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Abstract
The end of the fifteenth century was a charged moment in Iberia as authors grappled with shifting social categories in the decades leading up to and following the Expulsion of the Jews. Two of Juan del Encina short theatrical églogas are quite suggestive for reassessing the hermeneutics of Iberian identities. The humour serves to reassure the audience that self-transformation is a ridiculous prospect confined to the stage. Nevertheless, the exploration of themes of identity shifts underscores the collective anxiety that social transformations might indeed be occurring in contemporary Castilian society and need to be dismissed with humour.
Notes
1 E. Michael Gerli, ‘Performing Nobility: Mosén Diego de Valera and the Poetics of “Converso” Identity’, La Corónica. A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures & Cultures, 25:1 (1996), 19–36 (p. 19); Homi Bhabha quote taken from The Location of Culture (London/New York: Routledge, 1994), 1–2.
2 As Nicholas Round convincingly attests, the scapegoating and fall of royal favourite, Álvaro de Luna, exemplifies the climate of fear and anxiety concerning the growing number of conversos and their place in Iberian society. See Nicholas Round, The Greatest Man Uncrowned: A Study of the Fall of Don Alvaro de Luna (London: Tamesis, 1986), 21–24. Throughout the middle and latter part of the fifteenth century, there were frequent and vehement criticisms about the number of conversos who supposedly occupied prominent positions in the court administration and gained access to the elite spheres of society. See also Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997), 30–33; Francisco Márquez Villanueva, ‘The Converso Problem: An Assessment’, in Collected Studies in Honour of Américo Castro’s Eightieth Year, ed. M. P. Hornik (Oxford: Lincombe Lodge, 1965), 318–25; Norman Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 82–87; and Luis Suárez Fernández, La expulsión de los judíos de España (Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 1991), 207–25. The mass conversion of Jews was one of several social trends that contributed to this changing landscape, increasing rates of literacy and educational attainment in Iberia during the latter half of the fifteenth and over the course of the sixteenth century was also a factor. See Sara T. Nalle, ‘Literacy and Culture in Early Modern Castile’, Past & Present. A Journal of Historical Studies, 125 (1989), 65–96; and J. N. H. Lawrance, ‘The Spread of Lay Literacy in Late Medieval Castile’, BHS, LXII:1 (1985), 79–94, as well as his ‘The Universities in Spain at the End of the Middle Ages’, in Les Trangressions de l’ordre au Moyen Age, ed. Michel García, Atalaya. Revue Française d’Études Médiévales Hispaniques, 6 (1995), 21–40. As more educated citizens gained social prominence, there were also increasing criticisms about the supposedly eroding prestige of the nobility, both from outsiders who resented the hierarchical class structure, but also, crucially, from noblemen themselves who lamented the current state of their position and which members of society were included in their ranks. David M. Posner’s study The Performance of Nobility in Early Modern European Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1999), emphasizes that anxiety regarding the legitimacy of the nobility during this period was a frequent rhetorical trope and that it is doubtful that claims to nobility were ever as static as writers from the period imagined they had been in previous generations. Nevertheless, the perception among many writers from the period was that the prestige and respect afforded to the nobility was changing, and newcomers were infiltrating elite circles. In Iberia, toward the end of the fifteenth century, opportunities for university education provided important pathways for social mobility during this period for all members of Iberian society, including conversos. Juan del Encina’s own social promotion, from his origins in the converso merchant class to his patronage by the Duke of Alba and an extended residence in the Vatican, emphasizes the changing fortunes and new opportunities available during this period to educated and wealthy young men with excellent connections.
3 There is a rich Iberian literary tradition that dates to this period and robust scholarly approaches that concern these evolving social roles and expectations leading up to and following the Expulsion. For an introductory bibliography, I particularly recommend the now classic study by Stephen Gilman, Spain of Fernando de Rojas: The Intellectual and Social Landscape of ‘La Celestina’ (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1972). For more recent approaches, see the Critical Cluster (Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez, E. Michael Gerli, Gregory S. Hutcheson and Gregory B. Kaplan), ‘Inflecting the Converso Voice’, ed. Gregory S. Hutcheson, La Corónica. A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures & Cultures, 25:1 (1996), 3–68, and responses to that cluster in La Corónica, 25:2 (1997), 159–211. See also David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996); Kevin Ingram, Converso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spain: Bad Blood and Faith from Alonso de Cartagena to Diego Velázquez (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and his The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, 4 vols (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009–2021); Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985), as well as his Spain, 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict (Harlow/New York: Pearson Longman, 2005 [1st ed. 1983]) and his The Spanish Inquisition; Gregory B. Kaplan, The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted Jews of Medieval Spain (Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, 2002); Angus MacKay, ‘Popular Movements and Pogroms in Fifteenth-Century Castile’, Past & Present, 55 (1972), 33–67, and his ‘Ritual and Propaganda in Fifteenth-Century Castile’, Past & Present, 107 (1985), 3–43; Mark D. Meyerson, A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton U. P., 2004); David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: The Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton U. P., 1996), and his ‘Enmity and Assimilation: Jews, Christians, and Converts in Medieval Spain’, Common Knowledge, 9:1 (2003), 137–55; and Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, all of whom drew inspiration from Américo Castro’s groundbreaking study España en su historia: cristianos, moros y judíos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1948) and the scholarship of Francisco Márquez Villanueva, including ‘The Converso Problem’ and his ‘Conversos y cargos concejiles en el siglo XV’, Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, LXIII (1957), 503–40. The historiography of approaches to converso and New Christian identity and the relationship of this group to broader Iberian society is far too extensive to list here. These references are intended to provide an introduction to major contributions to the field over the past several decades and should not be considered an exhaustive list.
4 See J. P. Wickersham Crawford, Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1937 [1st ed. 1922]); Melveena McKendrick, Theatre in Spain 1490–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1989); and for more information about Encina’s influence on the development of early Spanish theatre, see Ronald E. Surtz, The Birth of a Theater: Dramatic Convention in the Spanish Theater from Juan del Encina to Lope de Vega (Princeton: Princeton U. P./Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1979). Encina was also a significant contributor to the Iberian musical canon; he produced the largest extant corpus of music by any Spanish composer of this period and his works gained international diffusion with extant musical compositions published in collections throughout Europe. See Henry W. Sullivan, Juan del Encina (Boston: Twayne, 1976), 126–37. See also Juan del Encina, Poesía lírica y Cancionero musical, ed. R. O. Jones & Carolyn R. Lee (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1975), 33–49 for a detailed analysis of Encina’s contribution to Iberian music.
5 In several modern critical editions, these two églogas are also referred to by the numbers VII and VIII due to their respective order in the first eight-play printed collection of Encina’s plays from 1496 in Salamanca. Égloga VIII is also sometimes called Égloga de Mingo, Gil y Pascuala, for instance in Encina, Teatro completo, ed. Pérez Priego; see below note 15.
6 The performance dates of these plays remain a matter of debate. Emilio Cotarelo believes Égloga VII was performed on Christmas Eve 1494 and Égloga VIII on Christmas Eve 1495 (E. Cotarelo y Mori, Juan del Encina y los orígenes del teatro español [Madrid: Revista Española, 1901]). José Caso González dates Égloga VII to summer 1495 and Égloga VIII to summer 1496 (José Caso González, ‘Cronología de las primeras obras de Juan del Encina’, Archivum, 3 [1953], 362–72). Juan C. Temprano argues for earlier composition dates, between 1492 and 1494, in ‘Cronología de las ocho primeras églogas de Juan del Encina’, Hispanic Review, 43:2 (1975), 141–51. The editor of the Castalia edition of Encina’s collected works, Pérez Priego, finds that the most convincing date for their composition. See Miguel Ángel Pérez Priego, ‘Introducción’, in Juan del Encina, Teatro completo, ed. con intro. de Miguel Ángel Pérez Priego (Madrid: Editorial Cátedra, 1991), 9–94 (pp. 60–62). Both of these plays are included in the first printing of Encina’s collected works from 1496, but it is unclear if Égloga VIII had been performed prior to its publication. Several of the plays in the 1496 printed collection, including Égloga VIII, feature moments in which the characters address audience members the Duke and Duchess of Alba directly.
7 His eldest brother Diego (de Formoselle, using the patronymic surname of the family) became a professor at the University of Salamanca in 1479 and enjoyed that position for more than forty years; Miguel de Formoselle was a priest and chorister at Salamanca Cathedral. These two brothers are believed to have been significantly older than Juan (Diego was likely fourteen to sixteen years older than the playwright) and thus well positioned to assist their younger brother with networking opportunities during his university studies at Salamanca (Juan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law sometime between 1488 and 1494) and help facilitate his entry into the court of Gutierre de Toledo, who in turn recommended him to the Duke and Duchess of Alba by 1494 or 1495. For additional information about the early life of Juan del Encina, see Pérez Priego, ‘Introducción’, in Encina, Teatro completo, ed. Pérez Priego, 11–18; and Sullivan, Juan del Encina, 19–24, who summarizes from Ricardo Espinosa Maeso, ‘Nuevos datos biográficos de Juan del Encina’, Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 8 (1921), 640–56.
8 José Antonio Maravall codified the notion of significant transformations underway in Salamanca in the decades at the end of the fifteenth century, which he highlighted as one of the most significant dimensions of La Celestina, in El mundo social de ‘La Celestina’ (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1968). Salvador de Moxó also fruitfully explored the new ethos of the emergent converso noble classes trained at the University of Salamanca and joining the burgeoning administration of the court of the Catholic Monarchs. The university atmosphere at the turn of the sixteenth century seems to have been a crucial incubator of artistic experimentation with profound significance for Iberian cultural expressions thereafter. See Salvador de Moxó, ‘De la nobleza vieja a la nobleza nueva: la transformación nobiliaria castellana en la Baja Edad Media’, Cuadernos de Historia, 3 (1969), 1–210; and his ‘La nobleza castellana en el siglo XV’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 7 (1970–1971), 493–511.
9 Although significantly less academic ink has been devoted to Encina’s églogas, scholars have long identified the thematic connections that link Encina’s works to popular discourses composed during the court of Queen Isabel I, including the sentimental romances, cancionero poetry, La Celestina and discourses and debate on gender like the querelle des femmes popular among university students in Salamanca during the 1490s and later. Antony van Beysterveldt, La poesía amatoria del Siglo XV y el teatro profano de Juan del Encina (Madrid: Ínsula, 1972), for example, argues that the discourse on and conventions of courtly love lie at the centre of many of Encina’s works. See also Robert Hathaway, Love in the Early Spanish Theatre before the Time of Lope de Vega (Madrid: Playor, 1975); Roxana Recio, ‘Algunas notas sobre el concepto de triunfo como género: el caso del Triunfo de Amor de Juan del Encina’, Hispanófila, 109 (1993), 1–10; Bruce Wardropper, ‘Metamorphosis in the Theater of Juan del Encina’, Studies in Philology, 59 (1962), 46–51; Barbara F. Weissberger, ‘The Scatological View of Love in the Theater of Lucas Fernández’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 38:2 (1986), 193–207; Keith Whinnom, La poesía amatoria de la época de los Reyes Católicos (Durham: Univ. of Durham Press, 1981); and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, ‘The New Man and the Shepherd: Juan del Encina’s First Dramatic Eclogue’, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 11:1 (1986), 145–60. Despite the clear connections to these other genres circulating during the court of Queen Isabel I, Encina’s églogas have not been subject to the same degree or frequency of critical analysis as these other literary genres in recent decades.
10 Encina himself successfully navigated a rather impressive social ascension, gaining acceptance into the courts of the Duke of Alba and the Vatican (as an artist under their patronage, but nevertheless able to participate in court life and gain the respect of the upper echelons for his artistic contributions, as well as publish his plays and disseminate his work more broadly across Iberian society). As will be further developed below, despite his own social mobility, his presentation of class roles as evidenced in these églogas does not seem to advocate radical social change, but rather to emphasize that everyone has a proper and static place in society.
11 It is worth considering whether the Escudero’s supposed ‘love at first sight’ is intended to be a comic inversion of the typical courtly lover trope. Pascuala, at least, does not seem to believe a word he says. When the Escudero enters the scene, his first interaction with Pascuala is as follows: ‘ESCUDERO: Pastora, sálvate Dios. / PASCUALA: Dios os dé, señor, buen día. / ESCUDERO: Guarde Dios tu galanía. / PASCUALA: Escudero, así haga a vos. / ESCUDERO: Tienes más gala que dos de las de mayor beldad. / PASCUALA: Essos que sois de ciudad / perchufáis huerte de nos’ (Juan del Encina, Égloga representada en requesta de unos amores, in Teatro completo, ed. Pérez Priego, 161–70 [ll. 49–56, p. 163]). Further references are to this edition and will be given in parentheses with page and line references. Like Melibea who misunderstands Calixto’s extreme attempts to woo her, Pascuala’s baffled reaction to the Escudero might be key in directing the audience to interpret the Escudero as an ineffective, ridiculous lover. Ultimately, there are so few lines that develop the Escudero’s sentiments that the actor and director could stage this interaction in a number of convincing ways.
12 Although the scene ends on a happy note, the brief interaction between these characters does not seem to emphasize the supposed ‘ennobling power of love’ as emphasized in critical approaches to these works. The Escudero has not yet had a significant conversation with Pascuala, but rather his supposed courtship of her has consisted of bragging about what he can provide for her, all of which has been primarily directed toward Mingo as a way of undermining the other man’s claims to her heart. The goal of the scene, in my reading, is to highlight the Escudero and Mingo’s absurd misunderstanding of the conventions of courtly love, emphasizing that the idea of winning a lady exclusively by competing with other suitors and reducing love to material objects is a humorous misunderstanding of the power of love.
13 Sayagués is a dialect used in Encina’s works to exaggerate the inferiority of rustic, uneducated characters. Scholars today are unsure if it was intended to approximate an actual dialect associated with peasants living in the areas surrounding the city of Salamanca or if it is primarily a theatrical exaggeration. See Sullivan, Juan del Encina, 43–44; and McKendrick, Theatre in Spain 1490–1700, 11.
14 Juan del Encina, Égloga de Mingo, Gil y Pascuala, in Teatro completo, ed. Pérez Priego, 171–89 (ll. 247–48, pp. 179–80). Further references are to this edition and will be given in parentheses with page and line numbers.
15 It is Mingo who attributes Pascuala’s transformation to the power of love: ‘En tan huerte zagalejo, / miafé, Menga, el amorío, / que con su gran poderío / haze mudar el pellejo, / haze tornar moço al viejo / y al grossero muy polido, / y al muy feo muy garrido, / y al muy huerte muy sobejo. / Haze tornar el cruel, / quando quiere, piadoso; / haze lo amargo sabroso, / haze que amargue la miel, / haze ser dulce la hiel, / y quita y pone cuidados, / haze mudar los estados’ (ll. 273–87, pp. 180–81). Given that Mingo is the character teaching Menga (and presumably the elite members of the audience) about love’s transformative powers, it is worth considering that his speech may not be intended as entirely serious. In addition, Pascuala is only described by Mingo and Menga as seeming to adapt well to palace life (‘¡Dome a Dios que ya [Pascualeja] semeja / doñata de las de villa!’ [ll. 259–60, p. 180]), leaving space open to the actor and director to decide whether to take Mingo and Menga at their word or make it clear through the staging of the work that Pascuala’s adaptation is only convincing to these two.
16 ‘PASCUALA: Calla, que desque aya espacio, / yo, Menga, te mostraré, / y el rostro te curaré / por que mudes la pelleja, / y te pelaré la ceja. / Muy gentil te pararé’ (ll. 379–84, p. 183).
17 Shayne Legassie analyses Mingo’s worry that he will look like a Jew in a convincing exploration of the hermeneutics of Mediterranean identities in the works of Pero Tafur, arguing that Tafur’s travel narrative illuminates cross-cultural bridges that span religious and ethnic conceptions of the idea of ‘courtliness’ and ‘chivalry’ throughout the Mediterranean, ultimately suggesting that such discourses were ‘[a shared idiom] that homogenized Spain’s past and “Western” culture as a whole’. See Shayne Aaron Legassie, ‘Chivalric Travel in the Mediterranean: Converts, Kings, and Christian Knights in Pero Tafur’s Andanças’, in Identity and Religion in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean, ed. John J. Martin, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 41:3 (2011), 515–44 (p. 516); see also his The Medieval Invention of Travel (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017), 222.
18 Andrews argues that these types of moments, in which characters directly address the Duke of Alba, highlight Encina’s desperate need for validation of his craft and the precarious role Encina felt he occupied as an artist in their court. See J. Richard Andrews, Juan del Encina: Prometheus in Search of Prestige (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1959).
19 See Nirenberg, ‘Enmity and Assimilation’; and his book-length study Communities of Violence.
* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.