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Music, identity and the Inquisition in fifteenth-century Spain*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Eleazar Gutwirth
Eleazar Gutwirth
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
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Extract

Sometime between the years 1330 and 1343, Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita in Castile, included this maxim in his literary masterpiece, the Libro de buen amor. This verse, like others in the poem, attributes an ethnic identity both to objects and to vocal music, a form of ethnic marking that has been preserved in Spanish culture by linguistic usage: the Arabic particle a[1] in the prefix to words for musical instruments such as adufe (square tambourine), ajabeba (transverse flute) or anafil (a straight trumpet four feet or more in length) is a possible reminder of this phenomenon. About a century later, the chronicler Alonso de Palencia (d. 1492) applied similar ethnic markings when speaking of the music of a young Castilian converso who was to become one of the most powerful courtiers of King Enrique IV, Diego Arias Dávila: ‘per rura segobiensia…cantibusque arabicis advocabat sibi coetu rusticorum’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 17 , October 1998 , pp. 161 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 Libro de buen amor. The Book of True Love, trans. Daly, S. R., ed. Zahareas, A. N. (Philadelphia, 1973), lines 1516–17Google Scholar.

2 Stevenson, R., Spanish Music in the Age of Columbus (The Hague, 1960), pp. 22–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Palencia, , Crónica de Enrique IV, ed. Melia, A. Paz (Madrid, 1973), Década I (lib. iii, cap.5), and Menéndez Pidal (see note 4)Google Scholar.

4 Pidal, R. Menéndez, Poesía juglaresca y juglares (Madrid, 1957), p. 229Google Scholar.

5 On the Latin and French sources or analogues of some of the references to musical instruments in the Libro de buen amor, see Lecoy, F., Recherches sur le Libro de buen amor, ed. Deyermond, A. D. (Farnborough, 1974), p. 260Google Scholar, who discusses the list of instruments which greet Love and its dependence on previous models even in apparently local details such as Moorish instruments. See also Devoto, D., ‘La enumeracióon de instrumentos musicales en la poesía medieval castellana’ in Miscelánea en Homenage a H. Anglés (Barcelona, 1958–1961), pp. 211–22Google Scholar. Similarly problematic is the other source, though for different reasons. The problems of using Palencia's chronicle for anyone connected with Enrique IV are well known, and in the case of Diego Arias they may be compounded by his Jewish origins. On the problem of the representation of Jews and judaisers in Castilian chronicles of the period, see Gutwirth, E., ‘The Jews in 15th-Century Castilian Chronicles’, Jewish Quarterly Review, 84, no. 4 (1984), pp. 379–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is little evidence to show that Palencia knew either Arabic or Hebrew, or that he could distinguish between these differing musical traditions.

6 Pidal, R. Menéndez, Poesía popular y poesía tradicional en la literatura española. Conferencia leída en All Souls' College 26/6/1922 (Oxford, 1922)Google Scholar.

7 See for example Kiwi, E. Gerson, ‘On the Musical Sources of the Judeo-Spanish Romance’, Musical Quarterly, 50 (1964), pp. 31–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Avenary, H., ‘Old Melodies to Sephardic pizmonim’ (in Hebrew), in Tesoro de los judios sefardies, 3 (1960), pp. 149–53Google Scholar; idem, ‘Cantos españoles antiguos mencionados en la literatura hebrea’, Anuario Musical, 25 (1971), pp. 67–79Google Scholar; Etzion, J. and Weich-Shahak, S., ‘The Spanish and the Sephardic Romances: Musical Links’, Ethnomusicology, 32 (1988), pp. 1–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The Spanish “Romances viejos” and the Sephardic Romances: Musical Links across Five Centuries’, Atti del XVI Congreso della Società Internationale di Musicologia (1989), pp. 7–16Google Scholar.

8 See Seroussi, E., ‘Between Eastern and Western Mediterranean: Sephardic Music after the Expulsion from Spain and Portugal’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 6 (1991), pp. 198–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 On the conversos in fifteenth-century Castile in general, see Baer, Y., A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. ii (Philadelphia, 1978)Google Scholar. On Diego Arias's Inquisition file and its historical interpretation, see Gutwirth, E., ‘Jewish-Converso Relations in XVth c.Segovia’, Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, B (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 49–53Google Scholar; idem, ‘Elementos étnicos e históricos en las relaciones judeo-conversas en Segovia’, Jews and Conversos, ed. Kaplan, Y. (Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 83–102Google Scholar; idem, ‘On the Background to Cota's Epitalamio Burlesco’, Romanische Forschungen, 97, 1 (1985), pp. 1–14Google Scholar; idem, ‘Abraham Seneor: Social Tensions and the Court-Jew’, Michael, 11 (1999), pp. 169–229Google Scholar; idem, ‘From Jewish to Converso Humour in Fifteenth Century Spain’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 67 (1990), pp. 223–33Google Scholar. All references are to the excellent transcriptions by Parrondo, C. Carrete in Fontes Iudaeorum Regni Castellae, vol. iii (Salamanca, 1986), hereafter cited as ‘FIRC’Google Scholar.

10 On Diego Arias see the notes to the studies of his Inquisition file mentioned above; also Puértolas, J. Rodríguez, Poesía crítica y satírica del sigh xv (Madrid, 1984)Google Scholar, and Azáceta, J. M., El Cancionero de Juan Fernández de Ixar (Madrid, 1956) pp. 447ffGoogle Scholar.

11 For the places where music was performed in fifteenth-century Spain and their analysis, see e.g. Kreitner, K., ‘Music in the Corpus Christi Procession of Fifteenth-Century Barcelona’, Early Music History, 14 (1995), pp. 153–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Knighton, T., ‘Ritual and Regulations: The Organization of the Castilian Royal Chapel during the Reign of the Catholic Monarchs’, Miscelánea … José López-Calo S. J. coord. E. Casares and C. Villanueva, vol. i (Santiago de Compostela, 1990), pp. 291–320Google Scholar, which emphasises that the royal chapel was not so much a space as a body of clergy. There are images of performance spaces in, for example, the breviary illuminated in Flanders during the last decade of the fifteenth century for Queen Isabella (now London, British Library Add. MS 18851) on fol. 164, where King David is shown surrounded by the singers of the ‘old song’ of the Old Testament. See Backhouse, J., The Isabella Breviary (London, 1993), pl. 24Google Scholar. For the performance of Christian secular music in Spain see also Muntane, M. C. Gómez, La música en la casa real catalano-aragonesa (1336–1442), vol. i (Barcelona, 1979)Google Scholar.

12 FIRC No. 104, p. 62.

13 FIRC No. 179, p. 102.

14 FIRC No. 187, p. 106. On the significance of the retraymiento, see Gutwirth, E., ‘Habitat and Ideology: The Organization of Private Space in Late Medieval juderías’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 9 (1994), pp. 205–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For yet another place where music was possibly performed (it was certainly a place for prayer) the huerta of Diego Arias near the gate of San Martin, see FIRC No. 82.

15 FIRC No. 111, p. 203.

16 FIRC No. 219, p. 115.

17 FIRC No. 66, p. 43.

18 This topos will be studied in detail elsewhere. Pero Ferrus's Cantiga has been frequently cited in the literature; see, for example, the Cancionero de Baena (Leipzig, 1860), p. 319Google Scholar. In the usual interpretation, the reverse of my own, it is seen as an unproblematic model of ‘convivencia’.

19 On these individuals, see the studies mentioned in note 9 above. Other recorded listeners are the Jew Abraham Saragossi, Diego Arias's majordomo in Segovia; Çulema aben Shushan, a Jewish tax-collector; and Judah Saragossa, a Segovian Jewish community official c. 1482. See FIRC p. 74; p. 73; p. 115 and p. 102.

20 FIRC No. 111.

21 For this transcription of a prayer's name, see Gutwirth, E., ‘Fragmentos de Siddurim españoles de la Geniza’, Sefarad, 40 (1980), pp. 389–401Google Scholar. The evidence for the musical character of ‘Barukh She-'Amar’ and the practice of ‘prolonging its tune’ is from the thirteenth century and from the Franco-German region, and therefore is not directly relevant here. Kiddush is transcribed as hedi (cf. No. 182) and also as beraha. Ata Horetah is mentioned in Yuda Pillos's testimony. Fernan Alvarez's testimony refers to the verses after removing the Scroll.

22 Cf. e.g. Idel, M., ‘Music and Prophetic Kabbalah’, Yuval, 4 (1982), pp. 150–69Google Scholar; Allony, N., ‘The Term musiqah in Medieval Jewish Literature’ (in Hebrew), Yuval, 1 (1968)Google Scholar; Adler, I., ed., Hebrew Writings Concerning Music (Munich, 1975)Google Scholar.

23 FIRC No 104, p. 62. Another witness described an occasion when Diego Arias was singing ‘a una sola voz’ (solo) in Hebrew and all the others responded. See FIRC No. 71. Another description of his singing was ‘a voces’, i.e. loudly. See FIRC No.81.

24 H. Shay's critical edition of the dictionary on the basis of the St Petersburg and other Geniza fragments is imminent. In the meantime, see the quotation and comments of Ratzhavi, Y., ‘Form and Melody in the Jewish Song of Yemen’ (in Hebrew), Tazlil, 8 (1968), p. 16Google Scholar.

25 FIRC No. 104, p. 62.

26 Adret, R. Solomon ben, She'elot W-Teshuvot, vol. i (Bne Beraq, 1982), p. 300Google Scholar, refers repeatedly to ‘the helper’ of the Huescan community's precentor. I interpret the references to ‘helper as replacement’ of the cantor as only one aspect of the ‘helper's’ functions.

27 FIRC No. 111.

28 FIRC No. 179, p. 102.

29 FIRC No. 187, p. 166.

30 Ibid.

31 Maria, R. Santa, ‘Ritos y costumbres de los hebreos españoles’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 22 (1893), pp. 181–8, is an early exponent of this long traditionGoogle Scholar.

32 Hoffman, L. A., Beyond the Text: A Holistic Approach to Liturgy (Bloomington, Indiana, 1987), p. 36Google Scholar.

33 Hoffman, , Beyond the Text, p. 37Google Scholar.

34 Hoffman, , Beyond the Text, pp. 36ffGoogle Scholar.

35 FIRC No. 111. Another version which circulated in Segovia was that it was a bedsheet – ‘sábana’ – rather than a tablecloth. See FIRC No. 77. David Gome's testimony is that ‘en aquellos mesmos dias los decia el dicho Diego Arias’ (‘he said it on those very days’), p. 102. This seems to be the exception to the general rule of not specifying the liturgical season.

36 FIRC No. 179, p. 102.

37 FIRC No. 111.

38 Reif, S. C., Judaism and Hebrew Prayer (Cambridge, 1993), p. 210CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 FIRC No. 111.

42 Covarrubias, , Tesoro de la lengua española (Madrid, 1610) s.v. gorjaGoogle Scholar.

43 FIRC No. 190, p. 107.

44 Gutwirth, E., ‘A muwashshah by Solomon Bonafed’, ed. Badillos, A. Sáenz, Adas … Congreso Poesía Estrófica (Madrid, 1991), pp. 137–44Google Scholar.

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46 Gutwirth, E., ‘Language and Hispano-Jewish Studies’ (in Hebrew), Pe'amim, 41 (1989), pp. 156–9Google Scholar.

47 Knighton, T., ‘New Light on Musical Aspects of the Troubadour Revival’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 2/1 (1993), pp. 75–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 La música en la corte de los Reyes Católicos (siglos XV-XVI), vol. iv-i: Cancionero de Palacio, introductión y estudios por J. Romeu Figueras (Barcelona, 1965)Google Scholar, cap. v. For him the songs of the Cancionero de Palacio are like Provençal troubadour and goliardic poetry in their hyperbolic use of divine metaphors and in their employment of the language of devotion in speaking of profane love. Thus we find a bacchic song which is a parody of a Marian hymn; love masses; the agony of love depicted in terms taken from the liturgical offices of Easter and the dead; and the gospels quoted in profane love songs.

49 Stevens, J., Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1979), p. 50Google Scholar; Page, C., ‘The Rhymed Office for St Thomas of Lancaster: Poetry, Politics and Liturgy in Fourteenth Century England’, Leeds Studies in English (NS), 14 (1983), pp. 134–51Google Scholar.

50 Page, ‘The Rhymed Office’, p. 138.

51 Hoffman, Beyond the Text.

52 The royal chronicler Pulgar's evaluation, ‘ni guardauan vna ni otra ley’, is well known, as is the general tenor of the anonymous Libro del Alborayque, which compares the conversos to the hybrid horse of Mohammed; so is the parody of a will by Alfonso Ferrandes Semuel, who ordered the Torah to be placed by his head, the Quran at his breast and the Cross at his feet. For the representation of the conversos, see the studies mentioned in note 9 above, and their bibliographic notes. For the ‘popular motif’ amongst ‘the marranos in Spain’ of ‘holy Queen Esther’, who had changed her religion to bring salvation to Israel, see Scholem, G., Sabbetai Sevi (London, 1973), p. 761Google Scholar. For its currency in the messianic movement see ibid., pp. 803, 804, 851, 887. There is no need to discuss here the theological duality of the hidden God amongst some ex-conversos in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, when analysing the duality theme in discussions of Esther by writers such as Penso de la Vega, one should also bear in mind the impact of baroque culture and the conventions of rhetoric as pointed out by Bnaya, M., ‘La náusea del manjar ordinario. Agudeza y hermenéutica en J. Penso de la Vega’, in Los judaizantes en Europa, ed. Esteban, F. Diaz (Madrid, 1994), pp. 55–63Google Scholar.