Legal Aspects of the Spanish Epic Tradition

Abstract

Many of the now lost epic legends of medieval Spain contain some degree of emphasis on legal matters: this is true of the stories of Fernan Gonzalez, the Infantes de Lara, the infante Garcia, and Sancho II. It is also true of a less widely known story, that of the 'Slandered Queen', wife of Sancho el mayor of Navarra. The one extant poetic text of the genre, the Poema de mio Cid, also betrays its author's preoccupation with the written word and with legalism, not only in obvious instances like the document issued by the king when the Cid is banished, but also in more incidental (and thus possibly more significant) minor respects such as the sale of Alcocer to the Moors, the threat of legal action uttered by the Cid's daughters before the afrenta de Corpes, and the concentration on the court scene as a more prolonged and effective climax to the action than the rather anticlimactic ensuing duels.En muchas de las leyendas epicas del medioevo espanol, ya perdidas, se encuentra cierto enfasis en lo legal: esto...