Reading and Writing Patronio's Doctrine in Real Academia Espanola MS 15

Abstract

Traditionally, philologists have found manuscript 15 of the Real Academia Espanola in Madrid (RAE 15) interesting from an editorial perspective, but typically they have studied its copy of El Conde Lucanor in isolation from the other scripta bound together with it in the codex.2 Aside from its obvious value as one of the five manuscript witnesses of El Conde Lucanor, RAE 15 studied from cover to cover as a whole is a treasure trove not only of late medieval manuscript culture, but also for medieval Spanish literature in general. By drawing together examinations of scribal emendations and additions throughout the codex, its organization of materials, and comments on the other scripta included in the book, we can more fully appreciate how the codex itself and its version of El Conde Lucanor were put to use in late-medieval Spain. Among the other writings included in this compilation, two works in particular stand out; one is the only known copy of the Libra de los enganos which follows El Conde Lucanor, and the other is the Lucidario, an encyclopedic treatise on morals, religion, and science, to paraphrase Jose Amador de los Rios, which concludes the collection (3: 536).In addition to these familiar works of didactic literature, the codex contains other, more inconspicuous writings such as San Pedro Pascual's gloss of the Lord's Prayer that unpacks the meaning of its seven petitions to God and prohibits Moors, bad Christians, and Jews from reciting it. Following that, a copy of Alonso de Cuenca's will and testament preaches the joy of death as a second birth, allowing us to leave behind this valley of tears for the bliss of heaven wherein we eternally experience God's glory. This common medieval topos precedes a letter written by San Bernaldo advising Don Remon, knight of the castle of Santo Ambrosio, on how to live according to his station and save his soul. To sum up, here are the texts included in RAE 15, and the order in which these works appear: (1) part I of El Conde Lucanor (fol. 1r-62v), (2) El libra de los enganos (fol. 63r-79v), (3) San Pedro Pascual's Glosa del Pater Noster (fol. 80r-85r), (4) El testamento del maestro Alfonso de Cuenca (fol. 85r-85v), (5) a letter from San Bernaldo to Don Ramon (fol. 85v-86v), and (6) the Lucidario (fol. 87r-159v).The physical condition of the codex is excellent, with the exception of the folio which is illegible in parts. The Gothic cursive script is written in a clear, easy-to-read hand that appears to be the same throughout the codex, with a possible exception in the column of folio 84 recto where a second scribe's hand is visible, and finally a third hand has made multiple corrections and interlinear emendations that will be discussed further on. For these reasons, and especially because of the didactic nature of the other scripta in the codex that make up its physical and literary context, the Punonrostro manuscript is an indispensable material witness to how Juan Manuel's exempla were read from the fifteenth to the early sixteenth century.The value of this manuscript has never been in question. Alberto Blecua, in his study of the manuscript witnesses of El Conde Lucanor, appreciated the special evidence of the scribal reading process involved in manuscript production (71-72). Eugenio Krapf, its last private owner, went so far as to claim in his introduction to El libro de Patronio that this codex was el mas llano and primordial of all those containing El Conde Lucanor (xxiv). More recently, Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux has suggested that this copy may in fact be more closely related, stemmatically, to a first writing of the book that Juan Manuel revised at a later date for his complete works represented by Biblioteca Nacional MS 6376-known as manuscript S-which has long been considered to be the best copy for textual scholars editing Juan Manuel's opus (28).This essay, however, is not concerned with traditional philological projects such as reconstructing Juan Manuel's originally intended work in another critical edition of El Conde Lucanor; instead, it asks the reader to place the notion of authorial intention aside in order to examine the physical evidence of this codex and arrive at a better understanding of how El Conde Lucanor was received and put to use by its late medieval and early modern readers through a study of the organizing principles at work in RAE 15. …