A proposed literary context for the Count of Barcelona episode of the Cantar de Mio Cid

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Notes

1. The historical Cid defeated Berenguer Ramon II on two occasions: first at Almenar in 1082, then at the Pinar de Tévar in 1090. The Cantar episode is based on this second encounter. All quotations arc from Poema de mio Cid, ed. Colin Smith (Oxford 1972). Numbers in parenthesis refer to the lines.

2. The poet errs when he refers to the Count as ‘don Remont’ (987). The historical protagonist involved was Berenguer Ramon II, known as ‘el Fratricida’. I have observed the Catalan spelling for the latter, but have adopted the accented Castilian form ‘Ramón’ for the character.

3. The early twelfth-century Historia Roderici in its account of the battle tells us that afterwards a feast was prepared, but it is far from clear whether the Count was invited. The phrase ‘victualia quippe sibi largiter ibidem dari sollicite precepit’ suggests that it was the Cid who feasted, but the historian continues: ‘tandem uero liberum ad terram reucrti sibi concessit’, where ‘sibi’ must refer to the Count. The passage is confused, but evidently Menéndez Pidal and the chroniclers of the Estoria de España felt constrained to opt for the Cantar’s version. For the relevant passage of the Historia, see Menéndez Pidal's edition in his La España del Cid, 4th edn (Madrid 1947), II,919 69, at p. 947. All further references are to this edition.

4. ‘The Cid and the Count of Barcelona’, HR, XXX (1962), 1–11, at p. 7.

5. ‘Corned, conde, deste pan e beved deste vino’, in Mio Cid. Estudios de endocrítica (Barcelona 1975), 113–32.

6. Various critics have commented in passing on the Tévar episode. Dámaso Alonso discusses the poet's comic technique in his portrayal of the Count in ‘Estilo y creación en el Poema del Cid, in OC, II (Madrid 1973), 107–43, at pp. 130–31. Harold Moon, ‘Humour in the Poema del Cid’, Hisp (USA), XLIV (1963), 700–04, at pp. 702–03, considers the Count to be thoroughly humiliated by the Cid who shows a broad sense of humour at the expense of his social superior. Colin Smith, ‘Did the Cid repay the Jews?’, R, LXXXVI (1965), 520–38, at p. 525, emphasizes further this sense of humour which he sees as amounting to deliberate cruelty. Américo Castro, on the other hand, claims that the Cid's behaviour is a ‘proceder elegante y señorial’ (‘Poesía y realidad en el Cantar del Cid, in Hacia Cervantes, 3rd edn [Madrid 1967], 29–44, at p. 38). Even nearer to Garci-Gómez's view is that of Jules Horrent who, on the basis of the Historia’s allusion to a feast, suggests that the historical Count may even have threatened to starve himself ‘si sus instancias no eran escuchadas’ (Historia y poesia en torno al Cantar del Cid [Barcelona 1973], 37–38, n.63). Horrent would appear to have fallen into the error suggested in note 3 above. Finally, I am grateful to Professor Peter Bly of Queen's University, Kingston (Canada), for allowing me to read his as yet unpublished paper ‘Food for Thought or Alimentary Patterns in the Poema de Mio Cid’. Bly sees the events after the battle as designed to highlight the Cid's ability to cater for himself and his men in spite of the rigours of exile. At the end of the first cantar, the socially lowly infanzón entertains lavishly the noble Count who is accustomed to a civilized and comfortable life-style. Bly is thus not much concerned with the fast, though of course his views do not conflict with mine.

7. The terms ‘France’ and ‘the French’ are here used to refer loosely to any one, or all, of the territories corresponding to modern France and to the inhabitants of that area.

8. Alfonso X, Primera crónica general [i.e. Estoria de España], ed. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, 2nd edn (Madrid 1955), II, 563b. All references to the Eslona de España are to this edition.

9. The poem, which is found in the vernacular Crónica de la población de Ávila (c. 1255), has recently been edited and illuminatingly studied by Francisco Rico, ‘Çorraquín Sancho, Roldán y Oliveros: un cantar paralclístico castellano del siglo XI!’, in Homenaje a la memoria de Don Antonio Rodríguez Moñino, 1910–1970 (Madrid 1975), 537–64.

10. The Poema de Almería forms the incomplete third section of the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, which has been edited by Luis Sánchez Belda (Madrid 1950).

11. Historia Sítense, ed. Dom Justo Pérez de Urbel and Atilano González Ruiz-Zorrilla (Madrid 1959), 130. All further references are to this edition.

12. Éginhard, Vie de Charlemagne, ed. and trans. Louis Halphen, 2nd edn (Paris 1938), 68–69.

13. See 11. 154–55 of the Oxford MS of the Chanson de Roland, ed. F. Whitehead, 2nd edn (Oxford 1946), 5.

14. Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924; repr. New York 1954), 109.

15. The poem (no. 149) is included by José María Alín in El cancionero español de tipo tradicional (Madrid 1968), 364. Alín notes that Correas included in his Vocabulario the refrán ‘La que del baño viene, bien sabe lo que quiere’, together with the explanation ‘juntarse con el varón’.

16. Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi ou Chronique du Pseudo-Turpin, ed. C. Meredith-Jones (Paris 1936), 180–81.

17. Historia Roderici, 942, 944.

18. Cantar de Mío Cid, ed. R. Menéndez Pidal, II [Vocabulario], 4th edn (Madrid 1969), 580.

19. Garei-Gómez, 129. I have referred to Bly's study in n.6.

20. Le Charroi de Nîmes, ed. Duncan McMillan (Paris 1972), 96,11. 810–13. All further references are to this edition.

21. La Chanson de Guillaume, ed. Duncan McMillan (Paris 1949–50), I, 46–47, 11. 1042–8, 1054, 1057–8.

22. Le Couronnement de Louis, ed. Ernest Langlois, 2nd edn (Paris 1969), 19, 11. 580–82 and 585–87, and 60, 11. 1927–30. AU further references are to this edition.

23. Crónica del rey don Alfonso décimo, in Crónicas de los reyes de Castilla, I, BAE, LXVI (Madrid 1875), 3–66, at p. 12b.

24. The Waning of the Middle Ages, 91.

25. Claude Régnier, Les rédactions en vers de ‘La prise d'Orange’ (Paris 1966), 106, 11. 283–89.

26. An earlier version of this article was read to the Mediaeval Spanish Research Seminar at Westfield College. I am grateful for the comments made on that occasion and also to Professor Alan Deyermond who has offered valuable suggestions for improving the revised draft.