UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ir/fSJrr >r. te's- /TfSX/tfSnif* &**" SOME UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF FERNAN PEREZ DE GUZMAN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DR. HUGO A. RENNERT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA BALTIMORE JOHN MURPHY & CO. 1897 [Reprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. XII, No. 2.] FGL TO H. R. R. April 3, 1897. 194337 SOME UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF FERNAN PEREZ DE GUZMAN. Spain, during the fifteenth century, was very prolific in writers of verse, as a glance at the Cancioneros of Baena, Castillo, Estufiiga, and a number of other early collections, both printed and manuscript, will show. That these were not all poets by divine right, no one perhaps will gainsay, nor would the world have suffered any great loss, if much of their verse had disappeared forever. In the time of Don Juan II. (14071454), himself a poet, 1 it seemed to have been considered a necessary accomplishment of every courtier to write poetry, and as the Spanish language falls into measure and rhyme at the slightest provocation, the practice of such an accomplish- ment was fraught with little difficulty. Still, despite what has been said above, there is a charm about much of the poetry in these Candoneros that is undeniable, and among their poets many names occur that will always occupy an honorable place in the literature of Spain. With perhaps a few exceptions, the best poetry in these collections is found in the short lyrical pieces. They are often delightfully naive, but necessarily suffer from sameness, love' being the theme of most of them, and even this may become wearisome. But there were also poets, though in much lesser number, who turned their thoughts to things spiritual. Of these, two of the most famous were the Marquis of Santillana, 2 and his kinsman Fernan Perez de l The poems of Don Juan II., King of Castile, have been printed by Pidal in the Appendix to the Cancionero of Baena, Madrid, 1851, p. LXXXI. One of the manuscript collections alluded to above has since been published by the writer: Der Spanuche Cancionero dts Brit. Mus. (us. Add. 10431) in Vollmoller's Romanische Forschungen, Bd. x, Erlangen, 1895. *They are collected under the rubric "Obras devotas," in Amador de los Rios, Obras del Marques de Sanlillana, Madrid, 1882, p. 299 ff. With the religious poems of a later poet, Juan Tallante, a Valencian, begin all the editions of the Cancionero of Hernando del Castillo, from 1511 to 1573. 5 6 H. A. RENNERT. Guzman, some of whose religious poems are here published for the first time. They are among the best verses that he has written, and are very fairly illustrative of his style and ability as a poet. I. Fernan Perez de Guzman, Sefior de Batres, was the son of Pero Suarez de Guzman, Notario Mayor of Andali^ia, and of Dona Elvira de Ayala, a sister of the great Chancellor of Don Juan II., Pedro Lopez de Ayala. 1 Unfortunately neither the year of his birth, nor that of his death are known. Ticknor says (vol. I, p. 420), " he was born about the year 1400," a date which has been generally accepted, but which is certainly wrong. In all probability Fernan Perez was born about a quarter of a century before this ; nearly all the facts we know concerning his life point to the period between 1375 and 1380 as the time of his birth. 2 In the Candonero of Baena (ed. of Madrid, 1851), p. 629 (No. 571), we read the following, prefixed to a poem by Fernan Perez : " Este dezir muy famosso 6 bien fadado 6 letradamente fecho fiso 6 orden6 el dicho Ferrand Peres de Guzman, sefior de Batres, quaudo mury6 el muy ourrado 6 noble cavallero don Diego Furtado de Mendoza, Almirante mayor de Castilla." Pidal, in a note to 1 The best sketch of the life and works of Fernan Perez de Guzman, to which all later accounts have been more or less indebted, is the one prefixed to his Oeneraciones y Semblamas (Madrid, 1775), and written, I think, by D. Eugenic Llaguna y Amirola, the name not being given anywhere in the copy I have, which contains also the Centon Epistolario of Fernan Gomez de Cibdareal, and the Claros Varones de Castillo, of Fernando del Pulgar. See also Ticknor, Hist, of Span. Lit , i, 420. The tatter's statement, however, that the father of Fernan Perez was a brother of the Marquis of Santillana, is a mistake. See Amador de los Rios, Obras, etc., p. x. Amirola, I. c. t gives no date of the birth of our author. Some account of the Guzman family is given in Salazar de Mendoza, Origen de las dignidades seglares de Castilla y Leon, Madrid, 1794, pp. 362, 363, and also Fernandez de Navar- rete, Vida del celebre poeta Garcilaso de la Vega, Madrid, 1850, p. 145. Gar- cilaso was a descendant, in the female line, of Fernan Perez. *See below, p. 254, note 1. 8, UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF FERNAN PEREZ DE GUZMAN. 7 this poem, says : " The Almirante D. Diego Hurtado de Men- doza died in 1405, a time when Fernan Perez could not have written verses, if, indeed, he was yet born" (p. 701). But there can be absolutely no doubt that our author wrote this poem, for it is the very one mentioned by the Marquis of Santillana in his well known letter to the Constable of Portu- gal, 1 to be referred to hereafter. The Marquis quotes the first verse of the poem : " Onbre que vienes aqui de pressente," thus leaving no question on this point. But there is other evidence in the Caneionero of Baena to show that Fernan Perez was a well known poet at the beginning of the fifteenth century. A reply by him to a dezir of Franpisco Imperial's is found on page 224 (No. 232). The latter was a Genoese who wrote a long poem (ibid., p. 197, No. 226), celebrating the birth of Don Juan II., at Toro in 1405. From others of these poems (Nos. 113, 545, and 546) we also see that Fernan Perez exchanged verses with Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino, a poet who, according to Pidal (/. c., p. 640), wrote as early as 1374, if not earlier. 2 These facts induce Pidal to doubt Fernan Perez' authorship of these poems in the Caneionero of Baena; he says: " deben ser de otro poeta" (p. 658). But in view of the direct testimony of the Marquis of Sautillana above, Pidal's doubts are unfounded. Besides, we know that our poet's mother was a sister of Pedro Lopez de Ayala. Now, Don John's great Chancellor was born in 1332, and died in 1407. From this, the impossibility of Perez de Guz- man's being born as late as 1400, is at once apparent. In addition we are to take into account that the Marquis of 'Amador de los Rios, Obras, p. 16. The Constable of Portugal (1 429-66), afterwards King of Aragon for a brief period, was also a poet, whose verses are printed in the Cancioneiro de Eesende, ed. Kausler, vol. i, pp. 67-69. See .Romania, xi, p. 155, and Grober's Grundriss, vol. n, pp. 135 and 231-232. 'According to Amador, Obras del Marques de Santillana, p. 592, Villa- sandino was born in 1340, and died about 1420. 8 H. A. RENNERT. Santillana (born iu 1398) calls Fernan Perez his uncle. The latter was therefore probably, though not necessarily, older. 1 Like many other distinguished Spaniards of his time, Fer- nan Perez de Guzman was both a soldier and man of letters. The earliest notice of him in the Chronicle of Don Juan II., is under the year 1421. In that year he was sent, together with the Archbishop of Santiago, as an envoy of the Infante Don Enrique, to the Queen of Aragon, the mother of the latter. According to Gomez de Cibdareal, 2 Fernan Perez de Guzman took part in the battle fought by King John II. against the Moors at la Higueruela in 1431, fighting under his cousin Don Gutierre de Toledo, Bishop of Palencia. A curious incident of this battle is related by the same writer. He says : "After the battle the King commanded Alfon de Acufia that he should take as prisoners to Cordova Fernan Perez de Guzman, he of Batres, and the Comendador Juan de Vera of Merida, because they had, in the presence of the King, vehemently disputed the honor of having rescued Pero Melendez Valdez from the hands of the Moors. He was only released through the intercession of the Prior Don Juan de Luna." On the King's return to Castile he ordered Don Gutierre de Toledo, whom he suspected of being in communi- cation with the Kings of Aragon and Navarre, to be put in prison. Fernan Perez was also imprisoned, for no other reason, apparently, than that he was a cousin of Don Gutierre. There may have been some reason for suspecting the latter (see Epistola LII), but as nothing could be proved against the Bishop, both were set at liberty. 1 It was not until long after the above was written that I was enabled to consult Amador de los Kios, Historia Qritica de la Literatura EspaHola, vol. vi, p. 212, where a portion of the will of Pero Suarez de Guzman, the father of Fernan Perez, is quoted, dated January 9, 1381, in which he mentions his three children, Ferrando, Maria and Aldonza, and says of them "son pequefios menores de edat ; " also that his wife was already dead. So, if Ferrando was the oldest child, he must have been born about 1376, at the latest. * Cenlon Epistolario. Epistola LI. Ed. 1775, p. 92. UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF FERNAN PEREZ DE GUZMAN. 9 Puibusque l says of their release : " Mais la politique eut plus de part que la justice a leur elargissement ; Mafaya, ainbassadeur de Portugal, intervint en leur faveur. Perez de Guzman, degoute des intrigues par cette rude lecon, se retira dans sa seigneurie de Batres, et ne se raela plus aux troubles qui agiterent tout le r&gne de Jean II. II mourut vers 1470." After this imprisonment (1431), Fernan Perez seems to have abandoned the profession of arms ; at all events, there is no record of his having taken any part in the wars which for years afterward devastated the kingdom. The above date (1470) is taken from Llaguno, who says (1. c., p. 192), " I presume that he died before 1470, for the introduction by Doctor Pedro Diaz to the Querella de la Governation of Gomez Manrique, 2 seems to have been written in the last years of the reign of Don Enrique IV. (1454-1474), and in it he speaks as if Fernan Perez were already dead." There is nothing in this introduction, however, to show that it was written "in the last years of the reign of D. 1 Histoire comp digno or dino is opposed to the phonetic rule, not only because this requires gn > fi, but also I > e. In fact in Fr., Sp. and Port, dignus exists popularly only in the com- pounds dedaigner, desdeflar ; learned gn in the early period gives n : dino, indino (hence the "judino" Alfonso de Baena), malino, benino, sino, etc. Cf. Grundriss, p. 706. L. 110, Santa Julia, virgin martyr at Merida, with Sant Eulalia (1. 111). The latter is said to have been born at Merida in the year 290. She suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Maximian, surnamed Herculius, being burned alive in the year 304, by order of Dacian (P. Datianus praeses Hispaniarum). She is the patroness of Merida. See Ford, Handbook, p. 258. There seem to have been two Saint Eula- lias, for she is also the tutelar of Barcelona, v. Zeitschrift fur Rom. PhiloL, xv, pp. 34-35, and p. 41. VI. St. Elizabeth of Thuringia was a daughter of King Andrew II., of Hungary, and was born at Pressburg in 1 207. She became the wife of the Landgrave Ludwig of Thuringia, and bore him a son and two daughters. She died in 1231, and four years afterwards was canonized by Pope Gregory IX. Her head is said to be preserved in the church of St. Elizabeth at Breslau. Cf. Rutebeuf's poem : La Vie Sainte 4 50 H. A. RENNERT. Elysabdy Oeuvres, ed. Jubinal, Paris, 1839, vol. n, pp. 151 and 358 ; also Zeitschrift fur Rom. Phil., vol. xix, p. 375. L. 18, St. Anna, according to tradition, was the mother of the Virgin Mary, and the wife of Joachim. Her body is said to have been brought from Jerusalem to Constantinople in the year 710. L. 10, for forms like enxemplo, with intercalated n, see Zeit- schrift fur Rom. Philol., v, p. 551. VII. Fray Estevan de Leon, prior of Lupiana, is men- tioned as having made an exchange of hereditaments with the Marquis of Santillana on January 3, 1448. Amador de los Rios, Obras del Marques de Santillana, p. LXXXVII. Lupiana is about two leagues from Guadalajara, the family seat of the Marquis of Santillana, on the road to Cuenca. With the excep- tion of the first five stanzas, this poem appeared in the Cancio- nero de Castillo (1511). It is entitled: Hymno trobado por Hernan Perez de Guzman que dize : "Monstrate esse Matrem," v. the edition of 1882, vol. 1, p. 67. X. This hymn is not in F } but is contained in vol. IV of the Gang, del Siglo XV, in ten volumes, in the Bib. Nacional, Madrid. This volume is copied from the Cong, of Fenian Perez de Guzman, in the private library of the King, with the note : Los dos priraeras estrofas se imprimieron en la edicion de los ' Sietecientas ' hecha en Lisboa, aflo de 1564, 4. XI. L. 44, Aluar Gar9ia de Santa Maria was the brother of Don Pablo de Santa Maria, Bishop of Burgos. This dis- tinguished family of baptized Jews, which played an important part in the reign of D. Juan II. (14071454), produced two well-known poets, whose works are found in the Cancioneros Generales: Don Alonzo de Cartagena, Bishop of Burgos, who died in 1456, and Don Pedro de Cartagena, who died in 1478. Ponz, Viage de Espana, Tomo xn, p. 70. Both were sons of Aluar Garcia de Santa Maria. The latter was one of the UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF FERNAN PEREZ DE GUZMAN. 51 chroniclers of Don Juan II., the first thirteen years of this chronicle, i. e., down to the year 1420, being due to him. In the prologue to the Chronicle (ed. of Valencia, 1779), he is called, by mistake, a son of Don Pablo, Bishop of Burgos. He died in 1460, and is buried in the capilla mayor of the monastery of San Juan de Burgos. Amador de los Rios, Historia Ortiica, vol. vi, p. 217. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below MAN 4 19 y PLEAgE DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARDS University Research Library 10m-4,'28 J\ * t J3 00 U ^1 UN $ *J % s ^ & V (JL date IB4UL jri IDOJRL MA MJ 10m-4,'2J SOUTHERN REGIONAL LBRARY FAOUT A 000 908 748