Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/378

 354 SPAIN [LITERATURE. French originals. The 14th century also produced a long- historical composition in verse, the Rhymed Chronicle of Alfonso XI. (died 1350), by Rodrigo Yanez, important fragments of which have come down to us ; the versifica- tion of this chronicle is similar to that of Santob's Proverbs (strophes of four octosyllabic verses rhyming abab). Eo- The word romance not only signifies in Spain, as in mances. other Romanic countries, the vulgar tongue, but also bears the special meaning of a short epic narrative poem (historic ballad) or, at a later date, a short lyric poem. As regards the form, the " romance " (Spanish el romance, in contrast to French, &c., la romance) is a composition in long verses of fourteen syllables ending with one rhyme, or assonance, which have been generally, but wrongly, divided into two short lines, the first of which, naturally, is rhymeless. This being the form of the romance verse, the Cronica rimada del Cid, and even the Poema (though in this case the in- fluence of the French alexandrines is perceptible), might be considered as a series of romances tagged on one after the other ; and in fact several of the old romances of the Cid, which form each an independent whole and have been printed as separate poems in the 16th century, are partly to be found in the Cronica. Other romances, notably those dealing with the heroes of the Carlovingian epic, so popular in Spain, or with the heroes which Spanish patriot- ism opposed at a certain period to the French paladins, as, for example, Bernardo del Carpio, the rival and the conqueror of Roland in Castilian tradition, seem to be portions severed from those cantares de gesta composed by juglares of which Alfonso X. makes mention. It is only at the close of the 15th century, and especially during the 16th, that the romances, which had previously passed from mouth to mouth by song and recitation, began to be written down and afterwards to be printed, at first on broadsheets (pliegos sueltos) and subsequently in collections (roman- ceros), either general, in which romances of very different date, character, and subject are mixed up, or restricted to a single historical or legendary episode or to a single per- sonage (for example, the Romancero del Cid). In those collections the epic verse is always regarded as octosyllabic and printed as such ; occasionally certain editions divide the romance into strophes of four verses (cuartetas). Prose King Alfonso X. (died 1284), under whose patronage chronicles, were published the memorable code entitled Las Siete f ai ^ cts an d great scientific compilations, such as the Libros de Astronomia and the Lajndario, was also the founder of Spanish historiography in the vulgar tongue. The Cronica General, composed under his direction, con- sists of two distinct parts : the one treats of universal history from the creation of the world to the first centuries of the Christian era (La General 6 Grant Historia), the other exclusively of the national history (La Cronica 6 Historia de Espana) down to the death of Ferdinand III. (1252), father of Alfonso. The main sources of the Cronica General are two Spanish chroniclers of the 13th century, Lucas of Tuy and Rodriguez of Toledo, who wrote in Latin, but whose works were early translated into the vernacular. In the Historia de Espana of Alfonso X., which has collected many legends and which occasionally refers to the songs of the juglares (for the purpose, however, of refuting them), the narrative relating to the Cid is partly based on an Arabic text. This portion has frequently been printed by itself, under the title of Cronica del Cid. Alfonso's example bore fruit. In the 1 4th century we find another Cronica General de Espaiia or de Castilla, constructed on the model of the first and embracing the years 1030-1312; next, the Grant Cronica de Espaiia and the Grant Cronica, de los Conqueridores, compiled by command of the grandmaster of the order of St John of Jerusalem, Juan Fernandez de Heredia, about centurie! 1390. Special chronicles of each king of Castile were soon written. Our information is at fault in regard to the authorship of the chronicles of Alfonso X., Sancho IV., Ferdinand IV., and Alfonso XL ; but the four following reigns those of Pedro I., Henry II., John L, and Henry III. were dealt with by Pedro Lopez de Ayala, and here we can recognize the man of literary culture, who had acquired some knowledge of ancient history, for the form of the narrative becomes freer and more personal and the style rises with the thought. Several authors had a hand in the chronicle of John II., but the final redaction was by Fernan Perez de Guzman. The sad reign of Henry IV. was related by Diego Enriquez del Castillo and Alfonso de Palencia, the glorious reign of the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella by Fernando del Pulgar and Andres Bernaldes. Along with those royal chronicles Bio- must be mentioned some biographies of important persons, graphics. Thus in the 15th century the chronicle of Pedro Nino, count of Buelna (1379-1452), by Gutierre Diez de Gamez ; that of Alvaro de Luna, constable of Castile (died 1453) ; also a very curious book of travels, the narrative of the embassy sent by Henry III. of Castile to Timur in 1403, written by the head of the mission, Ruy Gonzalez de CLAVIJO (q.v.). The other productions of Castilian prose in the 13th and Other 14th centuries are for the most part didactic and sen ten- P rose tious compositions, which, however, contain illustrations or ^Q?I tales of Eastern origin. The Spanish translation of Kalila an( j 14^ and Dimna, made direct from an Arabic text, dates from centuries the middle of the 13th century, and the romance of the Seven Sages (Sindibad), published under the title of En- ganos e Assay amientos de las Mugeres, must be referred to almost the same period. From the second half of the 13th century the collections of sentences, dits, apologues, and moral tales become very numerous : first of all, ver- sions of the Secretum Secretorum, attributed in the Middle Ages to Aristotle, one of which is entitled Poridat de las Poridades, next the Proverbios Buenos, the Bocados de Oro or Libra de Bonium, Rey de Persia, the Libro de los Gatos, which is derived from the Narrationes of Eudes of Cheriton. But the most celebrated is the Libro de los Castigos y Documentos of King Sancho IV. (died 1295), who also composed a Lucidario, a kind of encyclopaedia of theology, morals, and natural history. It was during the first half of the 14th century that the nephew of Alfonso X., the infant Juan Manuel (1282-1349), wrote those various works which place him in the first rank of medi- aeval Spanish prose writers. The best known is the collection of tales, many of them borrowed from Oriental sources, entitled El Conde Lucanor ; but besides this con- tribution to light literature he wrote graver and more specially instructive works, notably the Libro de los Estados or Libro del Infante, a kind of manual of education, domestic economy, and politics ; the Libro del Caballero e del Escudero, a practical treatise on chivalry somewhat re- sembling a work of Raymond Lully on the same subject. Unfortunately Juan Manuel's poems, which he had col- lected in a Libro de las Cantigas or de los Cantares, have been lost. The knowledge of antiquity, previously so poor and vague, made remarkable progress in the 14th century. It was thought desirable to learn more about certain epi- sodes of ancient history, such as the War of Troy, and therefore the poem on that subject by the Frenchman Benoit de Sainte-More and the Latin narrative of Guido de Columna were both translated. Pedro Lopez de Ayala translated or caused to be translated Pierre Bersuire's French version of Livy, Boetius, and various writings of Isidore of Seville and Boccaccio. While the Carlovingian cycle is mainly represented in Books of Spain by romances, of which the oldest seem to be frag- chivalry.