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Fictional Evolution: The Old French Romances and the Primitive Amadís Reworked by Montalvo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edwin B. Place
Edwin B. Place*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
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Extract

The earliest authenticated printed version of the Amadís de Gaula, a prose romance of chivalry reworked and expanded into four books (and a subsequently published sequel) by the Spaniard Garcí Rodríguez de Montalvo, appeared at Saragossa in 1508. Between this date and 1492 an earlier edition of Montalvo's work was undoubtedly published, probably in Castile. As we shall see, this may or may not have been partly or wholly identical in content with a MS. Amadis embodying certain changes in the Briolanja episode made at the instigation of a Prince Alfonso of Portugal. Before 1379 there was an Amadis in three books circulating in Castile, and about this same time a version, perhaps the same, by one Vasco Lobeira of Portugal was extant. Moreover, there was an Amadis of unknown proportions, but presumably of one or two books only, as early as 1345–50. I shall show that this version may have been written in 1331. But no version, I repeat, survives except Montalvo's.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , June 1956 , pp. 521 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1956

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References

1 Los qualro libros del Virtuoso cauallero Amadis de Gaula: Complidos (Saragossa: Jorge Coci, 1508). In this paper, presented before the Medieval Section of the MLA at its 1954 annual meeting, there will be noted a modification of the theories of Amadis' genesis which I published in Speculum in 1950. But I have not yet discarded their major premises. There is still the possibility of some connection between the plot of the Amadis and the career of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Cf. my article, “The Amadis Question,” Speculum, xxv (1950), 357–366.

2 The earliest preserved eds. of Seville appear not to be based on the ed. of 1508. It is well known that there are continuations so early as to indicate an ed. of Bks. I-IV before that date. (A descriptive bibliography of all authenticated eds. will appear in the Gili Gaya-Place ed. of the Amadis, still in press.)

3 Mentioned in the Spanish translation of Egidio delia Colonna's De regimine principum, made between dates mentioned by Juan Garcia de Castrogeriz (cf. KB, xv [1906], 815). The mention is found in a gloss by the translator.

4 RB, xxi (1909), 1–167. I have checked and verified her references from Paulin Paris, Les Romans de la Table Ronde, against Summer's ed. of the Vulgate, published after she did her research, and I have been able to add a few others. For the Pseudo-Boron cycle, cf. Merlin, ed. G. Paris and J. Ulrich, 2 vols. (Paris: SATF, 1886), Introd.

5 Entwistle, Pedro Bohigas, Bonilla and others have made extensive studies of the translations and adaptations of the Arthurian matter into Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. From these studies it is clear that the Vulgate Lancelot and the Tristan were most popular. Unhappily, most of the Peninsular versions that have come down to us are somewhat late, or are fragmentary. But Bonilla has demonstrated for the Tristan the freedom with which the Spanish redactor handled his French material. However, since we are uncertain concerning the form of the earliest Hispanic versions of the Tristan and Lancelot, just as we are for the Amadis, it is impossible to determine whether X drew from Spanish redactions or French originals. References: W. J. Entwistle, The Arthurian Legend in the Literatures of the Spanish Peninsula (London, 1925); P. Bohigas, Los textos españoles y Portugueses de la Demanda del Santo Grail [the Demanda includes versions of Lanzarole] (Madrid, 1925); A. Bonilla y San Martin, ed. Libro del esforçado cauallero don Tristan de Leonis…, (Madrid, 1912), Prólogo.

6 Date of death of Henry II of Castile, on whose passing he wrote a conventional lament in verse (Cancionero de Baena, Madrid, 1851, No. 304).

7 See Rimado de Palacio, ed. Kuersteiner (New York, 1920), stanza 163 of E.

8 Cancionero de Baena, No. 305: “Que le Dyos dé santo poso,” which was first interpreted correctly by C. Garcia de la Riega in Literatura galaica, el Amadis de Gaula (Madrid, 1909) pp. 102 ff.

9 RPh, vi (1953), 283 ff.

10 Beginning “aunque el sefior infante don Alfonso de Portugal… ”

11 Beginning “Todo lo que mâs desto en este libro primero … ”; see below for discussion of Briolanja episode.

12 See Crónica de Alfonso XI, BAE, IXVI, 173.

13 See his Liçöes de Uteratura portuguesa: Epoca medieval, 2nd ed. (Coimbra, 1942), p. 194; and his ed. of (selections from translation from) Amadis de Gaula, 2nd ed. (Lisbon, 1941), for a complete statement of Portuguese claims as they stand today.

14 See Purgatory viii.13, where a snatch of a hymn attributed to the Saint is introduced.

15 See Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston, 1939), p. 119, n.

16 Cf. supra, n. 11.

17 These facts are a matter of record in all exhaustive accounts of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

18 This poem may be read in BAE, xxxv, 449–450. To be mentioned also is the popular ballad beginning:“¡Ay, ayé qué fuertes penas!”. Romancero general, 3rd ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1938), p. 619.

19 The widely accepted conjectures of Senhora Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos and others to the effect that the Infante don Alfonso of the Amadís was a son of King Duarte —the son known to have been the feudal overlord of the troubador Joâo Pires de Lobeira, composer of the original Leonoreta song refrain—should be dealt with at this point. This Don Alfonso married Dona Violante, half-sister of the Castilian literary prince, Juan Manuel, and was a Castilian subject from 1304 until his death in 1312. This identification, with its implications of literary osmosis through contacts of the prince with his famous brother-in-law, seems ill-founded in the light of facts purveyed by A. Giménez Soler in his biography, Don Juan Manuel (Saragossa, 1932), pp. 34–36 et passim. Giménez shows that Don Juan Manuel had virtually no contacts with his brother-in-law and family, lived in another part of the country, and only went to see Don Alfonso to call him to account, in 1306, for the alleged brutal murder of Dona Violantel As for João Pires de Lobeira, according to scanty documentation he flourished between 1258 and 1285, and was presumably dead long before the Infante went to Castile to reside.

20 See my forthcoming article in the RFE.

21 BBMP, xxiii (1947), 103–111.

22 The deep impress of Islamic mores and attitudes toward life upon the formation of Spanish civilization has been shown by many writers, most brilliantly by Américo Castro in his Espana en su historia (Buenos Aires, 1948)—pub. in English tr., revised by author, as The Structure of Spanish History, Princeton, 1954—although he does not treat specifically the seclusion of women.

23 El amor y el matrimonio secreto en los libros de caballerias (Madrid, 1948), Cap. I.

24 Op. cit.; see n. 9.

25 See Summer's glossary of proper names in his ed. of Vulgate cycle, viii.

26 See A. Millares Carlo, Historia de la literatura española hasta fines del siglo xv (Mexico City, 1950), pp. 74–75. Millares cites Manuel de Montoliû, Literatura castellana (Barcelona, 1937), p. 54.