Beginning of Castilian intellectual superiority in the peninsula.
General characteristics of the era.
WITH the advance of the Christian conquest against the Moslems the political centre had passed from the northern coast to the Castilian table-land, and thence to Andalusia, where for a time the court was set up in Seville. There was a tendency, however, to return to Castile proper, since the people of that region were the principal element in the conquest and in internal political affairs. The political preponderance of the Castilian part of the realm was so clearly established that it transformed that region in many ways, and caused it to have for the first time a civilization superior to that of the coastal plains, overcoming the geographical handicaps which hitherto had held it back. The predominance of Castile in intellectual life was to become yet more marked in later centuries. In earlier times the rude Asturians and Galicians had joined with the no less rude Leonese and Castilians against the Moslems, but they had become modified by contact with the conquered people themselves and with the various foreigners who joined them in the conquest. The indigenous people did not lose their own individuality, however; rather they assimilated the new influences, and paved the way for the brilliant and original manifestation of intellectual culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The principal characteristic of this epoch was the desire for knowledge, leading to the incorporation into indigenous civilization of many other elements. The conquest of Andalusia brought Castile into more intimate contact with Moslem civilization, which reached its culminating point in science and in art in the fourteenth century. French elements continued to affect polite literature and didactic works. Especially noteworthy was the great prominence of the influences coming out of Italy, giving a new direction to Castilian literature, and substituting for the Moslem scientific element the direct study of classical texts and the use of observation and experiment as a means to knowledge. The entry of western European culture into Castile was accelerated by those Castilians who went to France and Italy at this time to study in the great schools and universities of those lands. The two capital moments of the era were the reigns of Alfonso X and Juan II.
University and other education.
The universities increased in number and influence to the point of being a vital factor in the intellectual life of the period. In the Partidas, Alfonso X distinguished between the “general studies” founded by the pope, emperor, or king, and the “particular studies,” the creation of an individual or town. The former combined secondary and higher education, for the old trivium and quadrivium were retained, with the addition of the Roman and canon law.[48] Gradually the higher studies began to predominate, and associated themselves with the term “university.” The “particular studies” were usually conducted by a single master with a few students, and were confined to some one or two branches of learning. Some of these subjects, when they differed from the fundamental courses of the “general studies,” tended to be adopted by the latter. Thus theology was added to the university curriculum in the fifteenth century. Other subjects were also studied in the universities, even though not common to all, such as medicine and surgery at Salamanca. Primary education was neglected, although the church schools still continued and some towns or individuals founded such schools. The universities received considerable government aid, but were autonomous, and depended in part on other sources of income, such as their own fees and the gifts by individuals or corporations other than the state. The students and teachers together formed a cofradía, or fraternity, which elected its own rector, or president. A bishop, dean, or abbot was usually constituted a kind of guardian by royal mandate. This official was gradually replaced by the “schoolmaster of the cathedral,” who came to be judge in cases affecting university students, and even arrogated to himself the right to confer degrees, rivalling the president of the university in authority. All members of the university were granted special legal privileges (approximately those of the clergy) with respect to their persons and goods. The method of teaching employed was the reading of a text by the teacher, who commented upon and explained it. Examinations were held for the granting of the bachelor’s and doctor’s degrees. Not only did each university possess a library, but there were also many other public and private libraries, and the trade of the copyist and the manufacture of books were markedly more prominent than before. In the universities texts were loaned (not sold) to students to enable them to correct their notes,—which shows that books were still comparatively scarce. Some time before 1475, at an uncertain date, the art of printing was introduced into Castile,—with effects which belong to the following eras.
Moslem, Jewish, and other influences on Castilian thought and science.
The oriental influence on Castilian thought and science, or rather the classical influences transmitted through Moslem and Jewish writers, advanced for a time, and continued to be preponderant until the fifteenth century, when European ideas, principally Italian, became the more important. There was a change in direction of the Moslem influence, however. Philosophy dropped back from the leading place, and was substituted by juridical and moral studies, while the physical and natural sciences, including their superstitious derivations, acquired a remarkable vogue. Christian writers imitated Moslem philosophers and moralists, or translated their works; many Castilian writers were of Moslem or Jewish origin, or still continued to belong to those peoples and faiths; many Arabic works were included in the libraries of the time; and the oriental form of scientific exposition, the encyclopedia, was frequently used. The oriental influence manifested itself especially in the natural sciences. Books of mathematics, physics, chemistry, medicine, and astronomy were almost the only ones to be translated from the Arabic, and these branches were also the ones to which Mudéjar scholars of the period most frequently devoted themselves. Moslems and Jews continued to be the most famous physicians of Castile. The deductive method and dialectic forms were still employed by them, rather than personal observation and experiment. The most marked characteristic of the cultivation of the natural sciences was in their extravagant applications with a view to a knowledge of the future or to obtain vast wealth through supernatural agencies. Thus chemistry tended toward alchemy, with the aim of finding the philosopher’s stone, whereby base metals might be turned into gold, or with the object of producing mysterious elixirs endowed with wonder-working virtues. Chemists and alchemists came to be considered as practicers of magic arts in more or less intimate communion with the Devil, a belief in which the individuals themselves often shared. Men of high attainments were credulous exponents of these superstitions,—for example, Archbishop Alonso de Carrillo and the learned Enrique de Villena; the latter attained to a legendary fame which has endured even to the present day. Similarly, astronomers were at the same time astrologers. Both alchemy and astrology served a useful purpose, however, in stimulating the study of the true sciences, with a resulting advance in knowledge. The age of the Moslem and Jewish philosopher was past, and very little that was original in the realm of philosophy appeared in Castile in this period; even theological writings were not prominent, despite the study of theology in the universities and schools. Moral and political literature abounded, such as discussions of the wiles or virtues of women on the one hand, and works on the relations between church and state on the other. In the latter respect ecclesiastical writers maintained the superior authority of the pope over the king, but were in the main defenders of monarchy, although distinguishing the legitimate king from the tyrant, and sustaining the ultimate dependence of the monarch on his people. The Italian influence appeared in philosophy through translations of classical (Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Seneca) and contemporary Italian (Colonna, Petrarch, Boccaccio) texts. The most influential manifestation of Castilian thought was in the field of jurisprudence, to which references have already been made in dealing with the Partidas and other legal volumes. The entire period abounded in this type of literature, not only in compilations of an official character, but also in those of private individuals, all of them greatly influenced by the legal works of Justinian.
The triumph of Castilian in polite literature.
External influences upon Castilian literature.
The same factors which affected the literary history of the preceding period continued to exist in this, although occupying different positions, and in addition competing with the Classical Renaissance and Italian elements, which almost overwhelmed the others. Just as in the scientific works, so in literature, these factors were assimilated and made over to produce the original Castilian product of succeeding centuries. Castilian became the language of poetry and of didactic works, routing its Galician and Latin rivals. Latin works were translated to Castilian, and from the middle of the thirteenth century the latter began to be used instead of the former in public documents. Galician-Portuguese lyric poetry, half erudite, half popular, born of the Provençal, which it had assimilated and transformed, advanced to its highest point, and seemed to have won a victory over Castilian. About the middle of the fourteenth century it commenced to decline, and by the end of that century Castilian lyric poetry was already predominant; in the fifteenth century Galician ceased to be a literary language, and even Portuguese writers frequently used Castilian. Besides satire and even more sensuality than its Provençal prototype the Galician literature often included ethical and religious sentiments in the same poem. The Provençal influences proper also affected Castile, but did not take root as in Catalonia, because of the difference in language. When Galician poetry lost its place it was the Castilian which became its successor, manifesting in one of its forms the same curious mixture of ethics and satire. At length a satirical element of a free and sensual type prevailed, and brought about a degeneration of this kind of literature. With the fourteenth century the powerful Classical and Italian Renaissance influences made themselves felt in Castile both in poetry and in prose. Works of the classical poets (Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan) and writers of prose (Livy, Sallust, Cæsar, Plutarch, and others) were translated, and served to enrich Castilian literature both in form and in content. The Italian influence proper (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio) was by far the greatest, however, especially that of Dante, which vanquished the former French influence in poetry, and in part the Galician, and banished the earlier Castilian literary forms. The Italian influence was most deeply felt in its effects on lyric poetry. Epic poetry and prose were not altogether uncultivated, however, and in this field French influence continued to exist. Many of the older unwritten poems were reduced to writing, and French poems of chivalry and French novels of adventure, telling of the fantastic deeds of King Arthur, Charlemagne, the magician Merlin, and others, were repeated or reconstructed in Castilian. The fabulous element became predominant, leading to the books of caballería, or chivalry, based on the extraordinary adventures of wandering knights (caballeros andantes), full of the extravagant exaggeration of unbridled imagination. The first great work of this sort in the peninsula, and the best of its kind, was a novel by Vasco de Lobeira called Amadés de Gaula, written originally in Portuguese, but already known in Castile in the later fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century amatory novels began to appear.