Ordinary Writing and Scribal Culture in Nineteenth-Century Spain: Memory Books

Abstract

This article is a study of the survival of scribal culture in nineteenth-century Spain in the form of the so-called ‘memory books’ (libros de memorias). I analyse their relationship with the educational developments of the period, as well as the material characteristics and the content of these texts, in order to define their typical features. These texts were the products of hybrid writing practices, in the sense that several elements were frequently superimposed on one another: economic news, personal, family and social events and even historical details. Hence the similarity between the memory books and other genres such as account books (libros de cuentas) and family books (libros de familia). Lastly, I will examine some nineteenth-century examples as epigones of a writing genre which had its origins in the later Middle Ages and Early Modern period.

“One morning, while tidying up the bedroom, Rosa opened the drawer in the trunk where Cholo kept his papers. There she found the papers about the property and, in a corner, together with the Family Book and the social security booklet, the papers from the bank […]. And she was about to put it away when it occurred to her to take off the elastic band around the big folder which Cholo had kept from his time in Switzerland. There were things, names and so on that she didn’t understand, but in the middle there were also some of the cards she had sent from Aran.”1

Notes

This article, translated from the Spanish by Professor Martyn Lyons (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia), is based on a paper presented in the workshop on “Ordinary Writings and Scribal Culture: The History of Writing in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” at the 11th International Conference of the International Society of the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) on “Language and the Scientific Imagination,” University of Helsinki, Finland, 28 July–2 August 2008. It also forms part of the Research Project “Cinco siglos de cartas. Escritura privada y comunicación epistolar en España en la Edad Moderna y Contemporánea” (“Five Centuries of Letters: Private Writing and Epistolary Communication in Spain during the Modern and Contemporary Age”) (HAR2008-00874/HIST), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain, and directed by Professor Antonio Castillo Gómez. This work has been carried out according to the Research Agreement endorsed by the University of Alcala and by the Gijon Council's Municipal Foundation for Culture, Education and the Peoples’ University.

1. Manuel Rivas, En salvaje compañía (1994) (Madrid: Alfaguara, 1998), 100–101.

2. Federico Croci and Giovanni Bonfiglio, El baúl de la memoria (Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2003).

3. Philippe Artières, “Arquivar a própria vida,” Estudos Históricos 21 (1998): 9– 34.

4. Raul Mordenti, “Scrittura della memoria e potere di scrittura (secoli XVI–XVII). Ipotesi sulla scomparsa dei ‘libri di famiglia,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, ser. 3, 23.2 (1993): 741–58.

5. See Antonio Castillo Gómez et al., Bibliografía sobre escrituras populares y cotidianas (siglos XIV–XXI) (Alcalá de Henares: SIECE, 2006); (http://www.redaiep.es/pdf/publicaciones/bibliografia-escrituras-cotidianas.pdf; accessed 8.7.2011); Antonio Castillo Gómez and Verónica Sierra Blas, eds., El legado de Mnemosyne. Las escrituras del yo a través del tiempo (Gijón: Trea, 2007).

6. On this theme, see Verónica Sierra Blas, “‘Puentes de papel’: Apuntes sobre las escrituras de la emigración,” Horizontes Antropológicos 10.22 (2004): 121–47; Verónica Sierra Blas, “‘Baúles de memoria’. Las escrituras personales y el fenómeno migratorio,” in De la España que emigra a la España que acoge. Catálogo de la Exposición, Madrid (Fundación Francisco Largo Caballero and Obra Social Caja Duero, 2006), 157–75; Laura Martínez Martín, “Las correspondencias de la emigración en la época contemporánea: una mirada historiográfica,” Migraciones y Exilios 9 (2008): 135–50; Verónica Sierra Blas and Laura Martínez Martín, “Le voyage des mots. Lettres d’emigrés et secrets de famille (Espagne-L’Amérique, XIXe–XXe siècles),” in Les écrits du for privé en Europe (du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine). Enquêtes, analyses, publications, ed. Jean-Pierre Bardet, Elisabeth Arnoul and François-Joseph Ruggiu (Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2010), 185–204.

7. For summaries of this question, see Verónica Sierra Blas, “‘Olvidos epistolares’, Luces y sombras en la epistolografía contemporánea,” Revista de Historiografía, 3.2.2 (2005) : 55–68; and Antonio Castillo Gómez, “Les écrits du for privé en Espagne de la fin du Moyen Age à l’époque contemporaine. Bilan et perspective,” in Bardet, Arnoul and Ruggiu, Les écrits du for privé, 31–47.

8. Ángel G. Loureiro, coord., “La autobiografía en la España contemporánea. Teoría y análisis textual,” Anthropos. Revista de documentación de la cultura 125 (1991): 1–78 (special issue); Anna Caballé, Narcisos de tinta. Ensayo sobre la literatura autobiográfica en lengua castellana (siglos XIX y XX) (Málaga: Megazul, 1995); Fernando Durán López, Catálogo comentado de la autobiografía española (siglos XVIII y XIX), (Madrid: Ollero & Ramos, 1997); Celia Fernández Prieto and María Ángeles Hermosilla Álvarez, eds., Autobiografía en España: un balance (Madrid: Visor Libros, 2004); and Ernesto Puertas Moya, Los orígenes de la escritura autobiográfica. Género y Modernidad (Logroño: SERVA - Universidad de La Rioja, 2004).

9. Xavier Torres Sans, Els llibres de familia de pagès. Memòries de pagès, memòries de mas (segles XVI–XVIII) (Girona: CCG edicions, 2000).

10. Carmen Rubalcaba Pérez, Entre las calles vivas de las palabras. Prácticas de cultura escrita en el siglo XIX (Gijón: Trea, 2006), 169–247.

11. Jordi Curbet Hereu, ed., Les llibretes de memòries de Joan Serinyana (1818–1903), vinyater llançanenc (Girona: CCG edicions, 2007).

12. Torres Sans, Els llibres de familia de pagès, 111–14. A complete census of the texts would require study in situ because some authors wrote several memory books, as in the cases of Joan Seriñana and Lluís M. Salvador.

13. Nicole Lemaître, “Les livres de raison en France (fin XIII^e–XIX^e siècles),” Testo & Senso 7 (2006): 8; See <www.testoesenso.it> (accessed 14.8.2009).

14. Clara Eugenia Núñez, La fuente de la riqueza. Educación y desarrollo económico en la España contemporánea (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1992), 228–50.

15. David Vincent, The Rise of Mass Literacy: Reading and Writing in Modern Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 9–21.

16. Núñez, La fuente de la riqueza, 91–122.

17. Agustín Escolano Benito, “Los manuscritos escolares,” in Historia ilustrada del libro escolar en España. Del Antiguo Régimen a la Segunda República, ed. A. Escolano (Madrid: Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, 1997), 345–71.

18. This refers to the Regulations for Public Primary School Education in this period. Cf. Esteban Paluzie y Cantalozella, Guía del artesano. Libro que contiene los documentos de uso más frecuente en los negocios de la vida y 240 caracteres de letra, para facilitar a los niños la lectura de manuscritos, tan útil a toda clase de personas, (Barcelona: Hijos de Paluzie, 1913), “Objeto de esta obra.” Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Seminario Interdisciplinar de Estudios sobre Cultura Escrita, Archivo de Escrituras Cotidianas (UAH, SIECE, AEC), FE 1.7.

19. José Francés, Grafos. Segunda serie de manuscritos (Valencia: S. Mirabet, ca. 1913), 6. UAH, SIECE, AEC, FE 1.12.

20. El pobrecito hablador, 1, 17 August 1832. Cf. Mariano José de Larra, Figaro. Colección de artículos dramáticos, literarios, políticos y de costumbres, ed. Alejandro Pérez Vidal (Barcelona: Crítica, 1997), 660–61.

21. Manuel Alberca, La escritura invisible. Testimonios sobre el diario intimo, (Oiartzun: Sendoa, 2000), 14–15.

22. Francisco Ernesto Puerta Moya, Como la vida misma. Repertorio de modalidades para la escritura autobiográfica (Salamanca: Celya, 2003), 29.

23. La Roca del Vallès (Barcelona), Arxiu de la Memória Popular.

24. Los ‘Quadernos’ del comerciante de la calle Peregrina don Antonio Betancourt (1796–1807), intro. Antonio de Bethencourt Massieu, transcribed by Aurina Rodríguez Gallardo (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1996).

25. José Maria Álvarez Blázquez, “Memorias de un menestral curioso,” Museo de Pontevedra 13 (1958): 61–102. María Cristina of Bourbon was the widow of Ferdinand VII and supported their daughter Isabella's claim to the throne against Ferdinand's brother Don Carlos, in the so-called Carlist Wars.

26. Curbet Hereu, ed., Les llibretes de memòries de Joan Serinyana (1818–1903), vinyater llançanenc, 96–97, 164–65, 198–99. I would like to thank the author for making reproductions of the manuscript available, in particular Fig. 2.

27. Antonio Castillo Gómez, Entre la pluma y la pared. Una historia social de la escritura en los siglos de Oro (Madrid: Akal, 2006), 59–61.

28. María Luz Mandingorra Llavata, “La configuración de la identidad privada: diarios y libros de memorias en la Baja Edad Media,” in Antonio Castillo Gómez, ed., La conquista del alfabeto. Escritura y clases populares (Gijón: Trea, 2002), 131.

29. Libro de cuentas/ caja de Benito Sanz, fol. 112r-113v. UAH, SIECE, AEC, FMe 1.1, fol. 112r–133v.

30. Gijón, Museo del Pueblo de Asturias (MPA), 136/5.

31. Libro de caja de D. Juan Gómez Castrillón, s. fol. This book is dated 1828, but it was also used subsequently by other family members up to 1874. Gijón, MPA, 136/4.

32. Gijón, MPA, 136/5.

33. UAH, SIECE, AEC, FMe 1.1. The author used both titles alternately: “Libro de cuentas para / Benito Sanz, natural y / vecino desta villa del Cubillo. / Año de 1831” (“Account book by Benito Sanz, native and resident of this small town of El Cubillo. In the year 1831”) (fol. 108r), “Libro de caja de Benito Sanz, / vecino del Cubillo” (“Cash book of Benito Sanz, resident of El Cubillo”) (fol. 110v). And another note by the author: “Los hizo Benito Sanz, año de / 1829,” (“Benito Sanz made this, in the year 1829”) referring to the numbers at the head of the pages (fol. 111v).

34. UAH, SIECE, AEC, FMe 2.18.

35. Gijón, MPA, 136/4.

36. Madeleine Foisil, “L’écriture du for privé,” in Histoire de la vie privé, v. 3, De la Renaissance aux Lumières, ed. Roger Chartier (gen. eds. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby) (Paris: Seuil, 1986), 331–69; and Sylvie Mouysset, Papiers de famille: Introduction à l’étude des livres de raison (France, XVe–XIXe siècle) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007), 113–20.

37. Albert Compte i Freixenet, “Vida rural a les terres marginals de l’Empordà, durant la primera meitat del segle XIX” Annals de l’Institut d’Estudis Empordanesos 26 (1993): 175–232 ; and Torres Sans, Els llibres de familia de pagès, 113.

38. Rubalcaba Pérez, Entre las calles vivas de las palabras, 174; MPA, 136/5, fol. 1r.

39. In particular those of Policarpo Pando, covering 1712–1753, and two account books of Pedro Jado Agüero which span the periods 1844–57 and 1878–79.

40. Rubalcaba Pérez, Entre las calles vivas de las palabras, 173; and Rosa María Blasco Martínez and Carmen Rubalcaba Pérez, “Las escrituras del yo en los libros de cuentas de Pedro Jado (1844–1879),” in Gómez and Blas, El legado de Mnemosyne, 55–73.

41. Raul Mordenti, “Los libros de familia. Incunables del escribir sobre sí mismo,” Cultura Escrita & Sociedad 5 (2007): 216.

42. Santi Soler i Simon, ed., Memòries d’una familia pagesa: els Anglada de Fonteta (segles XVII–XVIII) (Girona: CCG edicions, 2005).

43. Gijón, MPA, 136/5, fol. 147v.

44. Angelo Cichetti and Raul Mordenti, “La scrittura dei libri di famiglia,” in Letteratura italiana, vol.3, Le forme del testo, tome 2, La prosa, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Einaudi, 1984), 1149–50; Raul Mordenti, I libri di famiglia in Italia, 2, Geografia e storia (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2001); and his “Les livres de famille en Italie,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 59.4 (2004): 785–804.

45. Antoni Pladevall i Antoni Simon, eds., Guerra y vida pagesa a la Catalunya del segle XVII (Barcelona: Curial, 1986), 31–120.

46. Apart from works cited elsewhere in these notes, see also for the Spanish case Antonio Castillo Gómez, ed., Cultura escrita y clases subalternas: Una mirada española (Oiartzun: Sendoa, 2001); and for its pedagogical potential, Verónica Sierra Blas, dir., Laura Martínez Martín and José Ignacio Monteagudo, eds., Esos papeles tan llenos de vida... Materiales para el estudio y edición de documentos personales, (Girona: CCG Edicions, 2009).

47. Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982).

48. According to the 1900 population census, the illiteracy rate for young men over 10 was 47%, whereas for women it rose to 69%. Cf. Mercedes Vilanova Ribas y Xavier Moreno Julià, Atlas de la evolución del analfabetismo en España de 1887 a 1981 (Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, 1992), 166.

49. Torres Sans, Els llibres de familia de pagès, 27.

50. Jean Tricard, “Les livres de raison français au miroir des livres de famille italiens: pour relancer une enquête,” Revue historique 624 (2002): 1008.

51. Mordenti, “Los libros de familia,” 220; this does not of course rule out the existence of later family books, for which see, among others, Simona Foà, ed., Le ‘Croniche’ della famiglia Citone, transcribed and translated from Hebrew by Alberto A. Piattelli, with preface by Giuseppe Sermoneta (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1988); and Marilisa Cucculelli, La memoria e l’alfabeto. Il ‘libro di ricordi’ di Rinaldo Cosme (Ascoli Piceno, 1822–1844) (Turin: Scriptorium, 1996).

52. Torres Sans, Els llibres de familia de pagès, 29.