Enemies in the Plaza
THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES
Ruth Mazo Karras, Series Editor
Edward Peters, Founding Editor
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Enemies in the Plaza
Urban Spectacle and the End of Spanish Frontier Culture, 1460–1492
Thomas Devaney
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2015 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8122-4713-8
For Elizabeth, Ella, Julia, and Eoin
CONTENTS
1. The Anatomy of a Spectacle: Sponsors, Critics, and Onlookers
2. The Meanings of Civic Space
3. Knights, Magi, and Muslims: Miguel Lucas de Iranzo and the People of Jaén
4. A “Chance Act”: Córdoba in 1473
5. Murcia and the Body of Christ Triumphant
ABBREVIATIONS
AC | Libros de Actas Capitulares |
ACC | Archivo de la Catedral de Córdoba |
ACM | Archivo Catedralicio de Murcia |
AMC | Archivo Municipal de Córdoba |
AMJ | Archivo Municipal de Jaén |
AMM | Archivo Municipal de Murcia |
APC | Archivo Histoórico Provincial de Córdoba |
BAE | Biblioteca de Autores Españoles |
BIEG | Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Giennenses |
CCE | Colección de Crónicas Españolas |
CHE | Cuadernos de historia de España |
CR | Cartas reales |
CSM | Alfonso X el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa María, ed. Walter Mettmann, 3 vols. |
HID | Historia. Instituciones. Documentos. |
MCV | Mélanges de la Casa de Velásquez |
MHJ | Medieval History Journal |
MMM | Miscelánea medieval murciana |
Partidas | Las Siete Partidas, ed. Robert I. Burns, trans. Samuel Parsons |
Scott, 5 vols. | |
PCG | Primera crónica general de España, ed. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, 2 vols. |
FIGURE 1. Sword of Fernando III. Courtesy of the Excmo. Cabildo de la Catedral de Sevilla.
Introduction
Magical swords can be useful things. While preparing an invasion of Muslim-ruled Granada in 1407, the Castilian prince and regent Fernando “de Antequera” made his headquarters in the city of Seville. During his stay, he visited the cathedral of Santa María la Mayor and gazed on the funeral effigy of King Fernando III, a hero of the “reconquest” who had captured the city as well as much of the rest of Castilian Andalucía from the Muslims in the thirteenth century. A fourteenth-century description of this effigy noted that “in the right hand is a sword, said to be of great virtue, with which [Fernando III] conquered Seville…. And whoever desires protection from evil, let him place a kiss on the sword and he will be sheltered thereafter.”1 It was perhaps with this in mind that the later Fernando took the sword from the effigy’s hand in a solemn ceremony viewed by many of his retainers.