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Abstract
The exhibition and shaming through the ordeal of public execution was a way of making public authority's control over wrongdoers. As Michel Foucault has noted, however, this was a process with the unintended potential of arousing admiration or sympathy in the spectator. In Spain the figure of the bandolero, despite crimes sufficient to take him to the gallows, was frequently presented in a positive light. The images in pliegos sueltos which commemorate bandoleros and other popular wrongdoers form part of a historical backcloth in which the bodies of those executed were exposed for the demonstration of the power that had brought them to justice. There are, however, elements in the sueltos which undermine the message of control conveyed by an execution. In the images at least, the most extreme forms of the suffering tend to be suppressed, although the details of crimes may be included with some detail. At the same time the text of the sueltos sometimes includes elements typical of a narrative of heroism that are strongly at odds with the images of wrongdoers brought to heel. Circumstantial details of the criminals may offset their depiction as worthy of condemnation, and—in more active mode—their bragging stands in dramatic tension with a containing text of authority. The whole brings into question the place of the sueltos in a dynamic of state and people, of control and response, of heroism of the person versus submission to the law. Examples discussed include the Vázquez brothers, Diego Corrientes, Juan de Serrallonga, Jaime el Barbudo, Carmelo Ausejo Alacot and Juan Portela.
Notes
* This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant Number AH/1003088/1).
1 The belief that the bandit may not necessarily be bad is reflected in the two terms habitually used: ‘bandido’ and ‘bandolero’, the latter reflecting the positive and heroic light in which this wrongdoer is viewed. See a discussion of these terms in Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos & Pilar García Mouton, ‘Bandolero y bandido: ensayo e interpretación’, Revista de Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares, 61 (1986), 7–58. The name of the Museo del Bandolero in Ronda, devoted to bandit culture, reflects this positive view of the bandit.
2 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), 3–8.
3 Michel Foucault, Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma sœur et mon frère: un cas de parricide au XIXe siècle (Paris: Gallimard/Julliard, 1973).
4 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Sheridan, 8. The last public execution in France, by guillotine, was in 1939, of Eugen Weidmann. See Paul Friedland, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment in France (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2012), 273–79.
5 Richard Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany 1600–1987 (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1996), 305–17.
6 Vic A. C. Gattrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1700–1868 (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1994), 589 ff.
7 Eugenio Cuello Calón, ‘Contribución al estudio de la historia de la pena de muerte en España’, Anuario de Derecho Penal y Ciencias Penales, 10:1 (1957), 9–39 (p. 23).
8 See Iñaki Bazán, ‘La pena de muerte en la Corona de Castilla en la Edad Media’, Clío y Crimen, 4 (2007), 306–52 (p. 309). For a text of the Siete partidas of Alfonso X, see <https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft_djvu.txt> (accessed 18 December 2014).
9 Constancio Bernaldo de Quirós, La picota: crímenes y castigos en el país castellano en los tiempos medios y figuras delincuentes (Madrid: Ediciones Turner, 1975 [1ª ed. Madrid: Librería General de Victoriano Suárez, 1907]).
10 Francisco Aguilar Piñal, Romancero popular del siglo XVIII (Madrid: CSIC, 1972), 34.
11 Aguilar Piñal, Romancero popular del siglo XVIII, 39–40.
12 (Con licencia en Madrid: En la imprenta de Francisco Xavier Garcia, se hallará en la Lonja de papel de Andrés de Sotos, mas abaxo de la Porteria de San Martin, 1761), British Library, T13 in Volume T.1957. Accents and spellings of texts of sueltos are as in the originals.
13 See Julio Caro Baroja's seminal essay, ‘Honour and Shame: A Historical Account of Several Conflicts’, in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J. G. Peristiany (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1967), 81–137.
14 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Sheridan, 66–67, recognizes some of the inherent ambiguity of popular literature about wrongdoers, attributing the transformation to ‘hero’ to the level of publicity acquired.
15 Eric. J. Hobsbawm, Bandits (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985, 10 [1st ed. 1969]), 10.
16 The glamour of the bandit in Spanish popular literature was well explored by Edward M. Wilson and Katharine Kish, ‘Some Spanish Dick Turpins, Or Bad Men in Bad Ballads’, Hispanic Review, 52:2 (1984), 141–62. See also the section ‘The Glamour of Bandits’, in the exhibition held at Cambridge University Library of popular Spanish and English material, ‘Read All about It’, available online at <https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/wrongdoing/case/the-glamour-of-bandits/> (accessed 20 May 2015).
17 Jean-François Botrel, ‘Diego Corrientes ou le bandit généreux: fonction et fonctionnement d’un mythe’, in Culturas populares: diferencias, divergencias, conflictos. Actas del Coloquio celebrado en la Casa de Velázquez, los días 30 de noviembre y 1–2 de diciembre de 1983, ed. Yves-René Fonquerne & Alfonso Esteban (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1986), 241–66. Numerous additional versions of Corrientes are now visible in the digitized collection of sueltos from Cambridge University Library and the British Library (see <http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/spanishchapbooks> [accessed 9 February 2015]). See also Jean-François Botrel, ‘ “El que a los ricos robaba … ”: Diego Corrientes, el bandido generoso y la opinión pública’, in Redes y espacios de opinión pública: de la Ilustración al Romanticismo. Cádiz, América y Europa ante la Modernidad, 1750–1850. XII Encuentro, Cádiz 3, 4, y 5 de noviembre de 2004, ed. Marieta Cantos Casenave (Cádiz: Univ. de Cádiz, 2006), 585–99, reproduced in the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, <http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/el-que-a-los-ricos-robaba-diego-corrientes-el-bandido-generoso-y-la-opinin-pblica-0/html/0133d198-82b2-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_5.html> (accessed 20 January 2015).
18 Botrel, ‘ “El que a los ricos robaba … ” ’, n. 9, referring to Archivo Histórico Nacional, Consejos, Leg. 9452-1. See above; there is no pagination in the online version of Botrel's article, but the note number is sufficient to find the reference.
19 The use of ‘bandido’ rather than ‘bandolero’ throughout is that of Botrel.
20 Emilio Palacios Fernández, ‘Guapos y bandoleros en el teatro del siglo XVIII: los temas y las formas de un género tradicional’, Cuadernos para la Investigación de la Literatura Hispánica, 18 (1993), 253–89 (p. 263); cited in Botrel, ‘ “El que a los ricos robaba … ” ’, n.p.
21 Alfonso el Sabio, Las siete partidas, cotejada con varios códices antiguos por la Real Academia de la Historia, 3 vols (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1807), III, 576.
22 Botrel, , ‘ “El que a los ricos robaba … ” ’, n.p.
23 The two prose versions are D. J. F., Historia de Diego Corrientes, ó el bandido generoso (Madrid: Despacho de Marés y Compañía a, Juanelo, 19, 1872) (CUL S743:1.c.8.1 [30]) and D. J. F., Historia de Diego Corrientes, o, el bandido generoso (Madrid: Despacho Hernando, Arenal, 11, 1894) (CUL S743:1.c.8.2 [5]).
24 Colección de canciones andaluzas (Madrid: n.p., 1856) (BL T16 in 11450.f24); Canción andaluza de Diego Corrientes y Habaneras (Madrid: Despacho de Marés y Compañía, calle de Juanelo, núm. 19 [between 1867 and 1874?]) (CUL S743:1.c.8.2 [3] and BL T69 in 12330.1.22.v6).
25 Alison Sinclair, ‘Popular Faces of Crime in Spain’, in Constructing Crime: Discourse and Cultural Representations of Crime and ‘Deviance’, ed. Christiana Gregoriou (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 145–61 (pp. 150–53).
26 Historia de la vida y hechos de D. Juan de Serrallonga (Barcelona: Imprenta de Juan Llorens, Palma de Sta Catalina, núm. 6: 24, 1865; repr. Valencia: Librerías ‘París-Valencia’, 1996).
27 Joan Amades, Josep Colominas & Pau Vila, Imatgeria popular catalana: les auques, 2 vols (Barcelona: Editorial Orbis, 1931), I, XL.
28 See the doctoral thesis by Alejandro López Pérez, ‘La novela histórica y de aventuras en torno al bandido Jaime el Barbudo: realidad y ficción, temas e influencias en las obras de Ramón López Soler, Francisco de Sales Mayo, y Florencio Luis Parrenño’ (Universitat d’Alacant, 2005).
29 Historia verdadera del famoso guerrillero y bandido Jaime el Barbudo, o sea El terror de la Sierra de Crevillente (Madrid: Despacho, Miguel Servet, 13, Teléfono 651 [between 1871 and 1889?]) (CUL S743:1.c.2 [14]: 23). There is a modern facsimile reprint of this 1876 work (Valencia: Paris-Valencia, 1992).
30 Historia verdadera del famoso guerrillero, 23.
31 See Cayetano Mas Galvañ, ‘La muerte de Jaime el Barbudo: el mito, el hombre y su verdugo’, El Salt. La Revista del Instituto Alicantino de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, 3 (13 January–6 February 2005), 40–43 (p. 43). I am indebted to Ben Dodds for drawing my attention to this information. The original document is held in the Archivo Municipal de Murcia, legajo 1541. The thesis by López Pérez, ‘La novela histórica’, 315, notes the ‘customary’ frying of parts contained in Florencio Luis Parreño, Jaime el Barbudo. Historia (El bandido más valiente de los bandidos españoles), 2 vols (Madrid: Tip. del Hospicio, 1873), II, 516.
32 See <http://arablogs.catedu.es/arablogs/blog.php?id_blog=882&id_articulo=51381> (accessed 6 July 2017).
33 Aldo Mazzacane, ‘Letteratura, processo e opinione pubblica’, Rechtsgeschichte, 3 (2003), 70–97 (p. 81).
34 (Barcelona: Imprenta de Juan Llorens, Palma de Sta Catalina, 1864) (CUL F180.b.8.1 [96]).
35 Enrique Bernal, ‘Truculento hallazgo en la estación’, El Norte de Castilla, 17 July 2010. See <http://www.elnortedecastilla.es/v/20100717/valladolid/truculento-hallazgo-estacion-20100717.html> (accessed 20 May 2015).
36 For a discussion of wrongdoers and valentía, see my forthcoming article ‘How To Know about Right and Wrong’, in How To Be in the Nineteenth Century: New Essays on Spanish Culture and Society, ed. Andrew Ginger & Geraldine Lawless (Lewisburg: Bucknell U. P.).
37 Julio Caro Baroja, Ensayo sobre la literatura de cordel (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1969).
38 The earliest of these is Juan Portela: nuevo romance en el que se declara los robos y asesinatos que ha cometido el valeroso Portela en las inmediaciones de Córdoba (Madrid: Imprenta de D.J.M. Mares, Corredera de S. Pablo, núm. 27, 1847) (CUL 8743.c.73 [87]). There was an almost immediate reprint, Juan Portela: Nuevo romance en que se declara los robos y asesinatos que ha cometido el valeroso Portela en las inmediaciones de Córdoba (Sevilla: Imprenta y Librería de D. J. M. Moreno, 1847) (reprint Biblioteca Nacional Madrid, VE/1369/12; see <http://www.bibliotecavirtualdeandalucia.es/catalogo/consulta/registro.cmd?id=1014095> [accessed 10 May 2015]). Next in date are El famoso Juan Portela: nueva relacion en la que se declaran las crueldades y asesinatos que cometió el bandido Juan Portela en la provincia de Córdoba: primera parte (Madrid: Se hallará en la plazuela de la Cebada, núm. 96, 1858) (BL T70 in 11450.f.25); and Juan Portela: relacion puesta en trovos, de los asesinatos y robos que cometió en las inmediaciones de Córdoba: primera parte (Barcelona: Véndese en casa Juan Llorens, calle de la Palma de Sta Catalina, 1859) (BL T90 in 11450.f.27). In addition, the following item seems to have been reprinted by the same basic printing house, by the widow (Barcelona: Impresos de la Vda de A. Llorens, Palma de Sta Catalina, 6, n.d., [possibly between 1842 and 1898?]) (CUL Library F180.b.8.1 [127]). There is a further printing of the period 1867 to 1874, of Juan Portela: nuevo romance en el que se declaran los robos y asesinatos que ha cometido el valeroso Portela en las inmediaciones de Córdoba (Madrid: Despacho de J. M. Marés y Compañía, Juanelo 19) (CUL 8743.b.13 [17] and BL T73 in 12330.l.22.v6).
39 Antoni Faura Casanovas, Juan Portela: historia de este famoso bandido cordobés (Barcelona: Imprenta de la Casa P. de Caridad, 1884), 5.
40 This quotation and others from this text, with accents and spelling as in the original, is taken from Juan Portela: nuevo romance (CUL 8743.c.73 [87], as the earliest version).
41 See Sinclair, ‘How To Know about Right and Wrong’.
42 The estimation of dates in these cases is based on the printer, their address and other dated outputs that we have for their details.
43 Mariano de la Lama y Noriega, Memoria histórica del piadoso instituto de la Real Archicofradía de Caridad y Paz y catálogo de los hermanos asistidos por ella desde 29 de agosto de 1687 hasta 26 de octubre de 1867 (Madrid: Imprenta de Tejado, 1868).
44 Rafael Salillas, La ejecución de Angiolillo: una página histórica fotografiada (New York/Paris/Mâcon: Protat Frères, 1908), 28; this essay was reprinted from Revue Hispanique, 19 (1908) 135–58.
* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.