Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Modern equivalents to names in the maps
- Maps
- 1 Historical and theoretical framework
- 2 The acquisition of wealth
- 3 Economy and gift-giving
- 4 Social status, legitimacy, and inherited worth
- 5 The poet's milieu
- 6 Geography and history
- 7 The Cantar de mio Cid and the French epic tradition
- 8 Mode of composition
- 9 Conclusion
- Notes
- List of references
- Index
9 - Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Modern equivalents to names in the maps
- Maps
- 1 Historical and theoretical framework
- 2 The acquisition of wealth
- 3 Economy and gift-giving
- 4 Social status, legitimacy, and inherited worth
- 5 The poet's milieu
- 6 Geography and history
- 7 The Cantar de mio Cid and the French epic tradition
- 8 Mode of composition
- 9 Conclusion
- Notes
- List of references
- Index
Summary
The “best hypothesis” to which this analysis of the Cantar de mio Cid leads is as follows. In the year 1199 or, more likely, 1200, a juglar of the Transierra, active in the valley of the Jalón, familiar with the area circumscribed by San Esteban, Calatayud, Guadalajara, and Medinaceli, and intent on pleasing Alfonso VIII of Castile and his partisans, performed the poem at Ariza or Huerta de Ariza, in the circle of Martín of Finojosa.
The juglar's motives as they can be reconstructed according to this hypothesis were, like those of most poets, complex: they included the wish to entertain, of course, but also the desire to flatter high-ranking members of the audience by evoking the exploits of their ancestors and the misdeeds of their enemy's ancestors. This evocation would have emphasized the solidarity of the Lara clan with the Castilian monarchy by displaying how the renowned Rodrigo Díaz – their kinsman through marriage as well as Alfonso VIII's direct ancestor – had regaled his king with extravagant gifts, and how his legitimacy, called into question by a popular tradition, had been confirmed in a judgment of God.
The jongleur also wanted to present fictional situations that reflected social issues of his day, involving both the political relationships of the Castilian monarchy with the other Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula and the depiction of economic incentives that would contribute toward reviving interest in the Reconquest after the disastrous experience of the Battle of Alarcos.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cantar de mio CidPoetic Creation in its Economic and Social Contexts, pp. 143 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989