Chariots of Ladies

Francesc Eiximenis and the Court Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Iberia

Nuria Silleras-Fernandez

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781501701634
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

In Chariots of Ladies, Núria Silleras-Fernández traces the development of devotion and female piety among the Iberian aristocracy from the late Middle Ages into the Golden Age, and from Catalonia to the rest of Iberia and Europe via the rise of the Franciscan Observant movement. A program of piety and morality devised by Francesc Eiximenis, a Franciscan theologian, royal counselor, and writer in Catalonia in the 1390s, came to characterize the feminine ideal in the highest circles of the Iberian aristocracy in the era of the Empire. As Eiximenis's work was adapted and translated into Castilian over the century and a half that followed, it became a model of devotion and conduct for queens and princesses, including Isabel the Catholic and her descendants, who ruled over Portugal and the Spanish Empire of the Hapsburgs.Silleras-Fernández uses archival documentation, letters, manuscripts, incunabula, and a wide range of published material to clarify how Eiximenis's ideas on gender and devotion were read by Countess Sanxa Ximenis d'Arenós and Queen Maria de Luna of Aragon and how they were then changed by his adaptors and translators in Castile for new readers (including Isabel the Catholic and Juana the Mad), and in sixteenth-century Portugal for new patronesses (Juana's daughter, Catalina of Habsburg, and Catalina's daughter, Maria Manuela, first wife of Philip II). Chariots of Ladies casts light on a neglected dimension of encounter and exchange in Iberia from the late fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries.

PART I

Genesis

CHAPTER 1

A Return to Piety

Eiximenis and the Culture of the Late Medieval Catalan Court (The Crown of Aragon, 1327–1409)

And the first rule is that a man must never appear to be ignorant in front of his wife, but rather he should give her to understand that he knows infinitely more than he seems to, but what he withholds or does not mention, he does so out of love for her, since he does not wish to grieve or to afflict her and thinks that she will work it all out herself little by little.

Francesc Eiximenis, El dotzè (Dotzè del Crestià, 539, ed. Renedo and Guixeras, Francesc Eiximenis, 94)

Who was this Francesc Eiximenis, this friar who authored one of the most enduring treatises of female behavior of the late Middle Ages—a text that crossed borders, cultures, and languages over the course of more than two centuries? What type of cultural, religious, and social environment produced him and his work? What drove Eiximenis, and what were the agendas that informed his oeuvre? And how did these compare to the expectations and ideals of his contemporaries? This chapter aims to answer these questions, reconstructing the networks Eiximenis moved in and the relationships he cultivated, his ties to the royal house, and his desire to reform the Franciscan movement in an age of religious decadence and a schismatic church, torn between the papacies of Rome and Avignon. In the process, it will throw light on the rich and complex literary history of the Crown of Aragon, and the history of the Iberian Peninsula of the late fourteenth century.

Eiximenis may be a fairly obscure writer today—so much so that several of his major works remain unpublished and can be read only in manuscript form—but in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, he was a widely read, well-known, and respected figure. Although his work included a whole range of genres, from political theory to theology, Eiximenis preferred to compose didactic treatises in prose to address what he regarded as the pressing moral and religious issues of the day. He embraced the Stoic ideal that viewed writing as a practice designed for the cultivation of virtue and the care of the soul, and therefore conducive to the complete abolition of desire. The link between the search for truth and reading the Bible and other religious texts has been part of the fabric of Christian culture from the earliest days of the church.¹ As a Franciscan, Eiximenis knew well the monastic culture of the late Middle Ages and the fundamental connection between reading, writing, and experience. His style was clear, easy to understand, and appropriate to his aim, which was the education and edification of lay readers, nobles, and nonnobles alike. As he put it in several of his works, including the first book of his monumental Lo Crestià (The Christian), writing “may serve learned and lettered persons, but I intend here to speak principally to people who are simple, and lay folk, and who are not highly educated.”² Likewise, in the second chapter of his Llibre dels àngels (Book of Angels) he explained, “Thus, our intent is not to speak in a complex manner, nor a subtle, nor an artificial one, nor to high clergymen, but rather to simple and devout people.”³

And while it is true that Eiximenis wrote some treatises in Latin—particularly those that he composed specifically for ecclesiastic use, which included treatises on sermons and preaching—most of his work was written in his native Catalan. This was the popular vernacular and preferred language of the dynasty of the count-kings of the House of Barcelona, who ruled the Crown of Aragon from its foundation in 1137 until the death of Martí I in 1410. Over the course of the fourteenth century, Catalan had become the language of the royal administration and the parliament (corts) and would remain the language of the court even after the Castilian Trastámara dynasty took over in 1412. It would only be displaced at the royal court by Castilian (Spanish) after 1469, when Ferran d’Aragó, later known as Fernando the Catholic, married Isabel of Castile, and moved his base of operations to her kingdom. Thereafter, his own realms were ruled for the most part through the medium of lieutenants, or viceroys he directed from Castile. “Ferran” became “Fernando,” and left his Catalan behind.

Eiximenis’s work makes manifest an encyclopedic knowledge that he deployed enthusiastically in his mission to popularize lay devotion and to make theology palatable to common Christians. His works, as Andrés Ivars and Martí de Riquer have observed, can be divided into four main categories: theological, moral/political, pious essays written in the vernacular (which is to say, Catalan), and doctrinal texts in Latin.⁴ Works of the latter category, such as Eiximenis’s Pastoral—a book of advice for priests and bishops that he dedicated to Hug de Lupià, bishop of Valencia—were intended for the ministry. Likewise, his Psalterium laudatorium (Laudatory Psalter), a devotional work for clergy, was dedicated either to Pedro de Luna (“Papa Luna,” the Aragonese antipope who ruled at Avignon as Benedict XIII) or to Berenguer de Ribalta, bishop of Tarazona, depending on the manuscript.⁵ His De triplici statu mundi (Concerning the Tripartite State of the World; c. 1378–79) dealt with the Apocalypse, and was inspired by visionaries such as Joan de Rocatallada, Arnau de Vilanova, and Joachim da Fiore—all of who were embroiled with the Avignon papacy that Eiximenis would eventually support.⁶ Finally, his Ars predicandi populo (Art of Preaching to the People) is the most pedagogical among his writings. It is a manual that teaches preachers how to preach and also focuses on the use of mnemonics for the congregation.⁷ Only fragments of Eiximenis’s Summa theologiae have been preserved.⁸

On the other hand, Eiximenis’s Catalan-language theological works, notably, the Llibre del àngels (c. 1392) and the Vida de Jesucrist (Life of Jesus Christ), became his most popular. Both the Llibre del àngels and the Vida de Jesucrist were dedicated to Pere d’Artés, a patron Eiximenis fawningly referred to as “the very honorable and wise knight.”⁹ D’Artés was the treasurer (mestre racional) of the Crown of Aragon during the reigns of Martí I and his predecessor and brother, Joan I (1387–96), and served alongside Eiximenis in Maria de Luna’s council, after she had been appointed as lieutenant general of the Kingdom of Valencia. The Llibre del àngels was a voluminous treatise, comprising 201 chapters. As the first of its kind, it helped entrench in contemporary Europe the popularity of angelic devotion, and, particularly, the figure of the Guardian Angel—the protector of cities, kingdoms, and the individual faithful.¹⁰ Indeed, this became Eiximenis’s most popular book, and was translated into Latin, Spanish, French, and Flemish. There are sixteen extant manuscript copies in Catalan, and fifteen more (now lost) are attested, in addition to which three survive in Latin, seventeen in French, and four in Castilian. Many printed editions of the work were produced as well: two in Catalan (Barcelona, 1494), four in Castilian (Burgos, 1490 and 1517; Alcalá, 1527; and Barcelona, 1641), four in French (Geneva, 1478; Lyon, 1486; and Paris, 1505 and 1518), and one in Flemish (Brussels, 1518).¹¹ The Vida de Jesucrist, written around 1397–8, weighed in at 691 chapters, and was intended for lay readers with the aim of providing a model for devotion both to God and to the Virgin Mary. It was influenced by earlier vitae, such as Ludolf of Saxon’s Vita Christi and Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor vitae crucifixae (Tree of Life of the Crucifix).¹² Later it would be translated into Castilian by Hernando de Talavera, Isabel the Catholic’s confessor and the first archbishop of Christian Granada (see chapter 4), as well as into French. It too would be published in print. Eiximenis’s pious treatises followed the same thread as these theological works, but were more practical and prescriptive in their orientation. The most notable among these is his Scala Dei, which is one of the subjects of the present study, while others include the Cercapou (a book on confession) and the Art de ben morir (Art of Dying Well), a translation of the Ars moriendi.¹³

Among his major moral/political compositions figure the Llibre de les dones (analyzed in chapter 2) and his most ambitious enterprise, the unfinished masterwork Lo Crestià—a work intended to explain everything that it was necessary to know about the Christian religion in order for both clergy and laity to live pious and devout lives. The plan was for this project to span thirteen volumes, but it seems that Eiximenis produced only four, known as El primer, El segon, El terç, and El dotzè.¹⁴ El primer (The First [volume of Lo Crestià]; c. 1379–81) serves as a 381-chapter introduction to Christian religion and morality, and was dedicated to King Pere the Ceremonious (r. 1336–87). The second volume (El segon; c. 1382–83) consists of 239 chapters on temptation, the third (El terç; 1384), a voluminous 1,060 chapters on sin, and the last, El dotzè (The Twelfth; 1387–91), is a monumental treatise on government resembling in many places a “mirror of princes.” The remaining nine volumes of Lo Crestià were never completed.

Eiximenis was a busy man. Not only was he heavily involved with political and ecclesiastical commitments; he was also writing other books. Some of these were also major literary achievements, while others were variations on themes developed in Lo Crestià. For example, his Tractat d’Usura (Treatise of Usury) resembles El terç, although the surviving parts make it clear it was, in fact, a distinct work.¹⁵ The four volumes of Lo Crestià were particularly popular in Valencia, where they were made available to any and all who wanted to read them—a copy was kept chained to a table in the main chamber of the palace of the jurats (the city councillors).¹⁶ El dotzè generated such interest that thirty-nine of its chapters (chaps. 357–95) were excerpted and expanded to form a treatise known as the Regiment de la cosa pública (Ruling of the Republic)—a work that was read widely and eventually issued in print.¹⁷ Indeed, Eiximenis dedicated the Regiment to the jurats of Valencia, with the professed aim of helping them rule their city.¹⁸

Eiximenis was, above all, a pragmatist and a man of the world. While living in Valencia he was an energetic adviser to the jurats, and served as a member of Maria de Luna’s regency council, during her tenure as lieutenant general of the kingdom from 1402 to 1406. Eiximenis was involved in all sorts of projects and initiatives. He helped to reform the regulations governing the city schools, he was one of the examiners of the Hebrew books found after the brutal pogroms of 1391, and he served as legate (comissari apostòlic) on a crusade against the Muslim pirates of the Maghrib launched by the Valencians and the Mallorcans.¹⁹ Together with his colleague, the Dominican friar Antoni Canals, he advised the king and queen on the matter of the Western Schism—when there were popes in both Rome and Avignon. Through all of this, he was apparently an active and popular preacher, although only part of his corpus of sermons has survived. In other words, his nonliterary political and religious activities mirrored his literary interests: a concern for society in all of its facets, and a commitment to cultivating popular piety.²⁰

His writing was rooted firmly in the Bible, the writings of the church fathers, history, a...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Note on Style, Usage, and Translations
• Introduction
• Part I. Genesis
• Part II. Afterlife
• Conclusion
• Works Cited
• Index