Medieval Iberia Research Articles

The Problem of Woman in Late-Medieval Hispanic Literature (review)

ARCHER, ROBERT. Problem of Woman in Late-Medieval Hispanic Literature. Suffolk: Tamesis, 2005. 227 pages.This book is effort to question critical assumptions about late medieval Iberian literature on women, in particular, of debate as a conceptual framework for works by authors such as Francesc Eiximenis, Martin de Cordoba, Jaume Roig, Alfonso Martinez de Toledo, Juan Rodriguez del Padron, Joan Rois de Corella, and Pere Toroella (6). Archer rejects facile divide between misogynist texts and works in women's defense and instead aims to show that discourse on women was varied and included a number of works whose authors demonstrated indeterminacy of notion of He claims that pervasiveness of this literature was due to need of presumably writers to address contradictions in writings of auctoritates, such as Aristotle, on women's makeup. While this explanation is certainly credible, it is also unsatisfying as absolute account in face of plethora of texts on women (and men) that surfaced during late fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries and beyond. Archer docs not address in a systematic way nagging question of why they emerged at that time. Instead, he deals with it occasionally, as in fifth and final chapter, Toroella's Maldezir de mugeres and Its Legacy, where he opines persuasively that cancioncro poets were more concerned with place of misogynist materials in social code of cortesia than with their veracity or falsity, suggesting that literate noble class produced writings about women not to deliberate on latter's definition, but to find a way to place them in cortesia (185-86). book's fourth chapter, called The Defences, Archer links Castilian writing on women to men's political advancement, as in cases of Rodriguez del Padron (Triunfo de las donas), Diego de Valera (Tratado en defensa de las virtuosas mujeres), and Alvaro de Luna (Libro dc las virtuosos e dams mugeres). Yet this reasoning is not integrated into a broader discussion about emergence of this literature as a whole.While I appreciated Archer's review of much of main literature on women from late medieval Iberia, his book left me with many questions and doubts. book's title was surprising, given tremendous recent critical work on gender and language. title's phrasing suggests agreement with notion of woman as a lone, reified object, in contrast to, for instance, a statement such as the late medieval ot defining women. addition, to call woman a already implies complicity with very statement, although undoubtedly this was not Archer's intent. Did women truly constitute a societal problem, or did some men perceive them as such? Did women during this period describe themselves as problems? Does not literature on men at this time also suggest problem of defining man, albeit differently than defining woman, a question that Archer treats only in passing? effort to answer these issues Archer's book would have been aided by historical data about women and by a more comparative approach to studying discourses on women and men.Another vexation concerns Archer's notion of gender, since he leads us to believe that a study of gender will constitute part of his analysis when he argues that an underlying concern with question of how to define gender identity [. . .] pervades texts as a whole (7). However, his use of term Js perplexing because he erroneously connects gender to women alone, without entertaining gender and men. His brief discussion of men on page nineteen portends some analysis of relations between men and women: In texts to be studied here there are signs that already a need existed to confirm men's position in face of obvious ability ot women to operate effectively in areas authoritatively defined as male (19). …

Making difference in medieval and early modern Iberia

In this engaging study Jean Dangler examines the way that ideas of difference were forged in four types of medieval Iberian discourse: muwashshah/jarcha poems from al-Andalus, Andalusi cutting poems, medical literature about the body, and portrayals of the monster. According to Dangler, these texts demonstrate the two fundamental precepts of medieval Iberian alterity: multifaceted subject formation and the embrace of contrasts and the negative. Medieval Iberia was a multicultural territory of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian societies. These communities had constant geographic, cultural, political, and economic contact with one another. Because medieval Iberia was not hierarchical and homogenous, medieval subjectivity was not always marked by essential qualities of character, but was mutable and shifting. The adverse was often esteemed in the making of meaning and the forging of the social order. Dangler explores how the four discourses she analyzes changed in the early modern period, from an acceptance of difference to more rigid concepts of subjectivity and the marginalization of difference. This shift accompanied the rise of the Castilian nation-state and its imposition of static hierarchies of value. This book will appeal to a broad range of medievalists. It makes an important contribution to the growing interest in medieval Iberia and offers a nuance understanding of medieval history and culture in general.

Del director

Del director In 2005 we had the pleasure ofinaugurating the La corónica International BookAward at the Congress ofMedieval Studies in Kalamazoo, and naming H. Salvador Martinez as our first winner. He now heads a new list ofhonorées appearing at the end ofeach Fall issue, right after die list of recipients of die John K. Walsh Award for best article published in La corónica in die preceding year. It is now my great pleasure to share widi you that our distinguished panel ofjurors has selected die winner of die 2006 Book Award for scholarship in Medieval Spanish Language, Literature and Cultural Studies: Barbara Weissberger Isabel Rules. Constructing Queenship, WieldingPower. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 2004 In announcing its selection, diejury praised Weissberger's efforts, affirming that "This is a book diat goes beyond the historical to examine literary texts, intellectual issues, and broad cultural contexts. ... [I]t brings to Hispanomedievalism a strong advocacy and proof of die relevance of theory to its research agenda. Far from die 'usual' history of Isabel and her times, it constitutes a sweeping, innovative cultural history of the era diat produced and sustained Isabel as queen. As it draws on historical, literary, and political texts contemporary to her reign, die book explains an ideology that invented and shaped a nation , and that ultimately left its imprint on the modern world." We now invite submissions for the 2006 competition for best monograph . Please send diree copies ofany tide published in 2005 to George D. Greenia, Editor, La corónica, Dept. of Modern Languages, PO Box 8795, College ofWilliam & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795. Full details are available at the journal's Web site; die deadline is always October 1 in the year following that of publication. No documentation is necessary odier than a cover letter specifying diat the copies are meant for the La. corónica International Book Award and providing the full address and odier relevant contact information for the audior. ? ? ? 2 Geoige D. GreeniaLa corónica 34.2, 2006 Research by Hispanomedievalists continues to gain die respectful attention ofcolleagues in congruent fields in the humanities. In April of 1997 the Modern Language .Association launched a radio show called What's the Word? aimed at cultivated .American audiences, and for any of our readers who missed the broadcasts on National Public Radio, programs are audio-streamed at the MLA Web site (www.mla.org) and available to download to your computer. Various shows feature frequent contributors to La corónica: Medieval Women Opportunities for, accomplishments of, and challenges faced by women in the Middle Ages. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales arrd the Wife of Bath - her career, financial status, and five marriages . The economic, social, and spiritual reasons women chose to enter or were serrt to convents; the advantages of convent life. The twelfth-century German nun Hildegard of Bingen and her poetry, music, and visionar}-, theological, scientific, and dramatic writings. The types ofhealing practiced by women healers in medieval Spain and their training and education. Virgin miracles, or songs to the Virgin, and what diey teach us about healing in medieval Iberia. Participants: Marie Boroff C.Jean Dangler. Barbara Newman The Spanish Ballad Tradition Medieval Spanish romances and how they have been adapted over centuries and across cultures. Prirrted eighteenth- arrd nineteenth-century blindmarr's ballads, or romances de ciego, as mass literature that reflected the concerns ofthe day. Mexican and Mexican American corridos and Spanish outlaw ballads as inspiration for twentieth-century narcoconidos, stories about drug smugglers. Participants: Michael Solomon. Madeleine Sutherland-Meier, Jaime Nicolopitlos Christian, Jew, Muslim: Coexistence in Medieval Spain El Cid, the expulsion oftheJews, Fernando de Rojas's Celestina, and Sufi poetry in thirteenth-century Spain. Participants: Matthew Bailey. Michael Gerii. Lourdes Alvarez. ? ? ? Del director3 We also congratulateJudith Cohen and fellow contributors to a recent volume on world music and food edited by Ms. Sean Williams: The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook (Roudedge, 2006). The Chronicle ofHigher Education featured this tide and its celebration of "occasions in which music, food and conversation noisily merge". The Nota Bene column notes that Each set of recipes is a full meal, however locally defined, and includes edinographic commentary, suggestions oflocal music for mealtime listening, and a...

Franciscans, Indian Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in New Spain, 1536-1543

When Spanish settlers went to the Americas, they took with them institutions that had been central to their colonization of medieval Iberia, including the Inquisition. While the main interests of the crown and the church were to prevent the establishment of Judaism, Islam, and Protestant Christianity in the New World, the first bishop of New Spain, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, was soon drawn into applying the rigors of the Inquisition against the paganism of some thirty, mostly indigenous, leaders in the years 1536–1543. This paper analyzes the second trial in the series, that of the native sorcerer Martin Ocelotl, which alarmed religious authorities about the continuation of paganism in the Valley of Mexico and became a turning point in the escalation of religious violence against native leaders.

A vanished world: medieval Spain's golden age of enlightenment

In a world troubled by religious strife and division, Chris Lowney's vividly written new book offers a hopeful historical reminder: Muslims, Christians, and Jews once lived together in Spain, creating a centuries-long flowering of commerce, culture, art, and architecture. Written with a narrative drive reminiscent of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, this new work takes us back to a medieval Iberia that prefigured the Renaissance. In 711, a ragtag army of Muslim North Africans conquered Christian Spain and launched Western Europe's first (and to date only) Islamic state. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella vanquished Spain's last Muslim kingdom, forced Jews to convert or emigrate, and dispatched Christopher Columbus to the New World. In the years between, Spain's Muslims, Christians, and Jews forged a golden age for each faith and distanced Spain from a Europe mired in the Dark Ages. Medieval Spain's pioneering innovations touched every dimension of Western life: Spaniards introduced Europeans to paper manufacture and to the Hindu-Arabic numerals that supplanted the Roman numeral system. Spanish scholars translated what stood for centuries as Europe's standard medical handbook. Spain's farmers adopted irrigation technology from the Near East to nurture Europe's first crops of citrus and cotton. Spanish artisans graced luxurious homes with the fountains, gardens, and decorative tile that remain hallmarks of southern Spain's distinctive decor. Spain's religious scholars authored works that still profoundly influence their respective faiths, from the masterpiece of the Jewish kabbalah to the meditations of Sufism's greatest master to the eloquent arguments of Maimonides that humans can successfully marry religious faith and reasoned philosophical inquiry. No less astonishing than medieval Spain's wide-ranging accomplishments was the simple fact its Muslims, Christians, and Jews often managed to live and work side by side, bestowing tolerance and freedom of worship on the religious minorities in their midst. A Vanished World chronicles this impossibly panoramic sweep of human history and achievement, encompassing both the agony of jihad, Crusades, and Inquisition, and the glory of a multireligious, multicultural civilization that forever changed the West. One gnarled root of today's religious animosities stretches back to medieval Spain, but so does a more nourishing root of much modern religious wisdom. In a world torn by religious antagonism, Chris Lowney offers enduring lessons learned from medieval Spanish villages where Muslims, Christians, and Jews rubbed shoulders on a daily basis.

THEATRICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ST. CHRISTOPHER THROUGHOUT THE CROWN OF ARAGON DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

As the patron of travelers, Sr. Christopher inspired one of the most popular cults to spread throughout medieval Europe. The Iberian Peninsula was no exception: his gigantic following spanned the region and his image adorned the walls of most churches and cathedrals. Manifestations were not limited to the plastic arts, however, and paratheatrical representations of St. Christopher were fairly common in processions celebrating Corpus Christi and other religious holidays, especially in Valencia, where the saint enjoyed even greater esteem. Furthermore, the mystery of his conversi on and martyrdom was also staged during religious festivals during the fifteenth cenrury. This essay traces the evolution of the hugely popular cult of St. Christopher in medieval Iberia by looking at various artistic (re)presentations of the converted Canaanite, paying special attention to the Valencian processions and two extant autos sacramentales—one written in Valencian and the other in Castilian.

The Humble Sage and the Wandering Madman: Madness and Madmen in an Exemplum from Sefer Hasidim

Notwithstanding its, at times, notably pietistic nature, Sefer Hasidim (henceforth SH)1 provides modern scholars with a glimpse of the mindset, mentality, and culture of medieval Ashkenazi Jewry. In his insightful and fundamental study of this work, Ivan Marcus characterizes its role as follows: Like Caesarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus Miraculorum, Sefer Hasidim is a speculum of the society in which it originated. It contains allusions to knights and demons, princes and prices, grain profiteering, monastic practices, tensions in communal politics, Jewish-Christian debates, conversion in both directions, coin clipping, sexual promiscuity, local customs, women's occupations in weaving and money lending, and a variety of other facts of medieval culture and life in medieval Germany.2 Missing from this cogent observation is SH's treatment of madness. Bearing in mind its role as a source for social attitudes, I wish to take a fresh look at one of the more than four hundred exempla found in SH. This exemplum is pertinent to the study of madness in medieval European Jewish society. Its story illumines questions of madness, marginality, insanity's [End Page 38] social aspects, and how madmen were perceived and treated by medieval European society at large and by its Jewish minority.3 Before proceeding to the exemplum itself, some preliminary remarks about madness and the insane in the European Middle Ages are in order. From antiquity through the Early Modern period, abnormal or insane behavior was often linked to demonic possession. Demons were thought to torment the possessed, thus relieving these individuals of legal responsibility for their actions. Some medieval cures for possession and madness utilized physical violence, seeking to discomfort and thereby "drive out" the demons. These "cures" legitimized abuse and torture. The English mystic Margery Kempe—herself at first thought to be mad—speaks of a madwoman she was asked to heal. Confined in chains to a small chamber on the outskirts of the English town of Kings Lynn because of her unbearable yelling, this woman was pushed to the margins because "most people would not suffer her to dwell among them."4 In late medieval Germany there was even a specific term for chambers used for locking up madmen: Tollkisten (cages for the mad).5 Insane individuals were classified according to two distinct categories: harmless and raving.6 The harmless, peaceable, though at times boisterously [End Page 39] merry fools were left to wander about the public sphere in relative freedom, collecting alms and charity. Judith Neaman described the common medieval nonviolent variety as "barefoot and breadless beggars."7 Recently, James Brodman noted in his study of sick care in medieval Iberia that "people whose behavior we would now characterize as disturbed were not differentiated from the run of beggars until the 14th century, when society began to sort the poor into various categories."8 The American cultural historian Sander Gilman points out that harmless madmen were represented both in literature and in the visual arts as part of the world of children, as being of "lesser mind" than normal adults.9 The raving mad, on the other hand, were considered a menace, a threat both to themselves and to society. Physical as well as textual evidence points to the segregation and imprisonment of these individuals, and even to their grave mistreatment.10 That a "code of mad behavior" existed both [End Page 40] in antiquity and in medieval Europe is evident from the fact that the sane could in extreme cases adopt this code and convincingly impersonate madness.11 With these observations in mind let us now turn to the exemplum from SH about "The Humble Sage." A man was captive in a far away land. He said to himself, "How shall I set about12 observing the Sabbath," and he decided to feign madness. Children jested with him and gave him bread. On the Sabbath he...

The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050–1300 by Brian Catlos (review)

REVIEWS 206 rounded look at sodomy, masculinity, and law, not to mention marriage, femininity , knighthood, courtly love, and romance, in medieval English and French literature. DANA POLANICHKA, History, UCLA Brian Catlos, The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050-1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004) xxiv + 449 pp. Brian Catlos sets out ambitious goals for his recent book The Victors and the Vanquished. Not only does he hope to “examine the effects of Christian conquest on the indigenous Islamic population” (8) in the Crown of Aragon during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but also to “contribute to a methodology which broadens the context of mudéjar studies, calling into question some truisms and exploring new avenues of comparison and analogy” (10). As a contribution to the understanding of twelfth and thirteenth century mudéjar society in the Ebro region from the socio-anthropological perspective pioneered by Thomas Glick, the book is quite successful. Thorough archival research into Latin, Romance and Arabic sources, as well as a strong command of relevant historiographical and theoretical works, convince the reader of Catlos’ central claim that “the Islamic society of the region was not destroyed by the conquest, but had re-emerged as a mudéjar society by the thirteenth century” (390). A few questions remain at the end of the book as to what are the new avenues of comparison that Victors explores. Victors is divided into three parts. The first examines “Muslim domination of the Ebro and its demise” and concludes that this region, known in Arabic as the Thaghr al-Aqsa’ was “a full participant in the great venture of Islamic civilization which stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Indian Ocean” (68). Part II looks at Muslims under Christian rule and gives particular attention to the transformations of Islamic society following the conquest. Catlos finds that following the conquest “the Islamic society of the Ebro endured—not without drastic changes to its outward manifestations, but preserving its essence and identity in important senses” (323). Part III, “Individual and Community in the Christian Ebro,” consists of six microhistories whose purpose is to show mudéjar society “as far as possible, through the eyes of its actors” (328). These case studies show how individual characters pursued their aims within the complex social and cultural matrix described in the book’s first two sections. In the end, Catlos concludes that the Christian conquerors were too few and not well organized enough to successfully impose their social structures in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and were for a variety of reasons willing to extend considerable autonomy to conquered peoples. He notes that certain spheres of activity, such as sexual relations or the administration of justice were sites of greater conflict than, say, farming or craft, which witnessed a good deal of Christian-Muslim cooperation. These relationships are referred to as a “hierarchy of ritual incompatibility.” Many factors, especially a relative demographic balance and desire for agricultural and economic continuity in the new Christian territories, made the conquest of the Ebro region smoother and less hostile than the “crusader kingdom of Valencia” studied by Burns. Victors presents the mudéjars as forming “a stable society which preserved its identity in REVIEWS 207 the face of Christian domination while participating in the greater society of the Crown—a precarious balance between the victors and the vanquished” (408). An excellent piece of historiography overall, Victors does leave a few questions for further exploration. Catlos claims that most scholars overemphasize the importance of religion as a primary mode of identification in medieval Iberia, but it isn’t entirely clear how his own analysis of religion departs from major historiographical trends in mudéjar studies. In time, Victors may indeed “contribute to the general study of minority-majority interaction,” as Catlos hopes (10). Certainly his idea of a hierarchy of ritual incompatibility is intriguing , but it remains to be seen if twelfth and thirteenth century models of interaction can be translated to other places and periods without anachronism. SAM CONEDERA, History, UCLA Christopher S. Celenza, The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians , and Latin’s Legacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 2004) xx + 210 pp. Celenza opens...

Between Tolerance and Intolerance in Medieval Spain: An Historiographic Enigma

AbstractThe nature of what has been termed "tolerance" and "intolerance" in the historiography of medieval Iberia has, while rarely defined, continued to provide much-employed organizing categories for the field. This paper reviews one focus of that historiography from the nineteenth into the twenty-first century: the relations among Muslims, Jews, and Christians, with respect to tolerance/intolerance and related categories (notably, convivencia). It analyzes, among other factors, the impact on this historiography of the intellectual, cultural, and political movements which have affected historians of medieval Iberia. It makes a case for the importance for specialists in the field to be keenly aware of these aspects of historiography at a time when medieval Spain is seen as offering a unique opportunity for testing theories of interfaith relations and social interaction

Models in Medieval Iberian Literature and Their Modern Reflections: Convivencia as Structural, Cultural, and Sexual Ideal (review)

Reviews239 Mclnnis,Judy B., Ed. Models in Medieval Iberian Literature and Their Modern Reflections: Convivencia as Structural, Cultural, and Sexual Ideal. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2002. Ivii + 377 pp. ISBN 158871 -009-2 Models in Medieval Iberian Literature and Their Modern Reflections is a compilation of articles selected from papers originally presented at two conferences in 1998, and published as an homage volume for the late Juan Espadas. The editor presents this seemingly disparate collection as unified by the concept of convivencia, a notion that has usually been applied to the phenomenon of cultural tolerance in medieval Iberia, where communities of Muslims, Jews and Christians co-existed. While convivencia is said to have come to an end after the historical events at the end of the fifteenth century to favor the construction of a national identity based on religious unity in Christianity, in this book the traditional use of the term is enriched and its scope amplified. As Judy Mclnnis explains: "one might say that while it [conmvencia] ceased in relation to cultural minorities, it has existed universally in the necessary co-existence of men and women. ... [The latter formed] a subjugated population within a dominant phallocentric structure" (xi). In this sense, the term convivencia articulated in this volume equates notions of ethnic or religious difference with that of gender difference in the study of the economies of power in Iberian societies. Explained this way, convivencia ceases to be a concept exclusive for the study of the Hispanic ethnic diversity of the Middle Ages and is stretched to reach forward not only to describe gender interaction, but also to illustrate the political and cultural complexity of present day Spain. This last treatment, the one that links past and present, finds its way into the collection by offering the study of several cases of modern and contemporary Spanish writers who delve into Spain's medieval past to explain their current anxieties. The book is divided in three sections. The first, "Models in Iberian Medieval Literature", contains articles that focus primarily on medieval female centered literature. John E. Keller's "The Blessed Virgin as a Patron of the Arts and Letters" briefly describes the plot of five of the Cantigas de Santa María where Mary is presented as a protector of poets who celebrated her. José L. Freire's "The Cantigas de Santa María: Social Perception and Literary Portrayal ofJews and Muslims and Historical Reality" reviews the extant scholarship on the topic followed by a brief historical analysis of the social roles of Muslims and Jews La corónica 32.2 (Spring, 2004): 239-41 240ReviewsLa corónica 32.2, 2004 in medieval Spain. Freiré also includes an Appendix with an annotated bibliography of works on the Jewish and Muslim presence in the Cantigas. Anthony J. Cárdenas's "The Theophilus Legend in Prose, Poetry, and Miniatures of the Códice Rico of Alfonso X: Compacting with Hell and Closing the Devil's Gate" examines the differences between the visual and textual versions of the Theophilus legend that are presented in the Cantiga 3. These are its poetic and pictorial forms, plus the variant reading in the marginal prosification in Castilian, which include the novel and original character ofTheophilus's wife as an active agent for the sinner's repentance. Another instance of a woman as a religious model, apart from those that appear in the Cantigas, is presented in Roxana Recio's "Mary Magdalene in Medieval Catalan Literature", which examines the depiction of an assertive Mar)' Magdalene through whose story the spiritual practice of the devotio moderna was introduced to Catalan readers. Models of feminine behavior are explained in Antonio Torres Alcalá's "The Maiden and the Sea: Old Galician Lyrics" in which the author classifies Galician cantigas de amigo according to their structure. Then he examines the female voice ofthe maiden in these poems which, he argues, explore a female psyche which relates better to nature and emotions than the male psyche. Another model of feminine behavior is underlined in "What Women Heard in Medieval Spanish Tales", where Nydia Rivera Gloeckner offers a commentary on El Conde Lucanor s pedagogical depiction of married women. Models of...

Cultural traffic in the medieval Romance world

This article introduces the issue by discussing ‘Romance Studies’ as an ideological construct and suggesting ways in which this might inform our understanding of cultural exchanges in the parts of medieval Europe where Romance languages were spoken. Through an examination of programmatic inaugural articles in two major academic journals in the field (Romania, established in 1872, and Cultura Neolatina, published in 1941), the authors show that any idea of a ‘Romance world’, of its value and of its boundaries (both internal and external) is contingent on historical and ideological factors, which in turn means that modern ideas about what may have constituted the ‘Romance world’ in the past are often inflected by modern political, cultural and ideological concerns. A further example is the ‘discovery’ of the kharjas of medieval Iberia in 1949.

Transforming the Medieval Iberian Canon: Finding a Space for Women

Critical Cluster Bringing Iberian Women Writers into the Canon Guest Editors Dawn Bratsch-Prince and Montserrat Piera Arxiu Historic de la Ciutat de Barcelona, MS L-18, folio G (parchment, 406 folios, 41 .5 ? 63 cm; scribe Joan Esteve; illuminator Bernât Martorell, d. 1451). This illumination serves as a framed frontispiece for the first page ofthe Comentaría super Usaticis Barchinonae (Comentaris als usatges de Barcelona) written in Latin by Jaume Marquilles (1 368- 145 1). The presentation miniature shows Maria ofCastile presiding over a session ofthe Conseil de Cent, the town council of Barcelona, with Catalan jurist Jaume Marquilles formally presenting to the Queen and consellers his commentaries on the Usatges, the fundamental law code of the city. The five principal consellers seated directly on the Queen's right —Bernât Sapila, Pere Romeu, Pere Serra, Berenguer Llull, and Felip de Ferrera- are dressed in their official gramalla, the distinctive fur-trimmed red robes of their office. TRANSFORMING THE MEDIEVAL IBERIAN CANON: FINDING A SPACE FOR WOMEN Dawn Bratsch-Prince Iowa State University In their compelling analysis of the gender of the Hispanic literary canon, Crista Johnson and Joan Brown show that the representation of female authors, across centuries and continents, on required reading lists at Ph.D.-granting institutions in the United States is, at best, minimal and inconsistent. Scholarly activity on women writers, however , is substantial -one might even say vigorous- and so sadly at odds with those lists of required or canonical works. Johnson and Brown ask: "How much time must elapse before current scholarly trends are communicated to the next generation of scholars?" (1998, 473). The last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed great strides in the amount and scope of scholarly research on women's history in medieval Iberia,1 and women's literary history, too, received attention from an array of scholars, male and female.2 At long last, some of the better known female-authored texts have been made available to scholars via critical editions and thematic anthologies.3 Acutely missing from this activity has been a conversation on how female-authored texts can be best incorporated into the mainstream of literary and historical canons. How do we present these works to students who have been 1 See A.M. Aguado 1994; Elisa Garrido, et al, 1997; Heath Dillard 1984; Mary Nash 1988; Alain Saint-Saens 1997; Marilyn Stone and Carmen Benito Vessels 1998; Teresa María Vinyoles i Vidal 1983, 1984, 1993, 1996. 2 See Carolyn L. Galerstein 1986; Linda Gould Levine 1993; Francisco López Estrada 1986; Carmen Marimón Llorca 1990; Kathleen McNerney and Cristina Enriquez de Salamanca 1994; Louise Mirrer 1992, 1996; Ronald Surtz 1990, 1995. 3 ElectaArenal and Stacey Schlau 1989; Amy KatzKaminsky 1997; MiguelAngel Pérez Priego 1989; MariaJesús Rubiera Mata 1989. La corónica 32.1 (Fall, 2003): 7-13 8 Dawn Bratsch-PrinceLa coránica 32.1, 2003 implicitly taught that medieval and early modern women did not write, or that the odd one who did wrote something "less than literary"? As Lola Luna accurately asserts, "aún parece ejercerse una política de exclusión que elimina a las mujeres de la institución 'Historia de la literatura'" (1995, 128). Women writers, she continues, are either relegated to a separate universe of "feminine" writing, or they are regendered as transgressive or "masculine" writers (128). Nor do the types of works they composed fit into the general definition of literature , which frequently omits religious prose texts, letters and treatises . By virtue of their exclusion from canonical anthologies and reading lists, women authors are perceived as not measuring up to some undefined, yet understood, benchmark. The nine articles in this Critical Cluster focus on how to go about the (re)placement or (re)incorporation of these texts and voices into a body of canonical texts. Of utmost importance is the consideration of how these works can be best presented to students who struggle to accept female-authored texts as "real" or "valid". Among the questions we pose are: How do these texts fit into what we typically value and teach? Given the current configuration of anthologies in our field, how can these...

KHARJAS AND VILLANCICOS

AbstractScholarship surrounding the kharjas, concluding qufls in the Hispano-Romance Mozarabic dialect, appended to muwashshahāt written in Arabic or Hebrew by 11th- to 14th-century Muslim and Jewish authors in al-Andalus, has been characterized by bitterly acrimonious polemics, sometimes involving even personal ad hominem criticism. While the kharjas are indubitably an integral part of the Hispano-Semitic poems in which they have survived, and can and should be legitimately studied within that context, some recent attempts have been put forward to deny that there is any relationship between the Romance kharjas and other manifestations of primitive lyric poetry in Castilian and Galician-Portuguese that are well documented in Medieval Iberia. The present article reviews the available evidence, which undeniably points to an intimate relationship between the Mozarabic verses and Castilian villancicos ("peasant songs") and Old Portuguese cantigas de amigo ("songs about lovers"). Consistent and abundant parallels between the three forms are discussed and exemplified in terms of themes, motifs, metrics, formulaic diction, and traditional "intuitive" style. The kharjas turn out to be crucially important as the earliest known documents of the oral-traditional Romance lyric poetry sung in Medieval Iberia and throughout the Mediterranean world during the Middle Ages and even before. The kharjas are, then, best viewed as essentially amphibious poems that should be productively and collaboratively studied by Arabists, Hebraists, and Hispanists.

The Ambivalent Converso Condition. A Review-Article of The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted Jews of Medieval Spain

Research Article| January 01 2003 The Ambivalent Converso Condition. A Review-Article of The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted Jews of Medieval Spain E. Michael Gerli E. Michael Gerli University of Virginia E. Michael Gerli (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1972) is Commonwealth Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Virginia. His most recent publication is Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia (New York and London: Routledge, 2003). His interests lie in medieval and early modern Hispanic literature and culture. A book titled The Converso Condition: Writing, Religion, and Ethnic Identity in Pre-Expulsion Castile is presently in course. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Calíope (2003) 9 (2): 93–102. https://doi.org/10.5325/caliope.9.2.0093 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation E. Michael Gerli; The Ambivalent Converso Condition. A Review-Article of The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted Jews of Medieval Spain. Calíope 1 January 2003; 9 (2): 93–102. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/caliope.9.2.0093 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressCalíope Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2003 The Pennsylvania State University2003The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (review)

Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (review)

THE LANGUAGES OF MEDIEVAL IBERIA AND THEIR RELIGIOUS DIMENSION1

AbstractThe aim of this article is to investigate language use as a social phenomenon in the period of eight centuries during which there was a Muslim state in the Iberian peninsula—that is, more exactly, the period comprising 711 C.E. to 1492 C.E., which are the dates of the Muslim arrival and conquest of the peninsula, and the end of the reconquest of the Muslim territory by the Christians, respectively. For this purpose, I will look into the contexts and registers in which the different languages of Medieval Iberia were used, as well as references to linguistic usages that the written sources of this period contain. Religious affiliation will prove to be a decisive factor in the use of different linguistic varieties and, moreover, the values ascribed to each of them.

Women in Medieval Iberia

Women in Medieval Iberia

Historical Literature in Medieval Iberia

Historical Literature in Medieval Iberia

Shorter notices. Medieval Iberia. Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish sources. OR Constable [ed

Journal Article Shorter notices. Medieval Iberia. Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish sources. OR Constable [ed] Get access S Barton S Barton University of Exeter, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 114, Issue 456, April 1999, Pages 403–404, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/114.456.403 Published: 01 April 1999

Shorter notices. Medieval Iberia. Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish sources. OR Constable [ed

Shorter notices. Medieval Iberia. Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish sources. OR Constable [ed