Conference presentation on Libro de buen amor

Stanzas 950-1042 of the Libro de buen amor, to which I will henceforth refer as Libro, narrate one of the most commented episodes of Juan Ruiz's work: the archpriest's adventures in the mountains of Guadarrama, his interactions with four country women or serranas, and more importantly, his encounter with a seemingly monstrous woman called Alda. Most of the criticism about this episode stresses its realism or adherence to folkloric elements, as well as its possible sources. Even more recent critical editions of the text like that of Jacques Joset, and articles about this specific episode like Robert Tate's "Adventure in the Sierra" treat the episode as a parody but leave the question of monstrosity unresolved. José Manuel de Hidalgo`s "La montura aciaga del Arcipreste" points out the sinister character of the narration by linking the serranas' descriptions with the popular custom of calling a priest's lover burras. However, although Hidalgo points out correctly that it is sinful and sex what drives the episode, there are other aspects of the Libro connected to this episode that are left unstudied.
Isidore of Seville defines monstrosity in Etymologies primarily as a sign: "But omens (monstrum) derive their name from admonition (monitus), because in giving a sign they indicate (demonstrant) something, or else because they instantly show (monstrant) what may appear." (XI.3.3). The word monster is linked, etymologically, to the Latin monstrare, meaning "to show, or to point at something" which became the prevalent interpretation of monsters both as possible physical phenomena in the world and as imaginary beings used in both written and oral medieval narratives. In keeping with the medieval trend of a monstrosity that always points at a meaning external to its shape, but is also embodied in it, today I would like to reflect on the Libro's deployment of a monstrous discourse that embodies the tension between attraction and refusal of sinful sexuality and hybridity.
The archpriest's itinerary through the mountains north of Madrid begins with an admission of his surrender to worldly pleasures: "Provar todas las cosas el Apóstol lo manda; / fui a provar a la sierra e fiz loc demanda…" (Lba 950). The archpriest meets four rough women from the countryside, or serranas. Similar to the rest of the poem, this episode is interlaced with parodic, often sexual, situations that undermine the archpriest's purported christian exemplary manual. However, this episode situates the reader in a much sinister context, as can be seen by stanza 951: "El mes era de março, día de Sant Meder / de nieve e de graniso non ove do me absconder / quien busca lo que non pierde, lo que tien debe perder." The resonance with phrases like "buscar lo que no se te ha perdido," in use even today, draws attention not just to the physical act of losing, but to the spiritual act of perdition. The archpriest also warns his audience that he has lost his mule ("luego perdí la mula"), which according to Thomas Hart, is a symbol of mindless, unbridled passion in Christian tradition.
The four encounters are similar in structure: the archpriest finds a serrana from whom he needs something (passage, food or clothes) and after playful conversations, or surrendering whatever she demands, the archpriest acquires whatever he needs. Every episode is followed by a song re-telling the events, often contradictorily. In all of the episodes the verb luchar (to fight, to struggle) is used to hint at the act of sexual intercourse. The first serrana, la Chata, gives him food and lucha. From the second serrana, Gadea, he gets food and shelter, although it is her that tries to seduce the archpriest.The third serrana, Mengua Llorente, is described as a dumb (lerda) serrana who believes that the archpriest will marry her, which he cunningly avoids.
The text often uses equine vocabulary when describing the serranas. However, the way the archpriest renders the fourth serrana's bodily constitution sets her apart: "Nunca desque nasçí pasé tan grand peligro / de frío; al pie del Puerto falléme con vestiglo, / la más grande fantasma que vi en este siglo: yeguariza trefuda, talla de mal ceñiglo" (Lba 1008). The text describes Alda, the fourth serrana, as a vestiglo, which dictionaries of medieval Spanish translate as monster. Perhaps connected to the latin besticulum, or little animal, vestiglo reinforces the adjective yegüariza, and both redirect our attention of the mule the archpriest had lost at the beginning of the episode
Alda's head is exceedingly big (la cabeça mucho grande, sin quisa"), her ears are "mayores que de anal burrico", she is bearded ("mayores que las mías tiene sus barbas"), and her ankles are "mayores que de una anal novilla". The description is similar in its vocabulary to that of the other serranas, but differs in the archpriest's attitude towards her, as expressed in stanza 1011: "En l'Apocalypsi San Joan Evangelista / non vido tal figura, nin de tan mala vista…" The beast in the book of Revelations is the foundational hybrid monster that embodies pure evil, and its heterogeneous animal physicality points to an evil so powerful that only Saint Michael can destroy. In the serrana episode, however, the story is shortened by the archpriest's inability to continue rendering Alda's monstrousness, thus leaving this lucha unresolved.
As in the previous episodes, the archpriest writes a song retelling the story, although the archpriest's second rendition is significantly different : "Ya a la deçida, / di una corrida, / fallé una serrana / fermosa, loçana / e bien colorida." (Lba 1024) The grotesque equine vocabulary, and the monstrous biblical references, are now changed into a beautiful maiden, of well-proportioned shapes. In addition, the archpriest calls her moça, or young, and in the narration of the encounter he is never afraid to offer himself to her, who eventually rejects him. In the song, the monstrous serrana is transformed into a beautiful lady before whom the archpriest bows with respect ("omíllome, bella.") the same way he does to the Holy Virgin in the stanzas immediately following the Guadarrama adventures, and elsewhere in the Libro.
The connection between women and monstrosity is not an exclusively medieval phenomenon. Even in Antiquity Aristotle had argued, in the treatise On the Generation of Animals (c. 347-335 BCE), that deviations from the parent's form are monstrosities because they are produced against the expected course of reproduction "…others do not take after human beings at all in their appearance, but have gone so far that they resemble a monstrosity, and, for the matter of that, anyone who does not take after his parents is really in a way, a monstrosity" (401). However, women are the first the degree of monstrosity, as he states in the same passage that "[t]he first beginning of this deviation is when a female is formed instead of a male…" something which he leaves unresolved.
However, Aristotle's comments on women as imperfect beings, combined with a deep misogynistic strain in the Bible, had a profound influence on medieval writings on women. For certain medieval mysoginistic writers, there was an intricate connection between monstrosity and the female body grounded on its incapability of containing itself (5). According to Sarah Allison Miller, authors like the anonymous composer of De secretis mulieribus (late-thirteenth or early fourteenth century) a woman's menstrual fluid is often described as monstrificium (monstrous) because for most medical writers these fluids were harmful both for the health of women and men (81-82). Another example is pseudo-Ovid's De vetula (thirteenth century), which shows how these ideas are connected with conceptions of hybridity as a monstrous characteristic proper of women. In De vetula, a seemingly young and beautiful woman turns into an old one (vetula) whose fluids constantly threaten the man that lies in bed with her. The woman is monstrous both because of the inability to contain herself, but most importantly, her hybrid status as both a young beauty and an old hag in the text (45). Consequently, the Libro inserts itself in the tradition that fleshes out the criticism of sinful sexuality through women's hybrid monstrous bodies.
Hybridity, as a concept, has been adopted by post-colonial studies for understanding twenty and twenty first century cultural and social phenomena. However, in its use by Homi Bhabha as concept that stresses ambivalence and issues of power when cultures come in contact, it helps us moderns understand human phenomena that were also manifested during the Middle Ages. The medieval world was one of extreme and we could say neurotic compartmentalization, and mixtures of different kinds could be, and often were, difficult to regulate. Post-colonial studies has specifically shown us how the concept of hybridity sheds light on such phenomena as mixture of cultures as products on immigration, as well as mixture of peoples as a result of colonization processes. In this sense, I think many cultural and social phenomena of fourteenth-century Spain, when the Reconquista and the eventual assimilation of al-Andalus into Christian Spain is taking on a much vigorous impulse, can be understood by concepts such as hybridity.
The Libro itself embraces hybridity through its form, including alexandrine verses common to the cuaderna via, lyrical poetry, and a prose introduction. Its heterogeneous form is a combination of different poetic styles and meters that opposes the rigidness of the mester de clerecía poets that the Libro challenges parodically. Moreover, the content of the libro mirrors this formal hibridity, expemplified among many instances by copla 1228:
"Allí sale gritando la guitarra morisca,
de las bozes aguda e de los puntos arisca;
el corpudo laúd, que tien' punto a la trisca;
la guitarra latina con ésos se aprisca"
The copla narrates the events that took place upon receiving Don Amor and Don Carnal after their battle with Doña Cuaresma. It is important to notice how carnal love, one of the main topics of the libro, is celebrated with music produced by seemingly dissonant instruments that belong to different cultures. Moreover, cultural and musical hybridity fuse in another episode of the Libro, that of the medianera's attempt to couple the archpriest with a Muslim woman. Although the episode is short and the archpriest fails in his attempt, he composes another song that blends musical and ethnic elements:
Después fise muchas cántigas de dança e troteras
para judías, et moras, e para entendederas,
para en instrumentos de comunales maneras,
el cantar que non sabes, oílo a cantaderas. (1513)
These examples all point out a centrifugal tendency inherent to the Libro, expressed even in its prose introduction, where the archpriest states that the text is both a manual for good christians, as well as a manual on how to become a better sinner; a hybrid purpose that ultimately determines the Libro's ultimate form.
As I pointed out before, hybridity was as problematic for the Middle Ages as it is to us moderns. Two authors exemplify the similar attitudes towards monstrosity and hybridity of the kind I am describing today. The first example comes from the writings of the conservative Cistercian Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153 CE) in a treatise dedicated to Abbot William of St. Thierry (c. 1152 CE). In it Bernard criticizes the order of the Benedictines and their religious and monastic laxity, while defending the strict values of the Cistercians. Besides drawing attention to the Benedictines' religious excesses, in section 29 Bernard stresses the visual aspect of hybrid monstrosity that permeates the walls of the Benedictine cloisters:
"What excuse can there be for these ridiculous monstrosities in the cloisters... Here is one head with many bodies, there is one body with many heads...a beast with a serpent for its tail, a fish with an animal's head...One could spend the whole day gazing fascinated at these things...instead of meditating in the law of God. (The Works of Bernard, 66)
Hybrid monsters are an ominous entity whose bodily shape keeps a Christian's attention away from God which, in Christian theology, is pure beauty and unity. Hybridity in this case should be avoided precisely because it is intrinsically opposed to unity and beauty.
The second example comes from Dante's Divine Comedy. The Inferno abounds in monstrous creatures of the hybrid character, which are found neither in Purgatorio nor in Paradiso. So when Dante and Virgil encounter a Centaur, it is described as a hybrid creature, whose body is covered by snakes, and bears a dragon protruding from his back: "Over his shoulder, behind his head, there rides / A dragon, wings outspread…" (Dale 99).
Another example can be found in Canto 25, in which a snake and a man fuse, forming an entity that is neither one or the other: "The former shapes were now extinct yet the same; / Neither, yet both, the perverse image merged;" (Dale 101). For both Bernard and Dante hybrid monstrosities are inadmissible, and in the case of the Comedy, this is the stuff of which hell is made. For Bernard, hybrid monstrosities are a distraction from the universe's supreme cohesive element, and Dante will use that kind of monstrosity to imprint a bodily mark on sinners.
And what does this tell us about the Libro? Ranghild Johnsrud Zorgati argues in Pluralism in the Middle Ages that, in keeping with the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) legal texts like the Siete Partidas (1252-1284) attempted to impose distinct garments on Jews and Muslims in order to distinguish them from Christians. This might have been a response to canon 8 of Lateran IV in which it states that" sometimes it happens that by mistake Christians have intercourse with Jewish or Saracen women, and Jews and Saracens with Christian women." Often during the Middle Ages, monstrous discourses were outlets to ethnical, sexual or religious anxieties. However, the Libro's embrace (both literally and symbolically) of Alda's hybrid monstrousness points to an acceptance or processing of such anxieties, regardless of their implications for the soul of a Christian. Whereas other medieval intellectuals refused monstrousness as it represents problematic phenomenona as sexuality, sin, and mixture, the Libro embodies all these anxieties in all their monstrousness, as if to tell its audience not to fear the inevitabilities of sin, sex and mixture, and to us moderns: here is your trauma, enjoy your symptom. Thank you.



Esther Pérez de King's "El realismo en las cantigas de serrana de Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita" (1938); Ramón Menendez Pidal and Manuel Criado de Val.
Vestiglo has been used in narrations such as Don Silves de la Selva (1546) to mean a monstrous peasant.
John Dudley. Aristotle's Concept of Change: Accidents, Cause, Necessity and Determinism.
"Sovra le spalle, dietro de la coppa / con l'ali aperte ligiacea un draco..." (Inferno XXV: 22-23).
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