Knight-errantry was, indeed, beginning to possess the land, and, as it chances, an account of the maddest, hugest tourney in the world's history is written for us by an eye-witness, Pero Rodríguez de Lena, in the Libro del Paso Honroso (Book of the Passage of Honour). Lena tells how the demon of chivalry entered into Suero de Quiñones, who, seeking release from his pledge of wearing in his lady's honour an iron chain each Thursday, could hit on no better means than by offering, with nine knightly brethren, to hold the bridge of San Marcos at Órbigo against the paladins of Europe. The tilt lasted from July 10 to August 9, 1434, and is described with simple directness by Lena, who looks upon the six hundred single combats as the most natural thing in the world: but his story is important as a "human document," and as testimony that the extravagant incidents of the chivalrous romances had their counterparts in real life.
The fifteenth century finds the chivalrous romance established in Spain: how it arrived there must be left for discussion till we come to deal with the best example of the kind—Amadís de Gaula. Here and now it suffices to say that there probably existed an early Spanish version of this story which has disappeared; and to note that the dividing line between the annals, filled with impossible traditions, and the chivalrous tales, is of the finest: so fine, in fact, that several of the latter—for example, Florisel de Niquea and Amadís de Grecia—take on historical airs and call themselves crónicas. The mention of the lost Castilian Amadís is imperative at this point if we are to recognise one of the chief contemporary influences. For the moment, we must be content to note its practical manifestations in the extravagances of Suero de Quiñones, and of other knights whose names are given in the chronicles of Álvaro de Luna and Juan II. The spasmodic outbursts of the craze observable in the serious chapters of Díaz Gámez are but the distant rumblings before the hurricane.
While Amadís de Gaula was read in courts and palaces, three contemporary writers worked in different veins. Alfonso Martínez de Toledo (1398-?1466), Archpriest of Talavera, and chaplain to Juan II., is the author of the Reprobación del Amor mundano, otherwise El Corbacho (The Scourge). The latter title, not of the author's choosing, has led some to say that he borrowed from Boccaccio. The resemblance between the Reprobación and the Italian Corbaccio is purely superficial. Martínez goes forth to rebuke the vices of both sexes in his age; but the moral purpose is dropped, and he settles down to a deliberate invective against women and their ways. Amador de los Ríos suggests that Martínez stole hints from Francisco Eximenis' Carro de la donas, a Catalan version of Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus: as the latter is a panegyric on the sex, the suggestion is unacceptable. The plain fact stares us in the face that Martínez' immediate model is the Archpriest of Hita, and in his fourth chapter that jovial clerk is cited. Indiscriminate, unjust, and even brutal, as Martínez often is, his slashing satire may be read with extraordinary pleasure: that is, when we can read him at all, for his editions are rare and his vocabulary puzzling. He falls short of Ruiz' wicked urbanity; but he matches him in keenness of malicious wit, in malignant parody, in picaresque intention, while he surpasses him as a collector of verbal quips and popular proverbs. The wealth of his splenetic genius (it is nothing less) affords at least one passage to the writer of the Celestina. Last of all—and this is an exceeding virtue—Martínez' speech maintains a fine standard of purity at a time when foreign corruptions ran riot. Hence he deserves high rank among the models of Castilian prose.
Another chaplain of Juan II., Juan de Lucena (fl. 1453), is the author of the Vita Beata, lacking in originality, but notable for excellence of absolute style. He follows Cicero's plan in the De finibus bonorum et malorum, introducing Santillana, Mena, and García de Santa María (the probable author, as we have seen, of the King's Crónica). In an imaginary conversation these great personages discuss the question of mortal happiness, arriving at the pessimist conclusion that it does not exist, or—sorry alternative—that it is unattainable. Lucena adds nothing to the fund of ideas upon this hackneyed theme, but the perfect finish of his manner lends attraction to his lucid commonplaces.
The last considerable writer of the time is the Bachelor Alfonso de la Torre (fl. 1461), who returns upon the didactic manner in his Visión deleitable de la Filosofía y Artes liberales. Nominally, the Bachelor offers a philosophic, allegorical novel; in substance, his work is a mediæval encyclopædia. It was assuredly never designed for entertainment, but it must still be read by all who are curious to catch those elaborate harmonies and more delicate refinements of fifteenth-century Castilian prose which half tempt to indulgence for the writer's insufferable priggishness. Alfonso de la Torre figures by right in the anthologies, and his elegant extracts win an admiration of which his unhappy choice of subject would otherwise deprive him.
Footnote:
[5] Strictly speaking, this writer should be called Enrique de Aragón; but, since this leads to confusion with his contemporary, the Infante Enrique de Aragón, it is convenient to distinguish him as Enrique de Villena. He was not a marquis, and never uses the title.