-26). Above all, Juan Manuel advocates understanding and caution: understanding of the nature of the friendship which may be offered, caution in the way in which a man deals with such offers. A man should risk nothing until the friendship has been tried and tested. It is this preoccupation with recognizing men for what

XXV

Self. The close connexion between fama and honra is obvious for Juan Manuel, although this does not prevent him from drawing attention to it on a number of occasions. Thus when Patronio urges his master in Ex. xlix that 'todo lo que pudierdes fazer por levar vuestra onra et vuestro estado adelante, tengo que lo devedes fazer et es bien que lo fagades' (p. 100), the essential point which Don Juan is arguing is that it is necessary to keep a careful eye on one's reputation in the eyes of the world, because it is only by doing so that one can become a worthy statesman and nobleman.

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Personal honour is a privilege inherited by the high-born, and it must be maintained. It is unthinkable, for example, that the nobleman would withdraw from any course of action, even one as unpalatable as declaring open war on his king, when he recognizes that his honour is at stake; thus Don Juan, referring to his open conflict with Alfonso XI in Estados, I, lxx, observes firmly: 'Et por ende deve omne escusar quanto pudiere de non aver guerra. Et todas las otras cosas deve omne ante sofrir que comenc;ar guerra, salvo la desonra' (p. 33). A few lines later, Don Juan defines himself as a man who would rather face death than dishonour. The nobleman has no real choice in these matters; his choices are made for him by the nature of his birthright, and self-respect can be preserved only by a proper understanding of the nature of his responsibilities to his estate. Don Juan also presents the need for self-knowledge as central and vital to the nobleman. The nobleman must question his own motives at all times, for in the final reckoning his judge will be his Creator, not his dependents or his peers. The theme of man's inner nature is introduced in the Prologue to Lucanor (p. 48), where Don Juan uses the traditional analogy of the human face, which has the same components in all human beings, but which none the less appears different with each individual, to point to the conclusion that man's voluntades and entenciones can be expected to differ even more widely. The need for good intentions is stressed throughout his works, nowhere more clearly than in Lucanor, I, xl, where the soul of the Seneschal of Carcassonne is consigned to Hell because he had no intention of fulfilling any of the works of charity which he ordered, should his illness not prove terminal. The Seneschal acted as he did 'por que oviesse fama de las gentes et del mundo. Et por ende, commo quier que el fizo buena obra, non la fizo bien, ea Dios non galardona solamente las buenas obras, mas galardona las que se fazen bien. Et este bien fazer es en la entenc;i6n' (p. 84). The exemplum fully demonstrates the thesis that it is proper for man to be concerned about his reputation, but that he must be aware that the final reckoning will be before his Creator, when good works performed without good intentions will be seen to be valueless. The fiftieth tale of Lucanor is in many respects the most finelyworked treatment of man's inner nature. In Cavallero, xix, Don Juan had earlier pointed to 'la verglienc;a' as the most essential inner attribute of the knight:

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La vergiienc;a, otrosi, cumple mucho al cavallero mas que otra cosa ninguna, et tanto le cumple que yo diria que valdra mas al cavallero aver en si vergiienc;a et non aver otra manera ninguna buena, que aver todas las buenas maneras et non aver vergiienc;a. (p. 13) In Exemplo 1 it is 'vergiienc;a' (which incorporates for Don Juan the ideas of shame, integrity, self-control and self-respect) that provides the linchpin for this tale. The story is concerned above all with the inner nature of the individual, with man's quest for self-knowledge. Saladin's struggles to discover the greatest virtue that Man can have end with the answer 'la vergiienc;a', and he desists from his unworthy attempt upon the virtue of his vassal's wife when it is brought home to him that he, 'el mejor omne del mundo', does have this quality, which 'es la mejor cosa que el omne puede aver en si' (p. 107). From the particular instance, the generality immediately emerges: the nobleman, before all else, must have self-knowledge and self-respect.

God. Don Juan insists that the nobleman, equipped with a strong body and an educated mind, must realize that these two things, although important and essential to his fulfilment, still do not make for the complete man, nor do they in themselves make for salvation: 'Ca, segund dizen los sabios, que non deve el omne desear aver grant estado por pro nin por onra de si mismo, mas que lo deve desear por fazer en el mucho bien' (Estados, I, xlviii). Patronio reaffirms this in Lucanor, I, 1 (p. 101): Et para saber [ el omne] qual es en sf, asse de mostrar en las obras que faze a Dios et al mundo; ea muchos parescen que fazen buenas obras, et [non] son buenas, que todo el bien es para este mundo ... Et otros fazen buenas obras para servic;io de Dios, et non cuidan en lo del mundo. Et commo quier que estos escogen la mejor parte et la que nunca les sera tirada nin la perderan, pero los unos nin los otros non guardan entreamas las carreras, que son lo de Dios et el mundo. Et para las guardar amas, ha mester muy buenas obras et muy grant entendimiento ... pero, ayudandole Dios, et ayudandosse el omne, todo se puede fazer. In order to achieve salvation, a man must strive to gain understanding, and he must set his mind to do good works for the right

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reasons. For the man who by accident of birth has to live out his life as a nobleman, constantly required to pay heed, if he is to justify himself within his role, to such things as his honour, his status, his relationships with those around him, the problem of divided loyalties and conflicting duties is of grave concern. How is the pursuit of material success, Don Juan asks repeatedly, to be reconciled with the need to work towards the salvation of his eternal soul? The answer, he makes quite clear, is not to concentrate on one to the exclusion of the other, but to treat both as equally crucial, by following 'entreamas las carreras, que son lo de Dios et el mundo'. The nobleman must be successful in worldly terms if he is to achieve self-respect, and the respect of others; he must constantly perform good works, with good intentions, if he is to achieve salvation: 'La gracia de Dios ha mester el cavallero como aquel que toma estado en que un dia nunca puede seer seguro, et la gracia de Dios lo ha de mantener la onra que deve ganar por sus obras et a de guardar et de defender el cuerpo et el alma de los periglos en que anda cada dia, mas que ning(m omne de mayor otro estado' (Cavallero, xix, p. 11). Don Juan sees the estate of cavallero as particularly precarious and vulnerable, given the knight's need to preserve his honour, his body and his soul from the perils of daily life; his need for Divine Grace is an exceptional one. For the nobleman, Juan Manuel has specific recommendations to make about good works. In Lucanor, I, xl, Patronio urges the Count to give generously to charity, and lays down five conditions which must be fulfilled if his alms are to be considered worthy of acceptance (pp. 84-85). He underlines the need to give alms in Infinido, i: 'Otrosi, la limosna que se da commo deve de lo que se deve dar [es] muy buena, sefialadamente para los pecadores; ea segund dize[n] los sanctos, asi amata la limosna al pecado, commo amata el agua al fuego'. But above all, Don Juan recommends the nobleman to perform his good works in the form of military service on behalf of Christianity. Here one model is his own grandfather, Fernando el Santo, who 'commo quiere que por armas non muri6, tanto afan et tanta lazeria tom6 en servigio de Dios, et tantos buenos fechos acab6, que bien le deven tener por martir et por sancto, [et] por las sus buenas obras et la su buena enten9i6n que avia siempre venci6 et acab6 quanta quiso' (Estados, I, lxxvi, p. 47). Fernan Gonzalez is brought forward as an equally exemplary figure in Lucanor, I, xxxvii, 'sintiendose mas de la onra que del cuerpo' (p. 82), the mature soldier tireless in the defence of Christianity

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for whom Don Juan's total admiration is manifest. It is in Lucanor, I, iii, through Patronio's advice and the example of King Richard the Lionheart of England, that the message is spelled out most clearly. Richard's bravery and disregard for his own personal safety are illustrated by the tale; Patronio reminds his master that 'Dios vos pobl6 en tierra quel' podades servir contra los moros', he urges him to be, like Richard, a 'cavallero de Dios', and insists that 'esta es la mejor manera que v6s podedes tomar para salvar el alma, guardando vuestro estado et vuestra onra' (p. 58). By waging war against the infidel, the soldier will not only be performing good works, but will be performing them in a way which will be apparent to the world at large; thus he will follow the ideal prescription laid down by Patronio in the final exemplum: 'guardar entreamas las carreras que son de Dios et del mundo'. His worldly fame will increase, while at the same time he will be doing the good works which will carry him along the path to salvation. Don Juan was in no doubt about what he wished to teach in the course of his writings. The opening remarks of the Advertencia, the prologue to the general collection of his works in 1335 which was headed by Lucanor, summarize his intentions in a sentence: 'Este libro fizo don Johan, fijo del muy noble infante don Manuel, deseando que los omnes fiziessen en este mundo tales obras que les fuessen aprovechosas de las onras, et de las faziendas, et de sus estados, et fuessen mas allegados a la carrera por que pudiessen salvar las almas' (p. 3). His writings provide practical advice for the nobleman on how to take care of the affairs of the world -honour, business affairs, personal standing and self-respectwhile at the same time arguing that such concerns are in no way incompatible with a concern for the salvation of his soul. The nobleman, in his divinely-appointed estado, has no alternative but to accept his particularly difficult and taxing role in the earthly hierarchy, in which he must strive to excel in the service of God and the World; in his case, good works, performed with good intentions, can most properly, as they did in the cases of Fernando el Santo, Fernan Gonzalez and Richard the Lionheart, take the form of active service in the crusade against the heathen. Juan Manuel's works aim to show that self-interest and worldly success can and should be reconcilable with man's quest for the salvation of his soul and moreover to teach how, in the case of the soldiernobleman, one can and must be geared to the other.

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DON JUAN AND DOMINICAN

THOUGHT

The theoretical basis for Don Juan's exposition of the nobleman's social and political role in the world remains to be considered. There can be little doubt about the sincerity of Don Juan's Christian beliefs. He was an apologist for and benefactor of the Dominican Order; he founded and endowed the Dominican house of Pefiafiel whose prior, Fray Ramon Masquefa, was a confidant and personal friend; he entrusted his manuscripts and his body after death to the monks of Pefiafiel; he devoted the final chapter of Estados to a panegyric of the Dominicans. His last work, the Tractado de la asun9i6n, seeks to prove, by a series of logical arguments, the corporeal presence of Mary in heaven (a thesis by no means universally accepted at the time, but firmly held by the Dominicans). He observes in Infinido, xi, that 'la raz6n por que el omne fue fecho es para salvar el alma'; his works show a constant preoccupation with the question of the salvation of the soul. Since Don Juan is not given to quoting authority for the observations which he makes about the nobleman's role in society, and for the advice which he gives him on his conduct, one can only draw attention to parallels where they occur. There can be little doubt, however, that there is a great deal of harmony, as might be expected with one so closely connected with the Dominican Order, between what Don Juan has to say in the corpus of his works and the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas, which in turn draw upon those of St Augustine. Aquinas stressed the experiential foundation of human knowledge, frequently expressing the conviction that the mind does not start off with any stock of innate ideas or innate knowledge; he reaffirms Aristotle's statement that the mind can be compared to a wax tablet on which nothing has yet been written. Don Juan's advice to his audience is based throughout his works on his own personal experience of life; he wishes to teach others on the basis of his own practical, personally observed, experience. He frequently expresses hatred of hypocrites in general, and the heretical Beghards and Beguines in particular (a Dominican preoccupation in the fourteenth century): three of the exempla in Lucanor are clearly of Dominican origin, and at least another seven may be.

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The Thomists, among others, offered the view that human nature had not been totally corrupted by Man's fall from grace, but was still able to recognize rules of conduct which within the natural order would lead to good living. Juan Manuel's works are aimed precisely towards this end. It followed that since God had created all that was good, and since Man's reason was of divine origin, Man was following the will of God by following the dictates of reason; this is the context for Juan Manuel's heavy insistence on reason throughout his writings. The Thomists recognized that Man has a double nature in the same way as he has a double existence, first on Earth and then in Heaven; Juan Manuel continually stresses Man's dual obligations, to God and the World, and his works provide a series of handbooks on how, in practical terms, to fulfil these obligations. St Thomas (Summa theologiae, 2a2ae.182,4), discusses the active and the contemplative life, observing that: The contemplative life is not directed to any love of God whatever, but to perfect love. But the active life is necessary for any love of neighbour. Hence, Gregory says, Those who do not neglect to do the good they are able, can enter heaven without the contemplative life: but those who neglect to do the good they could do, cannot enter without the active life. Don Juan treats the ideas of love of neighbour and active life together in his writings, and he offers a practical and persona] interpretation of the latter: for the nobleman, the vita activa means the crusade against the infidel. In Summa theologiae (2a2ae.25,12), St Thomas quotes St Augustine: There are four things to be loved: one which is above us, namely God, another which is ourselves, a third which is nigh to us, namely our neighbour, and a fourth which is beneath us, namely our own body. (De doctr. christ. I) Juan Manuel steadily reflects these ideas: Man, as I have aimed to show in the preceding pages, must be true to his own body, to his neighbour, and to himself, in that order. Don Juan seeks to demonstrate that self-love is a necessary step towards achieving the respect of others; for the nobleman he recommends the active life, involving good works carried out with good intentions on behalf of

IAN MACPHERSON

INTRODUCTION

Christianity, as the one sure path towards the love of God and salvation in the life to come.

generally both vague and wrong. Literary historians have drawn a blank in the search for written texts in which the verbal similarities are sufficiently close to suggest that Juan Manuel may have composed with the written source open in front of him. More general correspondences, on the other hand, are not difficult to find: the early part of Estados clearly depends on the Barlaam and Joasaph legend; Ramon Llull's Llibre de l'orde de la cavayleria may well have provided the first inspiration for Cavallero; few problems are involved in finding analogues for the exempla of Lucanor, even if no one surviving variant of a popular tale can be pinned down as a direct source for Don Juan's version. Don Juan himself is surprisingly reticent about his own literary methods, but fortunately there are a sufficient number of indications in his writings to enable a general picture of his procedures to be pieced together. Juan Manuel can have had little time to spare from his political and military commitments to spend in libraries. Much of his material, by his own account, he acquired from his own personal and varied experience of life. He refers to Infinido as 'este tractado que tracta de cosas que yo mismo prove en mi mismo e en mi fazienda e bi que contec;i6 a otros, de las que fiz e vi fazer' (Prologue, p. 7), and the practical advice which the work contains is clearly the product of his own mature experience. The Razon del rey don Sancho offers a moving personal account of Don Juan's experiences at his cousin's deathbed; many of the exempla of Lucanor can be directly related to events in the statesman's private life; direct allusions to Don Juan and his personal affairs abound in Estados. Don Juan is also a committed advocate of the usefulness of learning from the experience of others: he announces in Caza that much of his material was collected by word of mouth from the able hunters of the land (Prologue, p. 13); Julio refers to conversations held by his master with Moorish scholars (Estados, iii); the Old Knight refers to the desirability of profiting from the talk of older and wiser men in a noble household (Cavallero, xxi); Don Juan's acquaintance with Thomism and Dominican thought appears to derive from conversations with his Dominican friends such as Juan Alfonso (to whom he dedicated Armas and Maneras del amor) and Ramon Masquefa, the Prior of Pefiafiel, rather than to any detailed textual study. Don Juan also had books read to him regularly. In the Prologue to Cavallero, he remembers nights of insomnia in Seville, and his own personal remedy: 'fago que me lean algunos libros o algunas estorias por sacar aquel cuidado del corac;6n' (p. 6). In Esta-

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*

:f:

DON JUAN THE MAN OF LETTERS

Whereas the keynote of Don Juan's advice to the nobleman on the subject of his privileges and responsibilities within society is one of confidence-Don Juan has no doubts about the nature of society nor of the role which the nobleman must play in ithe shows himself to be a great deal more diffident and uneasy about his position as a literary figure. There are good reasons why he should have felt some unease. The medieval period in Spain was above all one in which men sought to base themselves on Biblical and classical authority, and one in which books were read and written primarily in the monasteries by those who had had the benefit of a classical education, a schooling in Latin, and who had immediate access to the very small store of manuscripts available in the Peninsula. It will be immediately obvious that Juan Manuel did not conform at all closely, by temperament, method, or upbringing, to the medieval literary norm.

Sources. The medieval writer's accepted method of composition was to work with one or more source texts open in front of him, translating, adapting, collating, referring frequently and specifically to his authoritative source material, and thus seeking to invest his work with an 'originality' (in its most primitive sense, that of referring back to a worthy origin) which would make it more weighty, more credible and more valuable than if it were of his own puny invention. Gonzalo de Berceo and Juan Ruiz are characteristic of their times in this respect, the former working from a very small number of source texts, the latter from a more extensive range. Although Juan Ruiz's boundless imagination and vitality, along with an approach to source-material which is more often than not mischievous and irreverent, may sometimes obscure his dependence on his sources, his basic method and approach is nonetheless the traditional and expected one. For Juan Manuel, all the evidence which can be assembled points to the fact that he worked in a very different way. Unlike his contemporaries, Don Juan rarely quotes authority for his statements, and his references to classical or Biblical sources are

xxxm

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dos, I, lix, he advises the Emperor who cannot sleep at nights to have books read out aloud to him in his bedchamber, in the hope that they will either divert him from the concerns of the da.y or send him to sleep (p. 18); either way, the Emperor must profit from the exercise. These comments, given Don Juan's repeated concern with the problems of sleeping at nights after an exacting day, show every sign of being personal reactions, and should be taken as something more than a literary convention. Juan Manuel was well aware that he was not a scholar in the accepted medieval sense. In an age when m.ore educate.clmen sou?ht to base themselves on Biblical and classical authority, he relied heavily on personal experience, on conversations with those whose judgement he trusted, and on his remarkable recall of exemplary material read out to him in limited moments of leisure. In the early fourteenth century, there were few precedents for this type of literary approach and it is hardly surprising that Don !ua~ should seek to draw attention to his methods, and be eager to Justify them. Composition and Dissemination. Just as the available indications point to the fact that Don Juan acquired most of his material aurally, so the internal evidence suggests that he may well have dictated much of his work to a scribe. Each exemplum of Lucanor ends with a variant on the formula 'Et entendiendo don Johan que estos exiemplos eran muy buenos, fizolos escrebir en este libro' (p. 54), and Don Juan's standard sentence-structure, the compou?d sentence linked by a series of coordinating conjunctions, while obviously owing something to established Biblical and chronicle tradition, and representing only minor advances in complexity over the style of the school of his uncle, Alfonso el Sab!o, is charac:e:istic of spoken rather than written style. Don Juan 1s never explicit about how he expected his works to be disseminated; his o~n expressed pleasure in having exemplary material read aloud_to ~1m indicates, however, that he probably had oral performance m mmd for his own works. Bearing this in mind, the critic would be well advised to tread warily as he approaches Don Juan's literary style or techniques; material collected aurally, dictated to a scribe. and designed to be read aloud in short sections to a small aud1e~ce must obviously be evaluated, in the first instance, in a way which relates it to its author's purpose and projected form of delivery. Such features as repetition of formulae, words, phrases and sentence patterns are typical of Don Juan's literary style, and ide~lly designed for a form of presentation in which the listener, unlike

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the private reader, has no opportunity to turn back the pages in order to remind himself of earlier events. Self-consciousness. Don Juan is generally, and not unreasonably, presented as one of the most self-conscious of medieval writers, a writer who in the Advertencia and the Pr6logo general takes pains to list his collected works, to refer to the notorious carelessness of medieval scribes in transcribing their manuscripts, and to ask the reader, should he come across 'alguna palabra mal puesta', to consult the original text, corrected in his own hand, which he deposited in the monastery of Pefiafiel for safekeeping. His works abound with modesty topoi, typified by the concluding sentence of the Advertencia (p. 4):

Pero Dios sabe que lo [ el libro] fizo por entenc;i6n que se aprovechassen de lo que el dirfa las gentes que non fuessen muy letrados nin muy sabidores, et por ende fizo todos los sus libros en romarn;:e et esto es serial cierto que los fizo para los legos et de non muy grand saber commo lo el es. These protestations of ignorance and incompetence should not be taken too seriously, however. There is no reason to doubt that Don Juan's eagerness to reach as wide a public as possible by writing in the vernacular, along with his desire to communicate with laymen like himself who had not had the benefit of an ecclesiastical education, is honestly felt (compare his modest dedication of Estados to his learned brother-in-law Don Juan of Aragon, Archbishop of Toledo, with the suggestion that the latter should feel free to correct anything which he felt to be below the required standard [Estados, Pr6logo, p. 15]). On the other hand Don Juan is thoughtful and concerned about his own aims and literary style. His ideas on what that normal prose style should be are simply expressed in the Prologue to Lucanor: 'fiz este libro, compuesto de las mas apuestas palabras que yo pude' (p. 49), and a few lines later he refers again to 'las palabras falagueras et apuestas' to be found in his book. He aims at expressing himself with a vocabulary which is both elegant and appropriate to the subject matter. Don Juan is also very much concerned with his methods of presentation: in Estados, I, lxiii, pp. 24-25, Julio weighs the merits and demerits of a presentation which is concise (abreviada) against a treatment which is more detailed (complida), observing in the process that whichever is opted for will automatically fail to find

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favour with the critics; the Prince, in reply, makes a firm choice: 'que lo dixiesedes declaradamente, que fuese en las menos palabras que v6s pudiesedes' (p. 24). The Prince, moreover, is well aware of the reasons for his choice: mas de consentir et mas aprovechoso para el que ha de aprender es en ser la scriptura mas luenga et declarada que non abreviada et escura; ea el que aprende, entre todas las cosas que ha menester, es que aya vagar para aprender. (p. 24) Through the Prince, Don Juan recommends the virtues of clarity, concision and completeness, and underlines the need to avoid excessive brevity or obscurity; his grounds, it should be noted, are pedagogical rather than literary, since the Prince observes that the great virt.ue of his recommended procedures is that the pupil is given greater time to learn. It is very obvious that Don Juan is much more at home with the exempla form of Lucanor, Part I, where no formal limitations of length or exposition are imposed on him, than with the increasingly contorted aphorisms of Proverbios (Lucanor, Parts II-IV). These have not been regarded by later critics as Don Juan's most outstanding literary achievements, and Patronio expresses enthusiasm about leaving them behind him in Lucanor, Part V, La salvaci6n de las almas, where he refers to them as 'cosas... sotiles et oscuras et abreviadas' (p. 113), collected together only to please Don Jaime of Jerica. Patronio willingly returns to 'otra cosa que es muy mas aprovechosa', namely the question of the salvation of the soul treated in more normal prose style. Although Don Juan does refer on occasion to the 'beauty' of his style, he can be seen to be much more concerned overall with the content: his primary consideration is that he should make his didactic points clearly and concisely, without unnecessary verbiage. It is perhaps these qualities, which demonstrate Don Juan's essential literary honesty and integrity, which make his works so readable over five hundred years later. His didacticism, which depends heavily on a layman's acceptance of a natural order in which the privileges and responsibilities of the individual are interpreted from a Thomistic standpoint, is in no way remarkable for its times. His literary methods and attitudes, on the other hand, bring something much more novel to Castilian letters. Don Juan chooses to base himself on personal experience rather than literary precedent, and his constant attempts to justify this procedure

XXXVII

underline his awareness of the novelty of his methods; he is concerned with the medium in which he communicates, choosing Romance rather than Latin in order to reach as wide a lay audience as possible; he is deeply concerned with the manner of his writing, coming down firmly in favour of a vocabulary which is appropriate to the didactic content, and a clear, concise presentation designed to avoid obscurity and achieve lucidity. Although Don Juan's confident assumptions about the nature and structure of society have not stood up well to the test of time, his preoccupation with the role of the individual within society has proved of much more lasting concern. Juan Manuel's literary attitudes and approaches were eccentric for their own period, and Don Juan frequently shows himself uneasy and defensive about them; nevertheless they mark something of a watershed in literary history, after which it will become increasingly possible for the creative writer to turn away from the reworking of the common fund of accepted, authoritative knowledge and to seek his inspiration from within himself and his own personal experience.

WORKS

In the Advertencia (p. 3) and the Pr6logo general (p. 6), Juan Manuel provides two lists of the works which he claimed to have written up to the time of composition of each piece (1335 and 1342 respectively). These lists do not entirely coincide, but based on them, and on the available internal and external evidence, it is possible to reconstruct a tentative list of Don Juan's literary output. Surviving works Libro de la caza Cr6nica abreviada Libra del cavallero et del escudero Libra de los estadas (Libra del in/ante) Libro de! Conde Lucanor Libra infinido (Libro de castigas et de consejas) Libra de las armas Pr6logo general Tratada de la asunci6n

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IAN MACPHERSON

Lost works Libra de los cantares (Libra de las cantigas) Reglas c6mo se deven trobar Libra de los sabios Libra de los engefios Cr6nica complida Libra de la cavalleria The Cr6nica abreviada is preserved in Biblioteca Nacional MS 1356; the eight other works survive in one fifteenth-century manuscript, Biblioteca Nacional MS 6376 (formerly S34, and generally referred to by the sigla S). There is now no trace of any of the other six works which Don Juan claims to have composed. Don Juan's most productive period, from a literary point of view, were the years of disillusion between the mid-1320s and the mid-1330s, when he withdrew to some extent from active political life and when, as a mature soldier and statesman in his forties, he felt that the time had come to set down on paper some of the fruits of his experience. His three major works-El libro del cavallero et del escudero (c. 1327), El libro de los estados (c. 1330), and El Conde Lucanor ( 1335) were all completed in this decade, and extracts from these three works form the major part of the present anthology, along with the two general introductory pieces which he wrote for early collections of his works, the last chapter of the Libra infinido (1336), and a short section of the Libra de las armas (c. 1337).

EDITORIAL

CRITERIA

This anthology is based on MS S of the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid (catalogue no. 6376, formerly S34). Apart from four manuscript copies of El Conde Lucanor, Argote de Molina's 1575 printed edition of the same text, and the Biblioteca Nacional MS of the Cr6nica abreviada, this fifteenth-century codex is our only source for the works of Juan Manuel. The neat and elegant hand of the copyist tends to disguise a number of defects in the manuscript. Letters, words and sometimes complete phrases are often omitted, there are occasions where the scribe has clearly been unable to understand or to decipher his exemplar, and others where he prefers not to erase obvious mistakes, frequently in the

INTRODUCTION

XXXIX

interests of tidiness, even when he recognises immediately what he has done. I have aimed at transcribing the manuscript as closely as possible; where I supply obvious deficiencies I enclose the suggested readings in square brackets [ ] ; other emendations (my own or those based on suggestions by earlier editors) are not formally marked in the text, but when omissions or corrections are made the manuscript reading is always given in the list of Defective Manuscript Readings on pp. 133-34. Normal editorial usage is followed in other respects. Punctuation, capital letters, accents and paragraph divisions have been supplied. Abbreviations are resolved throughout, the reconstructed word being based as far as possible on a form of the same word written out in full elsewhere in the manuscript, with the exception of the contraction sign over the alveolar nasal n which I preserve, in accordance with modern practice, as a tilde: lefia, sefiores etc. The contraction sign before the bilabials b and p has been transcribed uniformly as m. The ampersand r is regularly transcribed et, and the abbreviation ome as omne, the forms in which the two words most frequently appear when written out in full. All abbreviated forms of Jesucristo are standardized to the modern spelling. Double consonants, for example cc and ss, and graphic h, are reproduced exactly as they appear in the manuscript: peccados, escasso, thesoro etc. I regularize the vocalic and consonantal use of u and v, and of i, j and y: thus MS escriujeron=escrivieron, vno=uno, oylas=oilas, traya=traia, Iohan=Johan. Both r and s of the manuscript are transcribed s, and initial R of the manuscript, which represents a multiple vibrant, is transcribed r except where modern usage requires a capital letter; thus Rey= rey, but Roma=Roma. In the interests of clarity, I indicate the loss of a final vowel from an enclitic pronoun by an apostrophe: quel' guarde, devel' fazer, et dixol' asi. Frequently, the preposition a is omitted before a word beginning with a-; I indicate such omissions by a circumflex accent over the initial a of the following word: se torna aquel cuerpo, sin dezirlo alguno. Accents are provided throughout, and in line with the proposals of Yakov Malkiel in RPh, XVI (1962-63), 137, and XXIV (1970-71), 328, which are now deservedly gaining wide currency, I use an accent to distinguish the following homographs:

XL

IAN MACPHERSON

n6s (subject, disjunctive pronoun) v6s (subject, disjunctive pronoun) y ('there') al ('other') s6 ('I am') d6 ('I give') 6 ('where')

nos vos y al so do 0

(conjunctive pronoun) (conjunctive pronoun) ('and') (a+el) ('beneath') ('where') ('or')

Word-division is standardized: thus delos, dellos, enla are divided de los, de llos, en la, while dezir vos lo ya, brava mente are transcribed dezirvoslo ia, bravamente. I also regularize parque 'because' z,por que? 'why?' par que (=para que), la raz6n par que 'the reason that'. A set of empty square brackets [ ] indicates a lacuna thought to be of less than one line, while three omission marks ( ... ) denote a lacuna thought or known to be of one line or longer. It has been i:ny aim, in adopting these criteria, to produce a text which avoids orthographic quaintness and which is easily comprehensible to a reader whose acquaintance with medieval Spanish literature might be limited, but which does not obscure any item of interest to the historical linguist.

SELECTED

CRITICAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Only full-length studies have been included in the critical bibliography. A select list of articles and monographs relevant to particular sections of Juan Manuel's works follows on pp. 161-63; these articles are referred to by name and date in the endnotes to the text. A comprehensive critical bibliography of Juan Manuel was published by Daniel Devoto in 1972 (see 9 below, and also 15). Manuscript 1. MS 6376 (formerly S34) of the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid. Generally referred to as S. Contains all the surviving works of Juan Manuel, except for the Cr6nica abreviada, in a fifteenth-century hand. Of the original 222 written folios, ff. 3-6 and f. 160 have been lost. For a full description of the other surviving MSS of Juan Manuel's works see Devoto (9 below), pp. 225-26, 291-92.

Editio Princeps

2. Principe don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, ed. Gonzalo Argote de Molina (Sevilla: Hernando Diaz, 1575). Repr. in facsimile, with introd. by Enrique Miralles (Barcelona: Puvill, 1978). Argote's ed. is based on three MSS of Lucanor, Part I, all of which have since been lost; it contains a remarkable amount of critical matter, including a dedication, a preface, a life of Don Juan, a long account of the Manueline succession, and an essay on Old Castilian Poetry. Miralles suggests that Argote himself was responsible for the unusual ordering of the exempla. Modern Editions

3. Juan Manuel, Libra infinido y Tractado de la asun