These “spirits from beyond the moon” did not, alas! “refuse the boon.” Kings, infantes, and peers indulged the trovador out of full purses, flattered him by imitating his art and his life, and even enrolled themselves in his brotherhood. Few men of genius are so constituted as to be able to control altogether a natural hauteur and superiority. In these early days poetical arrogance seems to have been as unchecked as military boastfulness, and the trovadores, pampered and fêted by prince and noble, at length grew insufferable in their insolence and rapacity. The land swarmed with singers, real and pretended, the manner of whose lives became a scandal, even in a day when scandal was cheap. The public grew weary of the repetition of the cantares and the harping on a single string. It became fashionable to read romances instead of listening to them, and eventually we see the juglares footing it on the highways of Spain, and declaiming at street-corners in a state of mendicancy more pitiable by far than their old indigent yet dignified conditions.
A “Trovador” of Old Spain
Few of the ancient cantares of Spain have survived, in contradistinction to the hundred or more chansons that France can show. But what remains of them suffices to distinguish their type with sufficient clearness. As has been indicated, we owe our knowledge of more than one of them to the circumstance that they became embedded in the ancient chronicles of Spain. An excellent illustration of this process of literary embalming is provided by the manner in which the cantar of Bernaldo de Carpio has become encrusted in the rather dreary mass of the General Chronicle of Spain which was compiled by King Alfonso the Wise (c. 1260), in which it will be found in the seventh and twelfth chapters of the third part. The poet-king states that he has founded his history of Bernaldo upon “old lays,” and in the spirit as well as the form of his account of the legendary champion we can trace the influence of the cantar.
The Story of Bernaldo de Carpio
Young Bernaldo de Carpio, when he arrived at manhood, was, like many another hero of romance, unaware that he was of illustrious parentage, for his mother was a sister of Don Alfonso of Castile, and had wed in secret the brave and noble Count de Sandias de Saldaña. King Alfonso, bitterly offended that his sister should mate with one who was her inferior in rank, cast the Count into prison, where he caused him to be deprived of sight, and immured the princess in a cloister. Their son Bernaldo, however, he reared with care. While still a youth, Bernaldo rendered his uncle important services, but when he learned that his father languished in prison a great melancholy settled upon him, and he cared no more for the things that had once delighted him. Instead of mingling in the tourney or the dance, he put on deep mourning, and at last presented himself before King Alfonso and beseeched him to set his father at liberty.
Now Alfonso was greatly troubled when he knew that Bernaldo was aware of his lineage and of his father’s imprisonment, but his hatred for the man who had won his sister was greater than his love for his nephew. At first he made no reply, but sat plucking at his beard, so taken aback was he. But kings are not often at a loss, and Alfonso, thinking to brush the matter aside by brusque words, frowned, and said sternly: “Bernaldo, as you love me, speak no more of this matter. I swear to you that never in all the days of my life shall your father leave his prison.”
“Sire,” replied Bernaldo, “you are my king and may do whatsoever you shall hold for good, but I pray God that He will change your heart in this matter.”
King Alfonso had no son of his own, and in an ill moment proposed that Charlemagne, the mighty Emperor of the Franks, should be regarded as his successor. But his nobles remonstrated against his choice, and refused to receive a Frank as heir to the throne of Christian Spain. Charlemagne, learning of Alfonso’s proposal, prepared to invade Spain on the pretext of expelling the Moors, but Alfonso, repenting of his intention to leave the crown to a foreigner, rallied his forces around him and allied himself with the Saracens. A battle, fierce and sustained, took place in the Pass of Roncesvalles, in which the Franks were signally defeated, chiefly by the address of Bernaldo, who slew the famous champion Roland with his own hand.