A Socially Conditioned Hero: The Protagonist of the Cantar de mio Cid and Iberian Frontier Mentality

The objective of the article is to provide an example of how the notion of social conditioning of literature might be employed both in literary studies and in history of mentalities. The author applies the concept of conditioning factors of literary texts to an analysis of the hero’s image in the Cantar de mio Cid. There are three general conditioning factors: episteme, worldview, mentality, and a specific one: the habitus. While the general conditioning factors are common for a society in each period, the habitus emphasises the impact of the living conditions of a particular group. The author analyses the conditioning of the protagonist’s image by the so-called espíritu de frontera, a set of values and patterns of behaviour shared by the Christian population of the lands located on the frontier with Al-Andalus, where the poem was created. The frontier caused a particular attitude of Iberian Christians towards Muslims, especially the local ones. On the one hand, it implies a division into two territories: those inhabited by ‘Us’ and those populated by the ‘Others’. On the other hand, the frontier is also an area of regular contact between ‘Us’ and the ‘Others’, which attenuates the Otherness. On the frontier, the ‘Others’ become neighbours, with whom Christians are, under some conditions, willing to cooperate. An example of such a situation in the poem is the alliance and friendship of the Cid with the Moor Avengalvón. Nonetheless, despite the cases of collaboration between Christians and Muslims, the frontier is still an area of war. That conflict has, however, a specific character. The war is waged neither for religious, nor ideological reasons but simply to gain booty. Another crucial aspect of the frontier mentality as found in the poem is a particular notion of honour. On the frontier lands, honour does not depend on noble ancestry, but on virtues and personal achievements. In the poem, honour is not given but gained, which is portrayed in the career path of the protagonist. Although by birth he belongs to the lower class of chivalry (infanzones), thanks to his military success and exemplary conduct he acquires the status of rico hombre, which means that he enters the higher chivalric class. The author discusses the episodes of the poem which show the contrast between the infanzones and the ricos hombres and two different notions of honour: the one which belongs to the frontier mentality and the other, typical for the inland.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The article has been prepared within the scope of works on the Research Project No. 2020/37/N/HS3/04149: “Cavallero de prestar. Etos rycerski na Półwyspie Iberyjskim w XII–XIII w. w świetle Pieśni o Cydzie oraz innych wybranych poematów epickich” [Cavallero de prestar: The Chivalric Ethos in the Iberian Peninsula of the 12^th and 13th c. in the light of the Cantar de mio Cid and other selected epic poems]” (National Science Centre, Poland) and the Research Project No. PGC2018-095757-B-I00: “Magia, Épica e Historiografia Hispánicas: Relaciones Literarias y Nomológicas II” [Hispanic Magic, Epic Poetry, and Historiography: Literary and Nomological Relation] (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the European Regional Development Fund).

Between the Family Ties and a Vassal’s Obligations: Aymon of Dordogne in the Two Versions of Renaut de Montauban – chanson de geste and Its Prose Adaptation

This article attempts to answer the questions concerning ways of resolving conflicts between two types of obligations: those owed to one’s family and those resulting from feudal relations. An analysis of literary portrayals such a conflict of obligation and its solutions is carried out here on the basis of the heroic epic (chanson de geste) Renaut de Montauban, with Aymon, the father of rebellious brothers opposing Charles the Great as a protagonist who has to make a choice between his loyalty to the monarch and taking the side of his own children. The article compared two versions of the story: the one from the 13th-century manuscript Douce 121 and its 15th-century prose adaptation, included in the manuscript Sloane 960. The two versions are juxtaposed in order to find out if Aymon’s attitude to his obligations is depicted differently depending on the time of creating the text. First, an analysis is presented of the oath (forjurement) made by Aymon before the monarch, in which he accepts the obligation not to help his children, and to fight against them. Then, on the basis of selected fragments of both versions, the protagonist’s understanding of material support and the duty to fight against his own children is discussed. The comparative analyses of the two versions indicate that much as Aymon does not exclude the possibility of offering material support to his sons, e.g. by supplying them with food or money, he never considers the possibility of providing a military support. On the contrary, he is actively engaged in a fight against them, which may be a consequence of the oath. According to the law, breaking the oath by offering military support was penalized by death, whereas material support could result in a less grievous punishment. It is also demonstrated that the duties with respect to one’s family are treated much more seriously in the later version of the epic, with a clear suggestion that they should outweigh the obligations to the feudal lord.

Flamenca and the Joy of Play in the World of the Troubadours

This article attempts to interpret a thirteenth-century Occitan chivalric romance, Le roman de Flamenca, in the context of game and play. Play is an important element of the troubadours’ sociopoetic culture, both in its social (fin’amor) and literary (trobar) aspects. Since the author considers Flamenca to be a work that summarises the history of Occitan courtly poetry, on this basis he puts forward the hypothesis that the plot of the text in question was also constructed by games. This hypothesis is proven by analysing the romance through the prism of Johan Huizinga’s and Roger Caillois’ concept of play. An additional argument testifying to the importance of games in the troubadour world is the key term for fin’amor, joi (translated as Joy), whose components are two other terms: joia (joy) and joc (game). For this reason, the author treats this phenomenon as the Joy of Play, a feeling of pleasure resulting from engagement in poetic games. Based on Caillois’ classification, the author distinguishes two types of games in the text. The first of these is agon, or the competition between Flamenca and her lover Guillaume, and her jealous husband Archambaut. The analysis of the work provides answers to questions about the model player, the set of rules of the game (referred to as lo gay saber, ‘the gay science’) and its course. Of particular note are the passages in which competition is thematised through ludic vocabulary and references to joi. This leads to the conclusion that agon is a structural principle of Le roman de Flamenca. The next section aims to interpret the plot of the novel in the context of mimicry, games based on imitation. The theatrical motifs of the work are subjected to critical reflection, particularly in connection with the joi. In this sense, illusion and imitation constitute the content of the work. In the last section, the author proposes to raise the question about other forms of games in the troubadour world. In particular, the treatment of joi as illinx, a game based on vertigo, is taken into consideration. The collected material and the research lead to the conclusion that Flamenca is a piece built around different types of games: agon is its structure, mimicry serves to guide the action, while illinx may be its possible goal.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Research funded by the government as part of the programme “Diamentowy Grant” no. DI2017 015147 in the years 2018–2022.

Knightly Code of Conduct in Alonso the Wise’s Siete Partidas: Text and Context

Alfonso X of Castile, also known as Alfonso the Wise was one of the most eminent Medieval rulers of the Kingdom of Castile and León. This paper presents selected facts from his life, especially highlighting his achievements as a patron of science and literature, as well as propagator of the vernacular language, i.e. Castilian. A special focus herein will be on the code Siete Partidas. Written under Alfonso’s auspices, this text describes knightly customs and combines the features of fiction and legal documents. The paper consists of two parts: a commentary and a translation of Title XXI of Partida II. The commentary presents the essential information on Alfonso X, including his legislative activities connected to Siete Partidas, and also the significance of the code for Spanish legislation, the contents of the seven books (partidas), as well as its authorship. In order to provide some background of the knightly culture on the Iberian Peninsula in the 13th century, knighthood rights are also presented on the basis of other contemporary texts on related subjects, such as Ramon Llull’s The Book of the Order of Chivalry or the French anonymous treatise L’ordene de chevalerie. The translation presented in the second part of the article is the first and the only Polish version of a fragment of Siete Partidas dealing with duties, privileges and also customs. Prepared on the basis of the critical edition by Jerry R. Craddock and Jesús Rodríguez Velasco, the translation attempts to grasp the nature of the original language and content, providing notes, which facilitate comprehension of particularly challenging problems.