[521] “E per ço començ al feyt del dit senyor, Rey En Jacme, com yol viu, e asenyaladament essent yo fadrí, e lo dit senyor Rey essent á la dita vila de Peralada hon yo naxqui, e posa en lalberch de mon pare En Joan Muntaner, qui era dels majors alberchs daquell lloch, e era al cap de la plaça,” (Cap. II.,)—“And therefore I begin with the fact of the said Lord Don James, as I saw him, and namely, when I was a little boy and the said Lord King was in the said city of Peralada, where I was born, and tarried in the house of my father, Don John Muntaner, which was one of the largest houses in that place, and was at the head of the square.” En, which I have translated Don, is the corresponding title in Catalan. See Andrev Bosch, Titols de Honor de Cathalunya, etc., Perpinya, folio, 1628, p. 574.

[522] This passage reminds us of the beautiful character of Sir Launcelot, near the end of the “Morte Darthur,” and therefore I transcribe the simple and strong words of the original: “E apres ques vae le pus bell princep del mon, e lo pus savi, e lo pus gracios, e lo pus dreturer, e cell qui fo mes amat de totes gents, axi dels seus sotsmesos com daltres estranys e privades gents, que Rey qui hanch fos.” Cap. VII.

[523] This poem is in Cap. CCLXXII. of the Chronicle, and consists of twelve stanzas, each of twenty lines, and each having all its twenty lines in one rhyme, the first rhyme being in o, the second in ent, the third in ayle, and so on. It sets forth the counsel of Muntaner to the king and prince on the subject of the conquest they had projected; counsel which the chronicler says was partly followed, and so the expedition turned out well, but that it would have turned out better, if the advice had been followed entirely. How good Muntaner’s counsel was we cannot now judge, but his poetry is certainly naught. It is in the most artificial style used by the Troubadours, and is well called by its author a sermo. He says, however, that it was actually given to the king.

[524] Raynouard, in Tom. III., shows this; and more fully in Tom. V., in the list of poets. So does the Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. See, also, Fauriel’s Introduction to the poem on the Crusade against the Albigenses, pp. xv., xvi.

[525] Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. p. 411, and Schmidt, Gesch. Aragoniens im Mittelalter, p. 465.

[526] Latassa, Bib. Antigua de los Escritores Aragoneses, Tom. I. p. 242. Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XX. p. 529.

[527] Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. Lib. VIII. c. vi., vii., and Amat, p. 207. But Serveri of Girona, about 1277, mourns the good old days of James I., (Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XX. p. 552,) as if poets were, when he wrote, beginning to fail at the court of Aragon.

[528] Muntaner, Crónica, ed. 1562, fol., ff. 247, 248.

[529] Du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, Parisiis, 1733, fol., Tom. I., Præfatio, sect. 34-36. Raynouard (Troub., Tom. I. pp. xii. and xiii.) would carry back both the Catalonian and Valencian dialects to A. D. 728; but the authority of Luitprand, on which he relies, is not sufficient, especially as Luitprand shows that he believed these dialects to have existed also in the time of Strabo. The most that should be inferred from the passage Raynouard cites is, that they existed about 950, when Luitprand wrote, which it is not improbable they did, though only in their rudest elements, among the Christians in that part of Spain. Some good remarks on the connection of the South of France with the South of Spain, and their common idiom, may be found in Capmany, Memorias Históricas de Barcelona, (Madrid, 1779-92, 4to,) Parte I., Introd., and the notes on it. The second and fourth volumes of this valuable historical work furnish many documents both curious and important for the illustration of the Catalan language.

[530] Millot, Hist. des Troubadours, Tom. II. pp. 186-201. Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. pp. 588, 634, 635. Diez, Troubadours, pp. 75, 227, and 331-350; but it may be doubted whether Riquier did not write the answer of Alfonso, as well as the petition to him given by Diez.

[531] Bouterwek, Hist. de la Lit. Española, traducida por Cortina, Tom. I. p. 162. Latassa, Bib. Antigua, Tom. II. pp. 25-38.

[532] Bouterwek, trad. Cortina, p. 177. This manuscript, it may be curious to notice, was once owned by Ferdinand Columbus, son of the great discoverer, and is still to be found amidst the ruins of his library in Seville, with a memorandum by himself, declaring that he bought it at Barcelona, in June, 1536, for 12 dineros, the ducat then being worth 588 dineros. See, also, the notes of Cerdá y Rico to the “Diana Enamorada” of Montemayor, 1802, pp. 487-490 and 293-295.

[533] Bruce-Whyte (Histoire des Langues Romanes et de leur Littérature, Paris, 1841, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 406-414) gives a striking extract from a manuscript in the Royal Library, Paris, which shows this mixture of the Provençal and Catalan very plainly. He implies, that it is from the middle of the fourteenth century; but he does not prove it.

[534] Sarmiento, Memorias, Sect. 759-768. Torres Amat, Memorias, p. 651, article Vidal de Besalú. Santillana, Proverbios, Madrid, 1799, 18mo, Introduccion, p. xxiii. Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 5-9. Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, Paris, 1813, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 227-230. Andres, Storia d’ Ogni Letteratura, Roma, 1808, 4to, Tom. II. Lib. I. c. 1, sect. 23, where the remarks are important at pp. 49, 50.

[535] Mariana, Hist. de España, Lib. XVIII. c. 14.

[536] “El Arte de Trobar,” or the “Gaya Sciencia,”—a treatise on the Art of Poetry, which, in 1433, Henry, Marquis of Villena, sent to his kinsman, the famous Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, Marquis of Santillana, in order to facilitate the introduction of such poetical institutions into Castile as then existed in Barcelona,—contains the best account of the establishment of the Consistory of Barcelona, which was a matter of such consequence as to be mentioned by Mariana, Zurita, and other grave historians. The treatise of Villena has never been printed entire; but a poor abstract of its contents, with valuable extracts, is to be found in Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes de la Lengua Española, Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II.

[537] See Zurita, passim, and Eichhorn, Allg. Geschichte der Cultur, Göttingen, 1796, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 127-131, with the authorities he cites in his notes.

[538] Anales de la Corona de Aragon, Lib. X. c. 43, ed. 1610, folio, Tom. II. f. 393.

[539] Torres Amat, Memorias, p. 666.

[540] Ibid., p. 408.

[541] The discussion makes out two points quite clearly, viz.: 1st. There was a person named Jordi, who lived in the thirteenth century and in the time of Jayme the Conqueror, was much with that monarch, and wrote, as an eyewitness, an account of the storm from which the royal fleet suffered at sea, near Majorca, in September, 1269 (Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Tom. I. p. 1; and Fuster, Biblioteca Valentiana, Tom. I. p. 1); and, 2d. There was a person named Jordi, a poet in the fifteenth century; because the Marquis of Santillana, in his well-known letter, written between 1454 and 1458, speaks of such a person as having lived in his time. (See the letter in Sanchez, Tom. I. pp. lvi. and lvii., and the notes on it, pp. 81-85.) Now the question is, to which of these two persons belong the poems bearing the name of Jordi in the various Cancioneros; for example, in the “Cancionero General,” 1573, f. 301, and in the MS. Cancionero in the King’s Library at Paris, which is of the fifteenth century. (Torres Amat, pp. 328-333.) This question is of some consequence, because a passage attributed to Jordi is so very like one in the 103d sonnet of Petrarch, (Parte I.,) that one of them must be taken quite unceremoniously from the other. The Spaniards, and especially the Catalans, have generally claimed the lines referred to as the work of the elder Jordi, and so would make Petrarch the copyist;—a claim in which foreigners have sometimes concurred. (Retrospective Review, Vol. IV. pp. 46, 47, and Foscolo’s Essay on Petrarch, London, 1823, 8vo, p. 65.) But it seems to me difficult for an impartial person to read the verses printed by Torres Amat with the name of Jordi from the Paris MS. Cancionero, and not believe that they belong to the same century with the other poems in the same manuscript, and that thus the Jordi in question lived after 1400, and is the copyist of Petrarch. Indeed, the very position of these verses in such a manuscript seems to prove it, as well as their tone and character.

[542] Torres Amat, pp. 636-643.

[543] Of this remarkable manuscript, which is in the Royal Library at Paris, M. Tastu, in 1834, gave an account to Torres Amat, who was then preparing his “Memorias para un Diccionario de Autores Catalanes” (Barcelona, 1836, 8vo). It is numbered 7699, and consists of 260 leaves. See the Memorias, pp. xviii. and xli., and the many poetical passages from it scattered through other parts of that work. It is much to be desired that the whole should be published; but, in the mean time, the ample extracts from it given by Torres Amat leave no doubt of its general character. Another, and in some respects even more ample, account of it, with extracts, is to be found in Ochoa’s “Catálogo de Manuscritos” (4to, Paris, 1844, pp. 286-374). From this last description of the manuscript we learn that it contains works of thirty-one poets.

[544] Torres Amat, p. 237. Febrer says expressly, that it is translated “en rims vulgars Cathalans.” The first verses are as follows, word for word from the Italian:—

and the last is—

It was done at Barcelona, and finished August 1, 1428, according to the MS. copy in the Escurial.

[545] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6, where Tirante is saved in the conflagration of the mad knight’s library. But Southey is of quite a different opinion. See ante, note to Chap. XI. The best accounts of it are those by Clemencin in his edition of Don Quixote, (Tom. I. pp. 132-134,) by Diosdado, “De Prima Typographiæ Hispanicæ Ætate,” (Romæ, 1794, 4to, p. 32,) and by Mendez, “Typographía Española” (Madrid, 1796, 4to, pp. 72-75). What is in Ximeno (Tom. I. p. 12) and Fuster (Tom. I. p. 10) goes on the false supposition that the Tirante was written in Spanish before 1383, and printed in 1480. It was, in fact, originally written in Portuguese, but was printed first in the Valencian dialect, in 1490. Of this edition only two copies are known to exist, for one of which £300 was paid in 1825. Repertorio Americano, Lóndres, 1827, 8vo, Tom. IV. pp. 57-60.

[546] The Life of Ausias March is found in Ximeno, “Escritores de Valencia,” (Tom. I. p. 41,) and Fuster’s continuation of it, (Tom. I. pp. 12, 15, 24,) and in the ample notes of Cerdá y Rico to the “Diana” of Gil Polo (1802, pp. 290, 293, 486). For his connection with the Prince of Viana,—“Mozo,” as Mariana beautifully says of him, “dignisimo de mejor fortuna, y de padre mas manso,”—see Zurita, Anales, (Lib. XVII. c. 24,) and the graceful Life of the unfortunate prince by Quintana, in the first volume of his “Españoles Célebres,” Madrid, Tom. I. 1807, 12mo.

[547] There are editions of his Works of 1543, 1545, 1555, and 1560, in the original Catalan, and translations of parts of them into Castilian by Romani, 1539, and Montemayor, 1562, which are united in the edition of 1579, besides one quite complete, but unpublished, by Arano y Oñate. Vicente Mariner translated March into Latin, and wrote his life. (Opera, Turnoni, 1633, 8vo, pp. 497-856.) Who was his Italian translator I do not find. See (besides Ximeno and others, cited in the last note) Rodriguez, Bib. Val., p. 68, etc. The edition of March’s Works, 1560, Barcelona, 12mo, is a neat volume, and has at the end a very short and imperfect list of obscure terms, with the corresponding Spanish, supposed to have been made by the tutor of Philip II., the Bishop of Osma, when, as we are told, he used to delight that young prince and his courtiers by reading the works of March aloud to them. I have seen none of the translations, except those of Montemayor and Mariner, both good, but the last not entire.

[548] Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Tom. I. p. 50, with Fuster’s continuation, Tom. I. p. 30. Rodriguez, p. 196; and Cerdá’s notes to Polo’s Diana, pp. 300, 302, etc.

[549] “Libre de Consells fet per lo Magnifich Mestre Jaume Roig” is the title in the edition of 1531, as given by Ximeno, and in that of 1561, (Valencia, 12mo, 149 leaves,) which I use. In that of Valencia, 1735, (4to,) which is also before me, it is called according to its subject, “Lo Libre de les Dones e de Concells,” etc.

[550] Orígenes de la Lengua Española de Mayans y Siscar, Tom. I. p. 57.

[551]

Libre de les Dones, Primera Part del Primer Libre, ed. 1561, 4to, f. xv. b.

The “Cavaller, gran vandoler, dantitch llinatge,” whom I have called, in the translation, “a highway knight, of ancient right,” was one of the successors of the marauding knights of the Middle Ages, who were not always without generosity or a sense of justice, and whose character is well set forth in the accounts of Roque Guinart or Rocha Guinarda, the personage referred to in the text, and found in the Second Part of Don Quixote (Capp. 60 and 61). He and his followers are all called by Cervantes Bandoleros, and are the “banished men” of “Robin Hood” and “The Nut-Brown Maid.” They took their name of Bandoleros from the shoulder-belts they wore. Calderon’s “Luis Perez, el Gallego” is founded on the history of a Bandolero supposed to have lived in the time of the Armada, 1588.

[552] The editor of the last edition that has appeared is Carlos Ros, a curious collection of Valencian proverbs by whom (in 12mo, Valencia, 1733) I have seen, and who, I believe, the year previous, printed a work on the Valencian and Castilian orthography.

[553] Fuster. Tom. I. p. 52, and Mendez, Typographía Española, p. 56. Roig is one of the competitors.

[554] Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 59; Fuster, Tom. I. p. 51; and the Diana of Polo, ed. Cerdá y Rico, p. 317. His poems are in the “Cancionero General,” 1573, (leaves 240, 251, 307,) in the “Obras de Ausias March,” (1560, f. 134,) and in the “Process de les Olives,” mentioned in the next note. The “Historia de la Passio de Nostre Senyor” was printed at Valencia, in 1493 and 1564.

[555] “Lo Process de les Olives è Disputa del Jovens hi del Vels” was first printed in Barcelona, 1532. But the copy I use is of Valencia, printed by Joan de Arcos, 1561 (18mo, 40 leaves). One or two other poets took part in the discussion, and the whole seems to have grown under their hands, by successive additions, to its present state and size.

[556] There is an edition of 1497, (Mendez, p. 88,) but I use one with this title: “Comença lo Somni de Joan Ioan ordenat per lo Magnifich Mossen Jaume Gaçull, Cavaller, Natural de Valencia, en Valencia, 1561” (18mo). At the end is a humorous poem by Gaçull in reply to Fenollar, who had spoken slightingly of many words used in Valencian, which Gaçull defends. It is called “La Brama dels Llauradors del Orto de Valencia.” Gaçull also occurs in the “Process de les Olives,” and in the poetical contest of 1474. See his Life in Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 59, and Fuster, Tom I. p. 37.

[557] Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 64.

[558] The poems of Ferrandis are in the Cancionero General of Seville, 1535, ff. 17, 18, and in the Cancionero of Antwerp, 1573, ff. 31-34. The notice of the certamen of 1511 is in Fuster, Tom. I. pp. 56-58.

Some other poets in the ancient Valencian have been mentioned, as Juan Roiz de Corella, (Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 62,) a friend of the unhappy Prince Carlos de Viana; two or three, by no means without merit, who remain anonymous (Fuster, Tom. I. pp. 284-293); and several who joined in a certamen at Valencia, in 1498, in honor of St. Christopher (Ibid., pp. 296, 297). But the attempt to press into the service and to place in the thirteenth century the manuscript in the Escurial containing the poems of Sta. María Egypciaca and King Apollonius, already referred to (ante, p. 24) among the earliest Castilian poems, is necessarily a failure. Ibid., p. 284.

[559] Cancionero General, 1573, f. 251, and elsewhere.

[560] Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 61. Fuster, Tom. I. p. 54. Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 241, 251, 316, 318. Cerdá’s notes to Polo’s Diana, 1802, p. 304. Viñoles, in the Prólogo to the translation of the Latin Chronicle noticed on p. 216, says, “He has ventured to stretch out his rash hand and put it into the pure, elegant, and gracious Castilian, which, without falsehood or flattery, may, among the many barbarous and savage dialects of our own Spain, be called Latin-sounding and most elegant.” Suma de Todas las Crónicas, Valencia, 1510, folio, f. 2.

[561] The religious poems of Tallante begin, I believe, all the Cancioneros Generales, from 1511 to 1573.

[562] Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 238, 248, 300, 301. Fuster, Tom. I. p. 65; and Cerdá’s notes to Gil Polo’s Diana, p. 306.

[563] Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 102. Fuster, Tom. I. p. 87. Diana de Polo, ed. Cerdá, 326. Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 185, 222, 225, 228, 230, 305-307.

[564] His Works were first printed with the following title: “La Armonía del Parnas mes numerosa en las Poesías varias del Atlant del Cel Poétic, lo D^r. Vicent Garcia” (Barcelona, 1700, 4to, 201 pp.). There has been some question about the proper date of this edition, and therefore I give it as it is in my copy. (See Torres Amat, Memorias, pp. 271-274.) It consists chiefly of lyrical poetry, sonnets, décimas, redondillas, ballads, etc.; but at the end is a drama called “Santa Barbara,” in three short jornadas, with forty or fifty personages, some allegorical and some supernatural, and the whole as fantastic as any thing of the age that produced it. Another edition of Garcia’s Works was printed at Barcelona in 1840, and a notice of him occurs in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1843, p. 84.

[565] The Valencian has always remained a sweet dialect. Cervantes praises it for its “honeyed grace” more than once. See the second act of the “Gran Sultana,” and the opening of the twelfth chapter in the third book of “Persiles and Sigismunda.” Mayans y Siscar loses no occasion of honoring it; but he was a native of Valencia, and full of Valencian prejudices.

The literary history of the kingdom of Valencia—both that of the period when its native dialect prevailed, and that of the more recent period during which the Castilian has enjoyed the supremacy—has been illustrated with remarkable diligence and success. The first person who devoted himself to it was Josef Rodriguez, a learned ecclesiastic, who was born in its capital in 1630, and died there in 1703, just at the moment when his “Biblioteca Valentina” was about to be issued from the press, and when, in fact, all but a few pages of it had been printed. But though it was so near to publication, a long time elapsed before it finally appeared; for his friend, Ignacio Savalls, to whom the duty of completing it was intrusted, and who at once busied himself with his task, died, at last, in 1746, without having quite accomplished it.

Meanwhile, however, copies of the imperfect work had got abroad, and one of them came into the hands of Vicente Ximeno, a Valencian, as well as Rodriguez, and, like him, interested in the literary history of his native kingdom. At first, Ximeno conceived the project of completing the work of his predecessor; but soon determined rather to use its materials in preparing on the same subject another and a larger one of his own, whose notices should come down to his own time. This he soon completed, and published it at Valencia, in 1747-49, in two volumes, folio, with the title of “Escritores de Valencia,”—not, however, so quickly that the Biblioteca of Rodriguez had not been fairly launched into the world, in the same city, in 1747, a few months before the first volume of Ximeno’s appeared.

The dictionary of Ximeno, who died in 1764, brings down the literary history of Valencia to 1748, from which date to 1829 it is continued by the “Biblioteca Valenciana” of Justo Pastor Fuster, (Valencia, 1827-30, 2 tom., folio,) a valuable work, containing a great number of new articles for the earlier period embraced by the labors of Rodriguez and Ximeno, and making additions to many which they had left imperfect.

In the five volumes, folio, of which the whole series consists, there are 2841 articles. How many of those in Ximeno relate to authors noticed by Rodriguez, and how many of those in Fuster relate to authors noticed by either or both of his predecessors, I have not examined; but the number is, I think, smaller than might be anticipated; while, on the other hand, the new articles and the additions to the old ones are more considerable and important. Perhaps, taking the whole together, no portion of Europe equally large has had its intellectual history more carefully investigated than the kingdom of Valencia;—a circumstance the more remarkable, if we bear in mind that Rodriguez, the first person who undertook the work, was, as he says, the first who attempted such a labor in any modern language, and that Fuster, the last of them, though evidently a man of curious learning, was by occupation a bookbinder, and was led to his investigations, in a considerable degree, by his interest in the rare books that were, from time to time, intrusted to his mechanical skill.

[566] The Catalans have always felt this regret, and have never reconciled themselves heartily to the use of the Castilian; holding their own dialect to have been, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, more abundant and harmonious than the prouder one that has so far displaced it. Villanueva, Viage á las Iglesias, Valencia, 1821, 8vo, Tom. VII. p. 202.

[567] One of the most valuable monuments of the old dialects of Spain is a translation of the Bible into Catalan, made by Bonifacio Ferrer, who died in 1477, and was the brother of St. Vincent Ferrer. It was printed at Valencia, in 1478, (folio,) but the Inquisition came so soon to suppress it, that it never exercised much influence on the literature or language of the country; nearly every copy of it having been destroyed. Extracts from it and sufficient accounts of it may be found in Castro, Bib. Española, (Tom. I. pp. 444-448,) and McCrie’s “Reformation in Spain” (Edinburgh, 1829, 8vo, pp. 191 and 414). Sismondi, at the end of his discussion of the Provençal literature, in his “Littérature du Midi de l’Europe,” has some remarks on its decay, which in their tone are not entirely unlike those in the last pages of this chapter, and to which I would refer both to illustrate and to justify my own.

[568] The University of Salamanca owes its first endowment to Alfonso X., 1254; but in 1310 it had already fallen into great decay, and did not become an efficient and frequented university till some time afterwards. Hist. de la Universidad de Salamanca, por Pedro Chacon. Seminario Erudito, Madrid, 1789, 4to, Tom. XVIII. pp. 13, 21, etc.

[569] Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Roma, 1782, 4to, Tom. IV. Lib. I. c. 3; and Fuster, Biblioteca Valenciana, Tom. I. pp. 2, 9.

[570] Tiraboschi, ut sup.

[571] Tiraboschi, Tom. IV. Lib. I. c. 3, sect. 8. Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. pp. 169, 170.

[572] Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. pp. 132-138.

[573] Prescott’s Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella, Introd., Section 2; to which add the account of the residence in Barcelona of Carlos de Viana, in Quintana’s Life of that unhappy prince, (Vidas de Españoles Célebres, Tom. I.,) and the very curious notice of Barcelona in Leo Von Rözmital’s Ritter-Hof-und-Pilger-Reise, 1465-67, Stuttgard, 1844, 8vo, p. 111.

[574] Zurita, Anales de Aragon, Zaragoza, 1604, folio, Lib. IV. c. 13, etc.; Mariana, Historia, Lib. XIV. c. 6;—both important, but especially the first, as giving the Spanish view of a case which we are more in the habit of considering either in its Italian or its French relations.

[575] Schmidt, Geschichte Aragoniens im Mittelalter, pp. 337-354. Heeren, Geschichte des Studiums der Classischen Litteratur, Göttingen, 1797, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 109-111.

[576] Prescott’s Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. III.

[577] See ante, p. 180.

[578] “Con vos que emendays las Obras de Dante,” says Gomez Manrique, in a poem addressed to his uncle, the great Marquis, and found in the “Cancionero General,” 1573, f. 76. b;—words which, however we may interpret them, imply a familiar knowledge of Dante, which the Marquis himself yet more directly announces in his well-known letter to the Constable of Portugal. Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. liv.

[579] Mariana, Historia, Madrid, 1780, fol., Tom. II. pp. 236-407. See also the very remarkable details given by Fernan Perez de Guzman, in his “Generaciones y Semblanzas,” c. 33.

[580] Castro, Bib. Española, Tom. I. pp. 265-346.

[581] See the amusing letters in the “Centon Epistolario” of Fern. Gomez de Cibdareal, Nos. 47, 49, 56, and 76;—a work, however, whose authority will hereafter be called in question.

[582] Ibid., Epístola 105.

[583] Minne is the word for love in the “Nibelungenlied” and in the oldest German poetry generally, and is applied occasionally to spiritual and religious affections, but almost always to the love connected with gallantry. There has been a great deal of discussion about its etymology and primitive meanings in the Lexicons of Wachter, Ménage, Adelung, etc.; but it is enough for our purpose to know that the word itself is peculiarly appropriate to the fanciful and more or less conceited school of poetry that everywhere appeared under the influences of chivalry. It is the word that gave birth to the French mignon, the English minion, etc.

[584] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1454, c. 2.

[585] Generaciones y Semblanzas, Cap. 33. Diego de Valera, who, like Guzman, just cited, had much personal intercourse with the king, gives a similar account of him, in a style no less natural and striking. “He was,” says that chronicler, “devout and humane; liberal and gentle; tolerably well taught in the Latin tongue; bold, gracious, and of winning ways. He was tall of stature, and his bearing was regal, with much natural ease. Moreover, he was a good musician; sang, played, and danced; and wrote good verses [trobaua muy bien]. Hunting pleased him much; he read gladly books of philosophy and poetry, and was learned in matters belonging to the Church.” Crónica de Hyspaña, Salamanca, 1495, folio, f. 89.

[586] Fernan Gomez de Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, Ep. 20.

[587] They are commonly printed with the Works of Juan de Mena, as in the edition of Seville, 1534, folio, f. 104, but are often found elsewhere.

[588] His family, at the time of his birth, possessed the only marquisate in the kingdom. Salazar de Mendoza, Orígen de las Dignidades Seglares de Castilla y Leon, Toledo, 1618, folio, Lib. III. c. xii.

[589] Fernan Perez de Guzman, Gen. y Semblanzas, Cap. 28.

[590] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1407, Cap. 4, and 1434, Cap. 8, where his character is pithily given in the following words: “Este caballero fue muy grande letrado é supo muy poco en lo que le cumplia.” In the “Comedias Escogidas” (Madrid, 4to, Tom. IX., 1657) is a poor play entitled “El Rey Enrique el Enfermo, de seis Ingenios,” in which that unhappy king, contrary to the truth of history, is represented as making the Marquis of Villena Master of Calatrava, in order to dissolve his marriage and obtain his wife. Who were the six wits that invented this calumny does not appear.

[591] Zurita, Anales de Aragon, Lib. XIV. c. 22. The best notice of the Marquis of Villena is in Juan Antonio Pellicer, “Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles,” (Madrid, 1778, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 58-76,) to which, however, the accounts in Antonio (Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Lib. X. c. 3) and Mariana (Hist., Lib. XX. c. 6) should be added. The character of a bold, unscrupulous, ambitious man, given to Villena by Larra, in his novel entitled “El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente,” published at Madrid, about 1835, has no proper foundation in history.

[592] Pellicer speaks of the traditions of Villena’s necromancy as if still current in his time (loc. cit. p. 65). How absurd some of them were may be seen in a note of Pellicer to his edition of Don Quixote, (Parte I. c. 49,) and in the Dissertation of Feyjoó, “Teatro Crítico” (Madrid, 1751, 8vo, Tom. VI. Disc. ii. sect. 9). Mariana evidently regarded the Marquis as a dealer in the black arts, (Hist., Lib. XIX. c. 8,) or, at least, chose to have it thought he did.

[593] Lope de Barrientos was confessor to John II., and perhaps his knowledge of these very books led him to compose a treatise against Divination, which has never been printed. (Antonio, Bib. Vetus, Lib. X. c. 11,) but of which I have ample extracts, through the kindness of D. Pascual de Gayangos, and in which the author says that among the books burned was the one called “Raziel,” from the name of one of the angels who guarded the entrance to Paradise, and taught the art of divination to a son of Adam, from whose traditions the book in question was compiled. It may be worth while to add, that this Barrientos was a Dominican, one of the order of monks to whom, thirty years afterwards, Spain was chiefly indebted for the Inquisition, which soon bettered his example by burning, not only books, but men. He died in 1469, having filled, at different times, some of the principal offices in the kingdom.

[594] Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, Epist. lxvi.

[595] Coplas 126-128.

[596] It is found in the “Cancionero General,” 1573, (ff. 34-37,) and is a Vision in imitation of Dante’s.

[597] The “Arte Cisoria ó Tratado del Arte de cortar del Cuchillo” was first printed under the auspices of the Library of the Escurial, (Madrid, 1766, 4to,) from a manuscript in that precious collection marked with the fire of 1671. It is not likely soon to come to a second edition. If I were to compare it with any contemporary work, it would be with the old English “Treatyse on Fyshynge with an Angle,” sometimes attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, but it lacks the few literary merits found in that little work.

[598] All we have of this “Arte de Trobar” is in Mayans y Siscar, “Orígenes de la Lengua Española” (Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 321-342). It seems to have been written in 1433.