The Imprisonment of the Archpriest

Abstract

All histories of Spanish literature, however much they may vary on other points, are agreed on one: Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, spent a number of years in jail.* From 1790, when Sanchez put it into currency, this alleged fact has been parroted by every historian of Spanish literature, as well as by critics writing specialized works on Juan Ruiz. Various attempts have been made to explain why he might have been imprisoned and to determine the number of years he must have been there, but no one has ever given thought to sifting the evidence to ascertain if it is probable that he actually ever was in prison. The statement that he was imprisoned has been accepted with no critical evaluation of the evidence, and such is the purpose of this paper. In the words of Felix Lecoy, the best critic of the Archpriest: To all these questions [concerning the life and works of Juan Ruiz] up to now we have been given only replies which are rapid, little studied, most of the time superficial, often contradictory.' In his thoroughly critical, sound, and scholarly study of Juan Ruiz, written in 1938, Lecoy is chiefly concerned with the literary composition and sources of the Libro de Buen Amor, but these involve necessarily some biographical inferences, and his work has been of inestimable value in the preparation of this paper.