This central jurisdiction grants him control over civil legislation. In Castile, this appropriation takes place over a period of time that likely comprises the reigns of Alfonso VIII and Alfonso X, as well as that of Fernando III, the first to rule both Castile and León (1199–1252, king of Castile from 1217 and of León from 1230). Judging by the juridical manuscripts of the period, the political need to create monarchic legislation begins with Alfonso VIII, who is likely the author of the project that would later become the Fuero Real first promulgated in 1254 by Alfonso X. Both the Fuero Real and the other legislative works redacted also by Alfonso in the thirteenth century (the Espéculo and the Siete Partidas) provide for the king’s appropriation of the jurisdictional sphere, allowing the king to limit or vacate any local and aristocratic legal regulations that interfered with his centralized power.
This jurisdictional control also affected clerical power. The king manifested his will to take gradual control of ecclesiastical legislation, a process that culminated in the redaction of Partidas 1 (Primera Partida), a promulgation of Church and canon law issued from the monarchic jurisdiction. Moreover, the process by which a monarch obtains his independence with respect to the powers of the clergy implies a laicization of the kingdom as a whole. Within this process of laicization, the two most important social groups are knights and lettered royal officials. The Siete Partidas even refer to the latter group as knights while the Partidas 2 maintains that “la sabiduría de los derechos es otra manera de cauallería con que se quebrantan los atreuimientos e se endereçan los tuertos” [“the wisdom of the law is another kind of knighthood, by means of which boldness is crushed, and wrongs are righted”] (2.10.3).
The analysis of texts on rituals of knighting elucidates how the monarch attains jurisdictional domination as well as independence. The texts studied in this chapter have very different origins yet are produced during the period in which the king gains the authority to adjudicate: from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth century. I will pay particular attention to texts produced in the first half of the fourteenth century.
Texts from this period unveil a genealogy of the chivalric social class, the institutions it comprises, and their varied practices and configurations. In fact, these texts are dissimilar in terms of the authority they claim. Some are poetic, giving rise to literary traditions of a moral and political order. They impose their presence on well-defined social spheres, affecting mainly the royal space and retinue itself, dominated by lay and clerical nobility. Others appear as historical narratives that recast epic themes like those of the Cid to theorize the formation of the kingdom of Castile and León as well as its monarchic and chivalric models. The texts address the need to challenge the social order, questioning the notion of royal imperium. Finally, other texts issue from royal legislative authority, intent on modifying the political and social structure of the kingdom. The particularities of each text will be noted in due course. The genealogy of this social order’s creation cannot be traced along a chronological or teleological line leading to an objective. It should be seen as an unstructured interaction, a series of dialectical experiences in which each text offers a substantial redefinition of the problem it addresses. Again, every ritual is an apparatus, a discursive strategy for the definition of power relations as negotiations of territorial and political jurisdiction.
The corpus of texts on rituals of chivalric investiture of medieval Castile is relatively small, especially when compared with texts produced in other European political contexts—notably the kingdoms of France and England or the Holy Roman Empire. Compounding this difficulty, the Castilian texts that mention rituals of knighting are not always very specific. It is therefore important to focus on the precise vocabulary that they employ and to analyze it closely.
The texts studied in this chapter conjure very diverse formulas. For instance, ceñir la espada [“to gird on one’s sword”], in the Cantar de Mio Cid (Poem of the Cid) and the Libro de Alexandre (Book of Alexander)—both written during the reign of Alfonso VIII. We also find cingulum militiæ accingere [“to gird the military sash”] in Latin texts from the same period and hacer caballero [“to make one a knight”] in Castilian chronicles such as the Estoria de España (History of Spain) from the reign of Alfonso X or the Valeriana Chronicle, redacted and printed in 1481. Nonetheless, all these references clearly depict some form of ephemeral ceremony, a performative moment in which a particular speech act gives rise to the transformation of a political subject: someone who was previously not considered a knight becomes one and acquires a series of privileges, social distinction, and fiscal exemptions.
Many texts offer a relatively explicit description of a ritual of chivalric investiture. The Book of Alexander is a poetic piece, written in the context of Alfonso VIII’s Cortes and using clerical meters—along the parameters of the mester de clerecía, which the poem briefly theorizes in its second stanza. It is based on texts in Latin (the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon) and French (the Roman d’Alexandre).5 The poem summarizes a specific chivalric ritual. The Book of Alexander does not depict it as the objective practice of a custom, but rather as an enactment of the will of the hero. The poet relishes in the description of the arms that have been crafted for Alexander, and marvels at the ferocity of his horse, Bucephalus, before describing the ceremony from an intimate perspective:
El infant fue venido por las armas prender,
mas, como fue de seso e de buen connoçer,
antes quiso a Dios una oraçión fer.
e, com’era costumbre, sus donos ofreçer.
“Señor—dixo—que tienes el mundo en poder,
a qui çielo y tierra deven obedesçer,
Tú guía mi fazienda sit cae en plazer,
que pueda lo que asmo por mí acabeçer.
“Tú da en estas armas, Señor, tu bendiçión,
que pueda fer con ellas atal defunçïón,
qualque nunca fue fecha en esta difinçión,
porque saque a Greçia de grant tribulaçión.”
Quand la oraçión ovo el infant acabada,
enclinó los ynojos e besó en la grada,
desent alçós un poco e çiñós la espada;
es día dixo Greçia que era arribada.
Ante que se moviesse el infant del logar,
armó más de quinientos de omnes de prestar;
a todos dio adobos muy graves de preçiar,
ca todos eran tales que lo querrién pechar.
Cavalgó su cavallo e salió al trebejo;
el cavallo con él fazié gozo sobejo;
viniénlo sobre sí veer cada conçejo,
dizién todos: “Criador nos ha dado consejo.”
[The prince came to take up arms,
But, as he was sensible and wise,
He first chose to pray to God,
And, as custom dictated, to offer his allegiance.
“My Lord,” he said, “who has all the world in his power,
Whom heaven and earth must obey,
Guide my actions if it pleases you,
So that I might accomplish my objective.
“Give these arms, my Lord, your blessing,
So