“On Dating the Rimado de Palacio.” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 18.1 (1971): 17-36

ON DATING THE RIMADO DE PALACIO By Richard P. Kinkade

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A SUPERFICIAL REVIEW of the Rimado de Palacio does not reveal any definite order in the apparently unrelated subject matter ranging from moments of deep devotion to trenchant satire to biblical commentary on the Book of Job. Yet the fact that we have two MSS from the early XVth century whose order is quite similar suggests that the poet had an overall plan in mind when he combined compositions written at various periods during his life into a cancionero or collection. 1 There is also a single dominant theme throughout: the sinner's repentance and the efficacy of prayer. Two of the poems contain specific dates - 1398 and 1403 -whose significance and relationship to the poet's life have been well studied. 2 The others, however, including the so-called metrical translation of Gregory's Magna moralia, have received little attention even though textual evidence exists by which we can effectively determine the chronology and circumstances in which they were written, thus enabling us to arrive at a meaningful conclusion with regard to the order and purpose of the Rimado. 1 All textual references to the Rimado are taken from the Kuersteiner edition, MS. N, vol. 1 (New York, 1920), unless otherwise indicated. 2 Cf. E. B. Strong, "The Rimado de Palacio : L6pez de Ayala's Proposals for Ending the Great Schism," BHS, XXXVIII (1961), 64-77. Strong dates sts. 190-370 soon after 1378; sts. 803-818 from the year 1398 and sts. 819834 in 1403. German Orduna, "El Fragmento P de! Rimado de Palacio y un continuador an6nimo de la obra de Ayala," in Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas (Oxford, 1964), pp. 385-393, cites no new evidence for his rejection of Ayala's authorship, merely reiterating M. Zeitlin's original thesis dating back to 1931. He unfortunately applies Meregalli's view of the Ayala of the Cr6nicas to the Ayala of the Rimado (cf. p. 391). A recent article by Louis Urrutia, "Algunas observaciones sobre el libro por muchos ma! Ilamado 'Rimado de Palacio,'" CHA, 238-240 (October-December, 1969), 459-474, is a rather ingenuous account of the. Rimado which adds nothing new to our fund of knowledge.

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Kentucky Romance Quarterly

The title itself is highly misleading since only a small part of the entire work is dedicated to a critique of courtly life and mores, though there can be little doubt that this particular section has received a good deal of deserved attention for its incisive and highly accurate portrayal of palace life in XIVth century Castile. 3 In fact, the first historical mention of the work, a reference made by the Marques de Santillana in his Prohemio e carta (before 1449), alludes exclusively to this part: "escribi6 Pero Lopez de Ayala, el viejo, un libro que fi