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THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ONLINE

The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance 1350-1550

Helen Nader

Part One

Crisis and Creativity

135!1"#

1

P$liti%al Pr$&a'anda and t(e )ritin' $* Hist$ry in Fi*teent(!

Cent+ry Castile,1-.Castilians of the fifteenth century wrote of and in a bewildering atmosphere of social and politicalupheaval. There was no well defined medieval tradition to serve as a guide amid the confusion of the

period. Instead, Castilians embarked upon a series of innovations in every aspect of life without

discarding the old patterns in any systematic way, without reconciling the conflicts that inevitably

developed between old and new, and without correlating new systems with one another.(1)Throughout

the Trastmara period, Castilian intellectuals sought new solutions to the inevitable problems of a

dynasty which had ac!uired the throne through civil war and fratricide" they tried to define the natureof the state, to interpret its transformations during their own lifetimes, and to define its proper

relationships with the papacy and the empire. The ma#or efforts in defining Castile$s relationships with

the papacy and empire were postponed until the reigns of the Catholic %onarchs and of Charles &, but

the task of defining, interpreting, and regulari'ing Castilian politics and society began immediatelyupon the accession of the house of Trastmara. oyal adherents of the new dynasty embarked upon a

massive propaganda campaign in the form of chronicles to clothe their revolutionary triumph in

credible respectability. Ironically, the result was not one but two contradictory and increasinglyincompatible definitions of Castilian monarchy and society.

The most important innovations in society and politics were made by *nri!ue II himself, who

recogni'ing that the greatest threat to the monarchy past and future came from within the royal family

itself ,/.created a counterbalance to the king$s relatives by delegating political power to two othergroups, the caballeros (military professionals) and the letrados (university graduates with advanced

degrees in canon or civil law). *nri!ue II gave large portions of the royal patrimony, the only noble

titles in Castile, and the two highest military offices of the kingdom to his relatives, but he made surethat they all reverted to the crown upon the death of the holders. +o members of the royal family were

given high political office. The two highest political offices of the kingdom and all of the territorial

governorships were given to the caballeros, who received no titles but did receive a portion of the royal

patrimony and other lands, which they were re!uired to convert into mayorazgos (perpetual trusts).()

Thus, the caballeros held the highest #udicial (criminal law) and military powers on the territorial level.

Their political influence was in turn checked by the allpervading influence of theAudiencia, the king$s

own court of civil and administrative law with #urisdiction in cases involving the aristocracy, whosehigh offices were filled by letrados. -uring the fifteenth century, the caballeros and the letrados for the

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most part played the role *nri!ue II had intended for them" they provided the military and #udicial

resources with which the Castilian kings resisted repeated attacks from their own Trastmara relatives.

Their political and social views, however, began to diverge markedly" the caballeros continued to see

themselves and the monarchy as partners in a secular, aristocratic, and particularist government theletrados developed a theory of monarchy that placed the king at the ape/ of a divinely ordained and

immutable hierarchy of institutions administered by anonymous bureaucrats.

These two definitions of the 0panish monarchy were developed by intellectuals whose educationalbackgrounds and professions were so divergent that their most basic assumptions about therelationship between the past and the present, the nature of historical sources, the validity of universal

models derived from philosophy, and the worth of man$s rational and irrational natures were e!ually

divergent. hile the caballeros developed a set of assumptions that produced histories similar to thehumanist histories of their 2lorentine contemporaries, the letrados developed a theoretical model based

on medieval scholastic ideals. -uring most of the century, these two historical approaches coe/isted in

support of their mutual ob#ective but at the end of the century, changing political circumstances madethe letrado approach more attractive to the Catholic %onarchs. This letrado interpretation of 0panish

history swept the field so completely and for so long it prevails ,/1.to the present day that the

very e/istence of the 3enaissance historical tradition in fifteenthcentury Castile was almost forgotten.

4nderstanding the process by which 0panish society re#ected humanist historiography is one of thekeys to understanding the nature and development of the 3enaissance in Trastmara Castile.

5f all the varieties of history that abounded in fifteenthcentury Castile, only the atin chronicles

written by letrados have attracted the attention of literary critics. They have been analy'ed by 3obert 6.Tate, who has shown the degree to which the official chronicles of 2ernando and Isabel were derived

from the atin chronicles, which in turn were dependent upon the seminal works of don 7ablo de 0anta

%ar8a and of his son, don 9lfonso de Cartagena.(:)-on 9lfonso, his father, and his students introduced

a political theory, a literary style, and a theological approach that were new to Castile, and they revivedthe interest in universal history and histories written in atin which had been neglected since the

thirteenth century. */cept for theology, these innovations were developed to their fullest e/tent by don

9lfonso$s students 3odrigo 0nche' de 9r;valo, bishop of 7alencia and Castile$s representative to thepapal court and 9lfonso de 7alencia, atin secretary and chronicler to Isabel and principal source for

. 1?:=), bishop of

6urgos and former head rabbi of 6urgos. 9fter his conversion to Christianity in 1:@>, don 7ablostudied at the universities of 0alamanca and 7aris and achieved such facility in the method and

substance of scholastic theory that he was privileged to argue before the popes of 9vignon. In 1?1,

don 7ablo wrote a summary of the medieval chronicles of 0pain, and in 1?1A he completed an e/tended

and versified version of his summary. In this work, the B*dades del mundo,B don 7ablo adapted early0panish history to 5ld Testament names and chronology.

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-on 7ablo$s son, don 9lfonso de Cartagena (1:A?1?=D), also studied at 0alamanca, became bishop of

6urgos, and revised 0panish history. ), who studied with don 9lfonso de Cartagena and eorge ofTrebi'ond and served as royal chronicler and atin secretary to the Castilian monarchs from 1?=D to

1?E?.(A)7alencia$s chapters on ancient history have been lost, but the chapters of hisDecadesthatchronicle the reign of *nri!ue I& are among the most influential works in 0panish historiography. IntheDecades, 7alencia measures *nri!ue I& against 0nche' de 9r;valo$s theoretical monarch and finds

him wanting. 7alencia launches a vicious attack on the king, charging that he had not retained the royal

power od had given to him e/clusively but parceled it out to favorites, that he had brought the nation

to civil war instead of promoting its unity, that he had made treaties favorable to the %uslims anddetrimental to the Christian knights instead of carrying on the 3econ!uest, that his immorality and

weakness had brought scorn and disgrace to Castile instead of a predominance over the rest of the

peninsula. 9lthough 7alencia recogni'ed the contradiction between his theories and reality, he blamed

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*nri!ue I& for not conforming to the theory.

7alencia$sDecadeswas the source for the first few chapters of theMemorias del reinado de los Reyes

Catlicosby 9ndr;s 6ernlde' (d. 1=1:G), who chronicled the period from 1?@> to 1=1:.(@)6ernlde'

adopted not only 7alencia$s #udgments of *nri!ue I& but also his whole theory of monarchy and its rolein a divinely ordained hierarchy. To 6ernlde', the monarch was od appointed, invested, in Tate$s

words, Bnot only with a right to e/ercise royal power but with a duty to every member of the

community and set apart with his ancestors as the guardian of the common weal.B(1>)Castile wasdescribed as the heart of a unified peninsula, which it had dominated in anti!uity and which it would

again dominate by force of its moral and political superiority. ,/".Thus the final ob#ect of the state to

these writers became and the e/treme monarchism, which borders on messianism, in the royal chronicles written

from 1?A> to 1=1: reflects the e/uberance of theorists whose theories are suddenly made credible by

contemporary events. It is especially significant that no new developments in the letrado theories ofstate were made during the reign of the Catholic %onarchs. ith theory and reality apparently #oined,

there was no longer any need to ad#ust the theory.

The historiography of the letrados was distinguished by a concern for order and continuity. Their

interest in history was spurred by a desire to discover those characteristic institutions that could betraced back to anti!uity without interruption and therefore glorified as the essence of the 0panish

political structure. They studied the 3oman period, not as a society peculiar to its own time and

circumstance but as one part of the continuum of 0panish history and to emphasi'e the permanence of

the 0panish characteristics, they concentrated on reconstructing the more obscure periods before andafter the 3oman period. In their eagerness to find these consistencies, the letrados were uncritical of the

sources for the &isigothic period and took liberties with the sources for the pre3oman period. Their

search for patterns of universality and continuity and their concern with establishing those patterns asindigenous to 0pain prior to the 3oman period probably represent a response to their involvement in

international affairs and the international organi'ation of the church.

,/5.*ven before the letrados developed their theory of the state, another group of writers, the

caballeros, were writing chronicles and other prose works whose assumptions and ob#ectives werecompletely different from those of the letrados. The caballero writers are more difficult to assess in

terms of individual contributions to theory, partly because of the incomplete state of our own

knowledge about the documents and partly because they themselves were not much concerned with

theories.(11)

The first and greatest of these caballero historians was 7edro Hpe' de 9yala (1::1?>E) poet,

soldier, diplomat, canciller mayorof Castile, translator of 6occaccio and uido delle Colonne, and

commentator on the book of Fob.

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and personalities he knew from firsthand e/perience.(1)

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than those of 7edro Hpe' de 9yala and more perceptive than those of 2ernn 7;re' de u'mn, but he

used them in the same way to provide moral and political e/amples for future generations.

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doing od$s will. 6ernlde' considered all aspects of the 3econ!uest to be manifestations of divine

7rovidence" ranada had been intended and provisioned for the Castilians and although many kings

and princes had tried to win it, ranada remained in the hands of the enemy until od enabled the

chosen king, 2ernando, to win it back and avenge

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showed the #ustice of the cause,B would be completely foreign to the caballeros.(:>)Their pessimism

about the larger issues in history gives them the appearance of stoics and sets them distinctively apart

from the letrados$ messianic optimism about achieving

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aristocracy to the king$s cause but also e/cluded from power two groups whose ranks were constantly

renewed in the fifteenth century the king$s relatives and upwardly mobile knights. 2ernando de

9nte!uera, brother of *nri!ue III of Castile and himself king by election of 9ragon (1?11?1D), set

the pattern these two latter groups would follow in their efforts to ac!uire hereditary lands and offices control of the highest positions in the military orders, with their financial resources fame as military

leaders in the 3econ!uest and control over the king$s decisions through personal influence at court. 9ll

the seditious and rebellious movements of the fifteenth century found their rallying points in theinfantes first the sons of 2ernando de 9nte!uera and then the younger children of Fuan II of Castile

while several estateless but ambitious and talented men attached themselves to the king$s cause and

identified their own fortunes with those of the monarchy. Conse!uently, Castilian politics in this periodcould be characteri'ed by the career of a talented and ambitious courtier who gains the king$s

confidence, successfully organi'es the monarch$s defense against the attacks of the infantes and his

campaigns against the %uslims, and is rewarded with lands, income, high ,3/.office in the militaryorders, and marriage into the aristocracy. D1?=?), neglected his political and#udicial responsibilities, delegating his powers to his favorite, don 9lvaro de una. -on 9lvaro began

to seem a greater threat to the monarchy than the infantes he successfully repulsed, and disaffected

nobility raised enough threats of rebellion to force the king into arresting and e/ecuting don 9lvaro.6ut the king died soon afterward and his son, *nri!ue I& (1?=?1?=?), delegated much of his power to

a new favorite, Fuan 7acheco. hen *nri!ue I& replaced Fuan 7acheco with a new favorite, 6eltrn de

la Cueva, 7acheco tried to recoup his losses by denouncing both 6eltrn and the king. To this end, heand his party spread doubts about the king$s daughter, the princess Fuana, claiming that she was really

6eltrn$s daughter, that the !ueen was unfaithful, that the king was impotent, and that the true heir tothe throne was *nri!ue$s halfbrother, 9lfonso. *nri!ue I& vacillated between defense of his daughter$s

legal rights and attempts to prevent bloodshed by compromising with 7acheco, achieving neither andincreasing the confusion of everyone.

4nfortunately for the rebels, 9lfonso, their popular candidate for the throne, died prematurely in 1?DA

and they were

in great fear, dreading the indignation of the king, whom they had basely insulted withletters and words during the division, and finding no other means of defending themselves

e/cept to continue the schism which they had begun in the kingdom, elevated the lady

princess Isabel as !ueen of the kingdom in place of her brother 9lfonsoJ.(:E)

This arrangement was not very comfortable at first, since Fuana$s legitimacy was much more probable

and popularly believed than the rebels$ propaganda conceded, and Isabel could not be e/pected to

assume the popular military role of 9lfonso. 6oth of these problems were mitigated by the marriage ofIsabel to 2ernando, son and heir of the only ,33.surviving son of 2ernando de 9nte!uera, Fuan II of

9ragon (1?=A1?E@). 0ince his father was still alive and actively managing his kingdom, 2ernando was

free to assume the military leadership of his wife$s cause. The party that supported Isabel in the beliefthat she would depend upon them and be a nominal ruler whom they could control were so

disillusioned with this turn of events that they switched their allegiance to Fuana, while the former

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supporters of Fuana became the Isabelline party.

Immediately upon the death of *nri!ue I&, 2ernando and Isabel took possession of the royal

government but the division between the two factions reduced the administration to chaos, and all

sections of the population took advantage of this opportunity to give vent to acts of violence. Theensuing civil war dragged on for eight years. hen victory for Isabel was assured in 1?A>, the Catholic

%onarchs found themselves rulers of a people both tired of civil war and eager to accept such energetic

and attractive monarchs. They were still faced with the twofold problem of establishing the legitimacyof their claims to the throne and disarming the rebellious party, which was defeated but still potentiallydangerous. In these circumstances, the royal chronicles became the royal propaganda.

Initially the royal historians undertook to encourage popular acceptance of Isabel$s claims by

impugning the memory of *nri!ue I& and the reputation of Fuana. They incorporated into the royal

chronicles theDecades of 7alencia the most vitriolic of *nri!ue$s enemies.

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The theoretical arguments needed for this task had already been developed in the works of the letrado

historians, and they ac!uired some credibility as a result of the proposed $3econ!uest of ranada and

the reforms. 9fter 1?A>, the letrado concept of the monarchy was not only credible but also desperately

needed. Throughout the reign of the Catholic %onarchs, the letrado theory of state and society,irrevocably bound to Isabelline propaganda, became the theoretical bulwark of the Catholic %onarchs,

of the bureaucracy, and after the death of Isabel in 1=>? of the enemies of 2ernando.(?:)

hile the letrado concept of society en#oyed official encouragement, the caballero theories suffered aperiod of disuse" from the composition of &alera$sMemorial de di"ersas haza#asin 1?AA until the

publication of ,35.don -iego ?1?E>), and his Compendiosa

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-.C., 1@=A.

E. Tate, B9pology,B p. 1.

A. 9ntonio 7a' y %elia,&l cronista Alonso de .alencia5 su "ida y sus obras, %adrid, 1@1? 9lfonso de

7alencia, Crnica de &nri6ue I3, trans. 9ntonio 7a' y %elia, = vols., %adrid, 1@>?.

@. 9ndr;s 6ernlde',Memorias del reinado de los Reyes Catlicos, ed. %anuel Hme'%oreno and

Fuan de %ata Carria'o, %adrid, 1@D.1>. Tate, B9pology,B p. 1.

11. The study of the caballero chronicles is possible because of Fuan de %ata Carria'o$s editions of

many previously unknown vernacular chronicles. 0ee his B*studio 7reliminarB and edition of each of

the following" 9ndr;s 6ernlde',Memorias del reinado de los Reyes Catlicos Crnica de don Al"aro

de -una! condestable de Castilla! maestre de %antiago, %adrid, 1@?> Crnica del halconero de 0uanII,.edro Carrillo de Huete, %adrid, 1@?D -iego de &alera, Crnica de los Reyes Catlicos, %adrid, 1@E idem,Memorial de di"ersas haza#as! crnica de &nri6ue I3! ordenada por mos4n Diego de 3alera, %adrid,

1@?1.1. 7edro Hpe' de 9yala, Crnicas de los reyes de Castilla. %y citations of this work will be to the

edition readily available in 69*, vols. DD and DA, %adrid, reprint 1@=:, but my translations are basedon the superior te/t in Coleccin de las crnicas y memorias de los reyes de Castilla, vols., %adrid,

1EE@1EA>.

1:. 2ernn 7;re' de u'mn, Generaciones y %emblanzas. 4nless otherwise noted, citations of this

work will be to the edition by 3obert 6. Tate, in Coleccin $,mesis, 0eries 6, vol. II, ondon, 1@D=.

1?. 2or his life, see ucas de Torre, B%os;n -iego de &alera. 0u vida y sus obras,B/olet1n de laAcademia de Historia, E= (1@1?), =>A:, 1::1DA Fuan de %ata Carria'o, *studio preliminar to -iego

de &alera,Memorial de di"ersas haza#as. 2or his place in 0panish historiography see *. 9. 7eers,

%pain5 A Companion to %panish %tudies, =th ed. ondon, 1@@, p. 11D Faime &icens &ives, ed.,Historia social y econmica de &spa#a y Am4rica, 6arcelona, 1@=E, II, ?A: Fulio 9lonso 7uyol, Bos

cronistas de *nri!ue I&,B/olet1n de la Real Academia de Historia, EA (1@1), :@@?1=, ?AA?@D E@

(1@), 11A, 11A1??. 2or his works, see-a cornica de &spa#a, 0eville, 1=:A Crnica de los ReyesCatlicos, ed. Fuan de %ata Carria'o&p1stolas de mos4n Diego de 3alera! enbiadas en di"ersos

tiempos e a di"ersas personas, ed. Fos; 9. de 6alenchana, %adrid, 1AEA as well as theMemorial de

di"ersas haza#as.

1=. Crnica, p. 1?E Torre, B%os;n -iego de &alera,B pp. 1:?1:=.

1D. Crnica, p. 1?@.

1E. %ichel de %ontaigne,&ssays, trans. F.%. Cohen, , p. 1D@.

1A.Memorias, p. ::.

1@. Ibid., pp. 1@, >:, >@.

>. Ibid., p. .

1. Ibid, p. 1:.

. Crnica, pp. E, 1:D.

:. Ibid., pp. 1D11D=, 1=>, 1@:, 1@D.

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?. Ibid., pp. 1@1@: Better to don 2ernando, Fune 1?A=.B&p1stolas, p. AA.

=.&p1stolas, p. AE.

D. Crnica, pp. AD, 11@, 1:A, 1?1. This caballero attitude toward the %uslims had not changed since

the composition of the Trailer to the ran CrHnica of 1:??. The author of this work noted that Bhay una

ley de -ios por encima de las dos religiones y -ios $administra #usticia y milagro$ sin atender al credo,sino a la verdad de cada uno.B -iego Cataln, ed., 7n cronista annimo del siglo 2I3, Canarias, n.d., p.

11@.

E. &alera, Crnica, pp. 1E>1E1 compare the similarity of this passage to his description of the battle

of Toro, ibid., p. D>.

A. 2or the persistence of religious elements in 0panish chivalry and of secular elements in the3econ!uest, see Fuan de %ata Carria'o, BCartas de la frontera de ranada, 1?:>1=>@,BAl8Andaluz, II

(1@?D), D@1:> Cataln, 7n cronista, pp. DDDE, 1>=, 11?, 11D11E, 11A don Fuan %anuel,-ibro de

los estados, p. @?, cited by 9m;rico Castro, $he %tructure of %panish History, trans. *dmund . Ming,7rinceton, 1@=?, p. 1 Fos; oKi astambide, Ba 0anta 0ede y la recon!uista del reino de ranada,B

Hispania %acra, ? (1@=1), ?@D: 7.. *vans, B9 0panish Mnight in 2lesh and 6lood. 9 0tudy of the

Chivalric 0pirit of 0uero de NuiKones,BHispania, 1= (+ew Lork, 1@:), 1?11=.

@. B0er siempre victorioso es donde la alta tribuna, mas pugnar contra fortuna e/ercicio es virtuoso,BGeneraciones, pp. D:D?.

:>. Fos; uis 3omero considers this confusion of 2ortuna with 7rovidence as a characteristic of the

medieval mind, B0obre la biograf8a espaKola del siglo O& y los ideales de vida,B Cuadernos de

Historia de &spa#a, 1 (1@??), 11=1:A, reprinted in %obre la historiograf1a y la historia, 6uenos9ires, 1@?=. Fos; Cepeda 9dn believes that it is an indication of Fewish ancestry, B*l

7rovidencialismo en las cronistas de los 3eyes CatHlicos,BArbor, 1E (1@=>), 1EE@>.

:1.Memorias, p. DD1. 6ernlde'$s attitudes on these sub#ects are considered by many historians to be

typical of the common people. 0ee Castro, %tructure, p. 1= 9. 6allesteros y 6eretta,Historia de&spa#a y su influencia en la historia uni"ersal, nd ed., 1 vols., 6arcelona, 1@?:1@?A, &, : 2.

0oldevila,Historia de &spa#a, 6arcelona, 1@=, II, ?=?A, ?1D?1A F.

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%adrid, 1@?11@?E, I, :>:>D.

?>. 7uyol 9lonso, Bos cronistas,B p. 1:1.

?1. Carria'o, *studio preliminar toMemorialby &alera, p. ///iii 7uyol 9lonso. Bos cronistas,B pp.

1A1D Torres 2ontes,&studio, pp. :1: &alera, %emorial, pp. 11, @:, 1E@ idem,&p1stolas, pp.

1E>.

?. 7uyol 9lonso, Bos cronistas,B p. 1:.?:. Carria'o, *studio preliminar toMemorialby &alera, p. /iii Torre, B%os;n -iego de &alera,B p.

1D>.