1 The book and its milieu
One of the leading writers of his age, Cartagena came to authorship late in life and as a result of circumstance. At the age of thirty-seven, between October and December 1421, he was sent by Juan II of Castile on the first of four diplomatic missions to negotiate treaties with João I of Portugal (regn. 1385â1433). The embassy took nearly a year, much longer than expected; it was probably in the spring of 1422âhe ends with mention of trees in blossomâ, during the hours of leisure âquod mihi habundancius quam voluissem sub hac legacione concessum estâ, that Cartagena was induced at the behest of crown prince Duarte (1391â1438) to write what he called the first-born of his original writings (âprimogenitam hujuscemodi scripturam meamâ).1 During that year he also translated for fellow-ambassador Juan Alfonso de Zamora, âcon muy pequeño trabajo [â¦] en las oras que sobravan del tiempo que sabedesâ, Ciceroâs De senectute and De officiis, and the last two books of Boccaccioâs De casibus virorum illustrium; and perhaps started on Ciceroâs De inventione for Duarte.2
Memoriale virtutum is divided into two books consisting of two prologues, sixty-three chapters, and an epilogue on the moral virtues. Cartagena presents the work as rudiments extracted from Aristotleâs Ethica Nicomachea (ârudimenta protractaâ, MV i.Prol. 59 and i.1); in practice he lifts passages from its commentary by Aquinas. On the face of it, then, the work looks like a novice exercise in note-taking, harking back to the Salamancan aulas and the world of late medieval scholasticism he knew as a student. By the definition of the schools it was a kind of compilatio, for he says:
omnia ergo que sine auctore scripta hic legeris Philosopho et glosatoribus ejus, Thome presertim, attribue, nec a me quicquam esse additum vel mutatum existimes nisi exempla vel verba que ad ordinis connexionem vel ad planiorem intelligenciam conferre putavi.
MV i.Prol. 42â46
Defining the four kinds of scholastic discourse under the headings scriptor (âscribeâ), compilator, commentator, and auctor, Bonaventure (1221â1274) put the compiler who wrote other menâs matter âwith additions, but not his ownâ, just above the âmere scribeâ who wrote other menâs matter with no additions or changes. In a different category was the commentator, who added his own matter, albeit for the purpose of clarifying (ad evidentiam) other menâs words. Yet in Bonaventureâs definition even the auctor wrote âsua et alienaâ.3 In fact he saw less difference between these activities than we expect. His interest lay not so much in establishing a scale from bad to good in terms of originality, since all were meritorious, but in defining various methods of transmitting the words of predecessors, with or without expository material. This reflected an attitude to authorship different from ours, one in which writers strove activelyâhowever insincerelyâto show that they were not original. The approach was profoundly rooted in medieval epistemology, and specifically in their notion of scriptural auctoritas, the indefectible validity of certain written texts.
We should not, however, mistake this as meaning that the Middle Agesâ concept of authority excluded recognition of individual creativity. On the contrary, the Seraphic Doctorâs affirmative answer to his quaestio on the curious problem of whether or not Peter Lombard was the causa efficiens of Sententiae marked a moment when authority and authorship began to be clearly distinguished, despite the lack of different terms for them. Bonaventure concluded: âquod sunt ibi multa dicta aliorum, hoc non tollit Magistro auctoritatem sed potius eius auctoritatem confirmat et humilitatem commendatâ.4 We have to do, then, not with a culture that denied or ignored the status of authors, but one in which, to use Michel Foucaultâs term, the âauthor-functionâ shaped the structure and reception of texts in a distinct way.5 The prolific compiler Vincent of Beauvais stated that he was not the author simpliciter of his Speculum, since he added âlittle or nothing of his ownâ and âby authorityâ it belonged to the Holy Fathers and other ancients; yet for all that, it was a ânew workâ.6 Cartagena too, in one of Memorialeâs most striking metaphors, described it as his task to be not an author, merely a pen (i.Prol. 18â19 ânon ut auctoris sed meum ut calami officium poscebasâ). To copy out authoritative texts like the Latin version of the Philosopher (exponent par excellence of Reason or ânatureâ, as opposed to the revealed truth of Faith or âgraceâ) was a laudable exercise, not theft (ânec enim fur judicari voloâ, ibid. 40); but just as Vincent argued that his work was ânewâ, so too Cartagena went on to overturn his self-image as mere pen by talking of Natureâs generosity in granting even modest wits like him a certain facultas scribendi and, in the next sentence, of being carried away by his pen to âwriteâ a small book (âcalamo decurrente libellum scripsiâ, 29). It is in terms of such medieval attitudes to the author-function that we should consider the meaning of Memoriale virtutum and Cartagenaâs authorial role in it.
The first question to ask is: was Cartagena truly a compiler? He entitled his work not compilatioâhe never uses the word, though he was to do so in Doctrinal de los caballeros (n21, below)âbut âremembrancerâ, and states that what this meant was the record not of a book but the slippery words of an oral discussion (MV i.Prol. 13â15 âilla que adinvicem loquebamur ut scriberem precepisti [â¦] labilia verbaâ).7 His task was to write a memorandum of that talk (âcedulamâ, i.Prol. 28), for which an appropriate term was reportatio; but his pen âran awayâ and he ended up adding chapter and verse of âaliqua que me legisse memineramâ that he had mentioned âhiis in sermonibusâ (i.Prol. 7â8).8 The first striking fact about the resulting work, as MartÃnez Gómez (2016, 52) observes, is that it eschews âla forma dialogadaâ. Things might have been different twenty years later, when the new breeze of humanism brought literary dialogue back into fashion, but Memorialeâs format clearly signals its adherence to the methodology of the medieval schools.9 The next striking factâand the reason why he avoids calling his work a compilatioâis that, apart from the legal texts which he adds, Cartagena does not in fact reproduce his authorities verbatim. At 39,785 words Memoriale is more than two thirds (68â¯Â·â¯5â¯%) the length of Aristotleâs Ἠθικὰ ÎικομάÏεια (58,097); but Cartagenaâs acknowledged guide, Angelic Doctor Aquinasâs Sententia Ethicorum (MV i.Prol. 42â44 âomnia [â¦] glosatoribus ejus, Thome presertim, attribueâ), is 202,666 words, and his unnamed other main source, Moral Doctor Geraldus Odonis ofmâs Expositio et questiones super libros Ethicorum, perhaps twice as long again, by which measure one could call our text a drastic abbreviatio (âbrevi epilogoâ, MV ii.Prol. 76). It nonetheless represents, at a conservative estimate, six or seven hours of spoken delivery. We may safely conclude that Cartagena greatly expanded the conversation; but the compilatio of the relevant parts of Aristotleâs work (Bks iiiâv) is a reordered précis. In another memorable metaphor in his prologue Cartagena claims that, despite his resolve to bid farewell to everything not covered in the conversation (âomnibus valedicendo, ea dumtaxat que ultro citroque loquuti sumus [â¦] ex Philosophi dictis assumpsiâ), he was âconstrainedâ to add some things that simply refused to be left out (âjussa abire nolueruntâ, i.Prol. 36â39). In other words, his own statements and the statistics forefront the preponderance of aliena, other menâs matter, but also pinpoint the fact and extent of his compilatory role. But of course, the numbers tell only a small part of the story. Often the most vital additions or changes are effected by a single word or even letter, such as substituting sg. âGodâ for pl. âgodsâ (Deus, dei, n234) or punctiliously adapting every occurrence of the word humilis so as to use it in a specifically Christian positive sense, as opposed to its negative sense in Aristotle (Gk ÏαÏεινόÏ, n250). The problem for the critic of Memoriale is thus to figure out not just the content of the original conversation, but the precise nature of each of Cartagenaâs interventions and what his overall disposition of the borrowed texts means, regardless of who wrote the words or his modest disavowals of authorship/authority. The latter were commonplace in all sorts of texts, Latin and vernacular, as for example in the one by Vincent of Beauvais cited above (n6); and we find them in the prologues to all Cartagenaâs other works, whether or not they were compilations.10
What, then, does Cartagena leave out, and what does he add? To begin with he omits the philosophical scheme of Aristotleâs work, which was to deduce by logical argument from endoxic first principles (i.e. ones that could be agreed by á½ ÏεÏὶ Ïᾶν ÏεÏÎ±Î¹Î´ÎµÏ Î¼á½³Î½Î¿Ï, any man of all-round education, EN 1094b12â1095a2) a practical definition of what is the good life. Aquinasâs aim was to pursue the same plan, or take it further.11 By these standards Memoriale is not a philosophical work, for it takes for granted the definitions of âvirtueâ and âthe goodâ. Cartagena had no interest in discussing such concepts, which for him were defined by Catholic doctrine; he ignored the meaning of happiness (εá½Î´Î±Î¹Î¼Î¿Î½á½·Î±) and the beautiful or noble (Ïὸ καλόν) as ends of human behaviour because his religion attached no value to this world or earthly pursuits, and where he suspected ancient pagans of having erred in this regard he did not hesitateâbelying his modesty about not changing âanythingââto abandon his sources and tell us (e.g. MV i.19 54â65 on the Stoicsâ âpatent errorâ about suicide, or ii.27 27â34 on the âintolerableâ, âutterly absurdâ theorem of the Cynics; nn143, 312). It is noteworthy that he never imputes such error to Aristotle himself, carefully twisting his words (n143) or suppressing any such critique in Aquinas (n230) to avoid it. Even so, he inserts a wholly non-Aristotelian preliminary distinction between the one true âbeatitudo seu felicitas hominisââthe invisible âsupernaturalâ kind that ânon tractarunt philosophiâ, which he too refrains from analysingâand the imperfect happiness (ânon vera et perfectaâ) he calls âsecundum principia naturaliaâ (MV i.2 5â27, citing Aquinas, STh. I-II.62.1). This lower natural or worldly happiness and its virtues are the subject of Memoriale, but the definition he offers is nonetheless perfunctory and tautological: happiness consists in ⦠behaving virtuously (MV i.2 27â28 âsolet enim sic definiri: felicitas est anime operacio secundum virtutem perfectamâ).12
Happiness is Virtue, Virtue Happinessâthat is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Aristotle indeed insisted on a conceptual link between aretḠand eudaimonÃa, but only after rebutting vulgar fallacies about happiness from things like pleasure or wealth, and by arguing the case that, as excellence constitutes well-being, so well-being defines what is excellent. To ignore this process and cut to the sound-bite of its conclusion is to short-circuit the project of EN; but Cartagena makes clear that his task, like the original oral discussion, was not philosophical but âdirectiveâ (MV i.4 33â34 âde hiis enim solum conferendo loquebamur que ad morum direccionem pertinentâ). Technical terms like habitus (á¼Î¾Î¹Ï) and central doctrines of Aristotleâs thought surface as the book proceeds, such as that virtues may be defined as a just mean (EN 1106b27 μεÏá½¹ÏÎ·Ï á¼ÏÏὶν ἡ á¼ÏεÏá½µ) between extremes of defectus (á¼Î»Î»ÎµÎ¹ÏιÏ) and superhabundancia (á½ÏεÏβολή); but when Cartagena observes at the outset that the intellectual virtues other than practical wisdom (prudencia, ÏÏόνηÏιÏ) are of no concern because, âlicet sint excellentes in se, non tamen reddunt hominem bonum vel malumâ (MV i.4 26â27; thus many knowledgeable men are not good, many ignorant men areââut sunt plures religiosiâ, he glosses, perhaps divining that Aristotle might not have regarded monks as either wise, virtuous, or happy), we see the divide between him and the Greek philosopher. ENâs conclusion rests on the âfunction argumentâ that what distinguishes us as human is the use of reason, and hence the highest good must consist in wisdom, some kind of excellent exercise of the intellect.13 Cartagena counters with an idea that is avowedly religiousâthough we may regard it as no less reasonableâabout the possibility of virtue that springs from the simplicity of an innate, or as he conceives it divinely implanted, goodness (cf. Aristotle, EN 1103a19 οá½Î´ÎµÎ¼á½·Î± Ïῶν ἠθικῶν á¼ÏεÏῶν Ïá½»Ïει ἡμá¿Î½ á¼Î³Î³á½·Î½ÎµÏαι). Indeed he goes further, and to his account of how felicitas consists in the exercise of virtue adds the rider, âonly given Godâs helpâ:
principia naturalia [â¦] non sufficiunt ad ordinandum hominem in beatitudinem predictam [in heaven], unde opportet quod superaddantur homini divinitus aliqua principia per que ita ordinetur ad beatitudinem supernaturalem sicut per principia naturalia ordinatur ad finem connaturalem, non tamen absque adjutorio divino.
MV i.2 12â17, 23â24, from Aquinas, STh. I-II.62.1; see our n61
âThe extent to which a philosophical virtue theory was able to detach itself in the Middle Ages from theology is disputedâ, states Bejczy (2011, 1365), since âthe moral psychology underlying medieval virtue theory is essentially Christian, as it rests on the notion of fallen human nature.â For the Church Fathers the seven virtues (three theological, four cardinal, with seven corresponding capital sins) could have their source only in a divine gift from God, exclusive to Christians, leading to celestial beatitude. This was standard doctrine in theology (Peter Lombard, Sent. ii.27.1 §â¯1 âVirtus est bona qualitas mentis qua recte vivitur, qua nullus male utitur, quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operaturâ; cf. Aquinas, STh. I-II.55.4). However, the twelfth and thirteenth-century rediscovery of Aristotle and the ancient Peripatetic-Stoic theory of virtues (five intellectual, eleven or twelve moral) as perfections of manâs capacity for goodâacquired dispositions to choose a rational mean between excess and deficiencyâled philosophers to debate with theologians the role of nature/nurture (virtus acquisita or consuetudinalis) vs. grace (virtus infusa), and the degree to which the former can be transformed by charity into âgratuitousâ or âsalvificâ virtue.14 In the outcome âthe most frequently copied work on the virtues from the Middle Agesâ proved to be Martin of Bragaâs sixth-century Formula vitae honestae, which is âentirely Stoicâ (Bejczy, loc. cit.; cited as âSenecaâ at MV II. 13 69); but the early fourteenth-century saw a revival of the Augustinian concept of virtue by grace only that was to exercise âremarkable influenceâ on Petrarch and the founders of Italian humanism, for it chimed with their conviction that we are moved to exercise virtue not by scholastic logic but by their own specialism, eloquence or theologica rhetorica (Trinkaus 1970). Cartagena, however, stayed anchored in the rigorous scholastic teaching of Aquinas. Deus/divinus occurs sixty timesâalmost once per leafâin Memoriale, which adheres to the theological doctrine that only God infuses salvific virtue; but at the same time Cartagena adopts the philosophersâ concept of virtutes consuetudinales (i.2 40â41 âassuefaccio bonorum actuum [â¦] inducit habitus virtutum, ideo dicuntur morales, quasi consuetudinalesâ); and though he accepts a role for eloquence in persuading us to act virtuously, he presents logic as the clearer, more profound and efficacious method: âaliud est ad virtutis opera suadendo exhortari, aliud quid ipsa sit virtus et diverticula ejus inquirere; illud suadele dulcedinem exigit, [â¦] hoc autem faciliorem viam intelligendi procuratâ (i.Prol. 52â55).
In the light of this last point Memorialeâs omission of the philosophical marrow of EN emerges as less critical than it might first seem. It implied no disdain of reason or philosophical method; indeed, the opposite. Cartagena accepted Aristotle as authoritative, calling his five (that is, four and one apocryphal) works on ethics the fundamental corpus from which all others derived, just as legal works derived from the Corpora of civil and canon law (an attitude he never abandoned: Escobar Chico 2016); but specified that they did so âa sola racione, nichil enim auctoritatis doctrinis Philosophi tribueretur nisi racione probassetâ (MV i.1 59â60). His interest lay not in debating the reasoning, however, but in delineating the places where it falls short of faithâas we have noted, a contested pointâand applying the discussion of ânaturalâ virtues to the âdirectiveâ purpose laid down by the courtly colloquy (âhiis terminis contentus quos statuit illa hesterna colloquucioâ, Concl. 1â3), as Aristotle, with his stress on the practical end of ethics, intended it should be, though he also insisted that no ethical theory can offer rules or a decision procedure, a point to which Cartagena paid less attention.
It would be interesting to know the circumstances of that âcolloquucioâ. Since it took place, as Cartagena is careful to say in his first words, not in Duarteâs apartments but in the kingâs chamber of state (âin camera regia illustris progenitoris tuiâ, i.Prol. 1), and since he describes his task with the legal term cedula (n8, above) and as a command (âscripture brevissime commendari imperastiâ, ibid. 17â18; âmandato tuoâ, Concl. 1), it might seem at first as if the discussion arose from the business of Cartagenaâs legation. We know from the chronicles (n1, above) that there were lengthy disagreements between the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns as to the terms and duration of the peace treaty; but how might such negotiations have involved discussion of virtues? Besides, Cartagena makes clear the confabulacio was private, between himself and Duarte (he uses singular tu throughout both prologues); its subject was things âque ad bene vivendum conducuntâ, aimed at ânostri interioris hominis cognicioniâ and to be âstudiedâ not as negotia but in the contemplative solitude of otium and the company of âlibris solempnibusâ from the princeâs well-stocked bibliotheca (ii.Prol. 1, 12â19, 73).15 Without discounting an ulterior political motive, then, we may assume that the work was primarily intended for the moral edification of the thirty-one-year-old heir-apparent to the throne.
2 Courses for horses: Aristotle for lay princes
From this last point of view Memoriale may be considered a kind of speculum principis, a genre Cartagena specifically lists among the principal forms of ethical discourse (MV i.1 42â44 âin materia morali [â¦] alii glosas, alii commenta, alii summas, alii tractatus diversos ad erudicionem et regimina principumâ). It is only when we consider his compilation in the specific light of this secular purpose that the workâs import emerges. He not merely skims over the theological and all but one of ENâs intellectual virtues, but also makes changes to the list of moral ones. He says that, like Aristotle, he will discuss eleven (MV i.8 1â4 âjusticia, fortitudo, temperancia, liberalitas, magnificencia, magnanimitas, moderacio, mansuetudo, affabilitas, veracitas, eutrapeliaâ vs. ENâs courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, proper pride, right ambition, good temper, friendliness, truthfulness, tactful wit, justice), but groups together as Bk i the four âcardinalâ virtues (Aquinas, STh. I-II.61.1; see MV ii.Prol. 62â65), for which purpose he transfers justicia (δικαιοÏύνη, the whole of EN Bk v, 1129aâ1138b) to the head of the list before fortitudo (á¼Î½Î´Ïεία, EN Bk iii, 1115aâ1117b) and distributes the treatment of self-mastery quite differently (temperancia MV i.24â29 and, âquia videtur adherereâ (i.30 1), continencia i.30â35âcounted as one virtue in the eleven above, but adapted to Christian ascetic doctrine; vs. ÏÏÏÏοÏύνη EN Bk iii, 1117bâ1119b, and á¼ÎºÏαÏία/á¼Î³ÎºÏá½±Ïεια Bk vii, 1145bâ1154b, after the eleven virtues have been discussed).16 He makes numerous minor changes of order and emphasis in Bk ii as well, not forgetting to tack on at the end two chapters on Aristotleâs little appendix on Î±á¼°Î´á½½Ï âshameâ (EN Bk iv 1128b10â35) under its Christian guise as verecundia âmodestyâ, so that in fact his list contains thirteen virtues.
All this upsets Aristotleâs logical argument, but is done with a purpose: to concentrate on princely qualities. The virtues that really concern Cartagena are the explicitly lordly ones, as his vocabulary shows. The commonest single nominal form in the book is magnanimus (89 occurrences), and of nominal roots the most frequent after functional virtus, homo, and racio (noun/adj., all inflexions, 403, 250, 221 respectively) are fort-is/itudo (181), just-us/icia (152), magnanim-us/itas (131), honor/-abilis (108), and liberal-is/itas (99). Magnific-us/encia occurs 69 times and princ-eps/ipatus/ipare 50, putting them also among the workâs top twenty-five concepts, equalled only by general terms vicium (88), actus (83), defectus (73), natura (73), superhabundancia (67), habitus (65), and appetitus (53). Interestingly, the five virtues in this list are joined by intemper-ancia/atus (83, vs. temper-ancia/atus 61) and incontin-encia/ens (68, vs. contin-encia/-ens 33)âthat is to say, the defects and excesses of self-control receive more mention than its middling virtues, another statistic that seems relevant to a medieval noble readership. Meanwhile, intellectual prudencia, supposedly the chief of virtues, the one that includes and controls all the others (MV i.7 1 âIn tantum est [â¦] principalis quod nulla virtus moralis potest esse sine eaâ), occurs 53 times (3 chapters, 1552 words), less than any of the âlordlyâ virtues and vices listed above and less than half as often as the top three: justice (9 chapters, 5562 words), magnanimity (7 chapters, 4461), and fortitude (7 chapters, 4421)âmore or less the opposite of Aristotle, for whom, as pointed out above, the intellect was paramount. âIn principe exemplificamusâ, asserts Cartagena at one point, âquia est clarius exemplumâ (i.13 51â52); but in truth the prince was not so much an example as the exemplary centre of attention; for, as a little earlier he quotes the sage Bias as saying, âprincipatus ostendit virumâ (MV i.9 18).
To this last remark, lifted from his source (EN 1130a1â2 á¼ÏÏá½´ á¼Î½Î´Ïα δείξει/Sent. Eth. v.3.10), Cartagena adds his own gloss: ânam ex eo quod princeps debet [â¦] tendere ad bonum plurium, requiritur in eo major [â¦] claritas virtutumâ (MV i.9 18â23). A little later he explains that this extra âsplendourâ derives from the fact that the rulerâs exercise of justice and virtue is ânon [â¦] ut singularis persone, sed ut publice et tanquam ducis seu gubernatoris communitatisâ (i.11 9â10). In Bk ii he goes on to say that virtues like magnificence and magnanimityâthe ones that confer dignitas, âquasi quidam ornatus omnium virtutumâ (ii.11 31â32)âcannot be exercised by vulgares homines who lack the requisite wealth and power; they require a kind of âsuperexcellenciaâ which cannot exist âsine prosperitate et habundancia rerum temporaliumâ, but also by the same token a more perfect virtue, âquia non est facile quod aliquis moderate ferat bona fortune sine virtuteâ (ii.12 39â63). The words are again from Sent. Eth., but Cartagena extends the notion that the operation of virtue is more âdifficultâ for powerful men to embrace the idea that, because public, it is more important. In his society, the fact was that noblemen were most honoured (âaliqui reputantur digni honore, [â¦] quia nobiles excedunt ignobiles in nobilitateâ, ii.12 41â43); hence it was imperative they should also be most honourable (âhoc facere debent, ut nobiles genere et in magnis honoribus constituti; nam isti habent in se quandam magnitudinem et dignitatemâ, ii.8 23â24).
This remoulding of virtue ethics to the realities of medieval social hierarchy and estates-theory is, as Fernández Gallardo (2001) observes, the nub of Memoriale, the point towards which its reordering of Aristotleâs argument drives. We see it very clearly, for example, in the chapters on fortitudo militaris (i.21â23), where Aristotleâs ÏÏÏαÏιῶÏαι â(professional) soldiersâ are first transformed into milites, and then by a standard medieval transposition into âknightsâ (Mcast translates âfortaleza cavallerilâ, âcavallerosâ passim), with all the corollary changes of emphasis and implication which this entailed, slipping finally into calling them ânobiles et armorum peritosâ (i.23 6â7) and ending on the âexperti et exercitati in armisâ whom he and his readers have read about âin Hyspaniaâ of old and know âeciam hodierna dieâ (ibid. 55 et seqq.). The climax comes when Cartagena numbers the properties of the magnanimous man enumerated by Aristotle, making them seem less like observations than the Twenty Commandments for princes (ii.13â14; see n244), and then adds a whole chapter drawn from Geraldus Odonis, his primary source for such interpolations, in which he shows howâcontrary to appearances, and directly contradicting Aristotleâmagnanimity is compatible with Christian humility. âBeneficiare est superexcellereâ; therefore the magnanimous man humbly thanks God for his own benefitsâby definition he cannot be anything less than a powerful and wealthy lordâand superexcells to benefit others (ii.16, nn255â263).17 This leads to Memorialeâs close, where, picking up his praise of princely moral reflection and education in the Prologue to Bk ii, Cartagena concludesâConclusio here bearing its logical senseâwith a lengthy peroration on the role of vice and virtue in public action, doubtless inspired by his reading of Boccaccioâs De casibus virorum illustrium, which he was to engage to translate in the months following.18 As examples of vice and its power to bring down empires he adduces lustful Tarquinâs rape of Lucretia (rather missing the point that for Livy and the ancients this initiated the rise of the Roman republic and empire) and feeble Rodericâs rape of La Cava. For the corresponding effects of virtue he wastes no time on classical parallelsâcould pagans be properly virtuous?âbut launches straight into a parade of heroes of the Reconquest, the kings of Castile and Portugal. It was their just, courageous, and magnanimous virtue (together with the divine aid of St James, as the dean of Santiago de Compostela is careful to add at every opportunity) which rolled back the cursed swarm of Hagarenes. It is they whom Duarte is called upon to emulate.
This, then, was the guiding purpose that determined Cartagenaâs author-function in Memoriale. He adapted EN in ways which, as Bejczy (2008a, 8â9) says of the medieval tradition in general, ânot always faithfully reflected Aristotleâs system but certainly fitted the intellectual climate of medieval society, and perhaps even met some of its moral needsâ.
With this in mind we may return briefly to the questions of compilation, authorship, and originality raised in our first section. Parkes has shown how, in generic terms, the distinctive feature of a compilation became its ordinatio âinto clearly defined books and chapters, or other recognizable divisionsâ (1976, 130, and cf. n6, above). Cartagena refers to his division of Memoriale into two books with the metaphor of breaking a journey, clarifying that this was specifically intended to make its perusal less laborious for amateur lay readers (âut minus labor afficiat [â¦]. Si quem ergo laborem ex lectura ejus conceperis, [â¦] declinacione resolveâ); and though the textual tradition is unclear as to their numbering (66â67, below), all witnesses show the books were further divided into fourteen sections (by virtue) subdivided into sixty-three chapters of on average about 50â60 lines, an arrangement characteristic of contemporary works of this nature.19 As proper to the task of the compilator, but again with the specific needs of noble readers foremost, he further embroidered each chapter with exempla âad ordinis connexionem vel ad planiorem intelligenciamâ (MV i.Prol. 45â46), by which he meant not just everyday examples but citations of classical, biblical, patristic, or more recent exempla. Despite the claim to be doing this only for ease of comprehension, it is clear, for instance when he cites Vincent of Beauvais in connexion with the Canary Islands (i.14 28â30 & n117), Boccaccio on Neroâs bestial cruelty (i.30 84â86 & n184), or the Alfonsine royal chronicles for exemplars of courage (i.18 52â64 & nn138â139), or when he refers to jousts and bullfights (âtorneamentis et jostisâ i.17 49â53, âpugnandum cum tauroâ i.18 66â68), that his purpose is really a literary oneâto embellish and entertain.20 Whereas legal and biblical proof-texts are quoted verbatim as auctoritates (that is, âcompiledâ in the technical sense), the historical and classical examples are paraphrased for his lay audience. As suggested above, this loose and varied manner of incorporating secondary sources was no doubt why Cartagena avoided describing Memoriale as a compilatio.21 Instead he calls his work a compendium (Concl. 11) and his technique composicio (âopusculum in forma memorialis compositum [â¦] sub brevi epilogo [â¦]; effectum et res que sub hac composicione tradunturâ, ii.Prol. 74â80), and goes on to compare the scribendi modus of a âcomposerâ in this sense to the skill of a cook spicing a hotch-potch (âunusquisque [â¦] aliis doctrinis commiscens novum saporem invenit, ut coqui facere solent qui cibos ita subtiliter miscent ut qui sint sepe difficiliter cognoscanturâ). Even so, Cartagena claims to abjure the loftier âsubtletiesâ of this âlaudableâ culinary style, striving only for a plain style and everyday language:
Etsi laudabilis subtilisque sit, ego in presenti illum sequutus non sum; nolui enim novis involucionibus antiqua mutare, sed que sub altitudine stilli obscura jacebant in planiorem loquendi modum et cothidianum sermonem deducere.
ii.Prol. 85â88
Like the preceding protestations of clarity, this one is true only in a most disingenuous sense. Certainly the intention was to write at a level intelligible and attractive to his lay audience, but in critical terms the claim to write âplainlyâ can never be innocent, and in this case it is flagrantly belied not merely by stylistic embellishments like those touched on above, but by the peremptory decision to write in the learned language, not âcothidianus sermoâ (see §â¯4, below). We may conclude, then, that Cartagenaâs compilatory style indeed sought to âspice upâ his workâand that this was also precisely what made it novel.
Of all the features we have mentioned, however, the most striking is the barrage of interpolated legal texts. Memoriale makes over fifty direct references to law codes, forty-two of them actual quotations introduced by such phrases as âlegiste dicuntâ, âut canoniste aiuntâ, or more often by chapter and verse, and some stretching to fifteen or twenty lines: twenty-eight of canon law (23 from Gratianâs Decretum, far and away the primary source, 5 from the decretals), fourteen of civil (7 from Dig., the second main source, 3 each from Cod. and Instit., 1 from Novellae Theodosii). It is not sufficient simply to say that these juridical references reflect Cartagenaâs training as a lawyer. Whereas the other exempla serve literary ends, the legal texts change the nature of the discourseâand are designed to do so, for the âdirectionâ of his royal addressee. If Cartagena sidesteps the philosophical marrow of Aristotleâs work, making clear that his interest in natural reason extends only to its use as a means to directive ends, then by peppering his chapters with law citations he displays his adherence to a different but no less rigorous intellectual discipline. That he was âonly a juristâ would be one of Leonardo Bruniâs more futile counter-attacks in their later dispute about the meaning of EN.22 The link between law and virtue is controversial, both in philosophy and in jurisprudence; nonetheless, Cartagena never questions it, for it underpins his aim to write a work aimed at the ruling class and the Christian prince as legislator.23
3 Memorialeâs paratexts: political and cultural ideas
In the two prologues and epilogue of Memoriale Cartagena steps forward from the anonymity of his role as compiler to draw out the ideas assembled in the body of the book and apply them to his purpose. These first-person paratexts sketch out themes that would inform all his subsequent works. For example, he eloquently extolls the delights of reflective otium, prompted by the circumstance of writing in the pastoral locus amoenus of Azoia.24 âVale, optime princeps,â runs the envoi, âet hoc ruralis solitudinis munus dignanter accepta, viridibus in pratis Azoye ruris quod nosti vernantium arborum sub umbra conscriptumâ (Concl. 92â94). This brilliant closing rhetorical flourish of rhythmical prose framed between the double cursus plani of âdignánter accépta ~ sub úmbra conscrÃptumâ is designed to do more than just call up the shared delights of that shady sylvan scene. Through the mention of solitudo it links back to the Prologue of Bk ii, where Cartagena exclaims that nothing could be more appropriate for a prince like Duarte than the virtuous solitude of an otium dedicated to reading and meditation. He illustrates the benefits of such studious retreat by two exempla. The first is Scipio Africanusâs famous tag about otium in Ciceroâs De officiis, a book which was Cartagenaâs pillow-companion of the moment (n2, above):
se nunquam minus ociosum quam cum ociosus, nec minus solum quam cum solus erat, quia in ocio et solitudine de se ipso et de arduis actibus cogitabat.
MV ii.Prol. 21â23 & n202
The second historical exemplum is more novel, though it picks up a hint already adumbrated in the discussion of fortitude in MV i.18 22â24 (âFortem ergo indubie dicam illum qui [â¦] pro bono publico se exponit, ut de multis Hyspanie gloriosis principibus [â¦] cronice narrantâ). Taken from those same patriotic national legends of Castile, it tells (or rather invents, n203) the story of how, in the dark days of oppression by Muslim invaders, Count Fernan González would retire to the cave of the hermit Pelayo on the banks of the river Arlanza to fortify his spirit for the coming battles through solitary meditation:
Sed quid Scipione egemus, cum catholica domi habundent exempla? Quidnam aliud agebant principes gloriosi quorum strenuis operibus Hyspani solii gloria resplendet, cum a justis bellis vacarent que pro fidei catholice exaltacione gerebant, nisi seipsos diligenter conspicere et ad divina opera instruere? Et ut ceteros taceam, Fernandus comes regibus par de cujus femore universi jam Hyspanie reges et tu ipse descendis, cum Castelle preesset, que tunc angustis limitibus coartata undique hostibus premebatur, inter nimias pressuras solitudinem interdum querebat, et abditi montis spelunce quam Pelagius ille habitabat in Arlançe fluminis ripa (ubi post monasterium solempne construxit quod in hodiernum diem stat) segregatus a suis se conferebat ut solus divina cogitaret, que inter tumultum exercitus contemplari non poterat. Sed illius seculi angustie hanc nostro tempori latitudinem pepererunt!
MV ii.Prol. 23â35
In this exemplary portrayal of the conjunction of fortitudo and sapientia we find a first seed of what was to become Cartagenaâs great ambition: a project to foster a new kind of nobleman and prince, cultured and virtuous, at the heart of the respublica. In the following twenty years he would follow up his first exhortation to intellectual otium with a series of vernacular translations intended to educate and enlighten the ideal statesmen of his dream, a project summed up in his Epistola ad comitem de Haro (c. 1442).25 Thus we see in embryo one of the striking facets of Cartagenaâs future literary career: a churchman who, amid all the crises of Mother Church in a critical century, wrote chiefly for noble lay readers and turned his erudition and knowledge of jurisprudence to the task of translating the pamphlets of pagan philosophers or pondering the pundonores of knighthood. Without doubt, in his vision of an educated and moral nobility Cartagena saw a future remedy for the most pressing political problem of his day: the battle for supremacy between king and factious aristocracy. He placed his pen at the service of regalism and autocracy; it was no mere pipe-dream but a coherent policy, fostered by the Crown, which happened also to be the way of the future. Cartagena died before the plan bore fruit, but in Spain as elsewhere in Europe âcourtizationâ, the transformation of knight into courtier, was to be one of the most significant factors in the transition from medieval feudal Ständestaat to Renaissance absolutism.26
Memorialeâs passage on Fernan González introduces another political theme that was to become a leitmotif in Cartagenaâs later work. By juxtaposing the exemplum of Scipio with one from national history he was doing more than indulge in chauvinism. âFrom Fernan Gonzálezâs loinsâ, he declares, âdescend all the kings of Hispaniaâ, including Duarte of Portugal himself (ii.Prol. 27â28). Behind this questionable piece of genealogy lay the germ of an idea that would later be worked into one of the centuryâs most influential political ideologies: the neo-Gothic myth of the unity and imperial destiny of the five Iberian kingdoms (Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Navarre, and in the futureâas Cartagena glimpsedâGranada). The myth made the monarchs of Castile rightful successors to the crown of all Hispania, inheritors of a divine mission to drive the Muslims from Spanish and North African soil and to achieve the redintegratio regni of the Visigothic empire. This nexus of ideas, which mixed political policy with the heady fumes of legend and superstition, would preoccupy Cartagenaâdespite his openly Jewish originsâfor the rest of his life; he was still working on its formulation in Anacephaleosis regum Hispaniae, unfinished at his death. Adopted by the propagandists of the Catholic Monarchs, the neo-Gothic myth became a lynchpin of imperialist thinking whenâby mistake in 1492 and genealogical happenstance in 1516âCastile first acquired an empire and then became heir to the Holy Roman Empire.27
This does not exhaust the significance of the Prologue to Bk ii. What distinguished the âCatholica exemplaâ of arms and letters from the classical examples was naturally the operation of Christian virtue; but Cartagena lays stress on a more specific point. Fernán González and his peers did not merely prepare themselves âad divina operaâ; their meditation included an inner examination of conscience (âseipsos diligenter conspicereâ, âut solus divina cogitaretâ, ii.Prol. 26, 33). The emphasis on interiority (ânostri interioris hominisâ, ibid. 16) provides the vital link between virtue and public life, the intimate connexion of âpropria publicis et publica propriisâ (ibid. 50â56) that we have singled out as the theme of Memoriale. Yet it also reminds us of the semblanza of Cartagena penned by his admirer Pulgar, which portrays a man who laid special stress on cleanliness of language, thought, even clothes and table manners, but only insofar as it reflected an inner cleanliness of spirit:
la linpieza esterior del ombre dezÃa él que era alguna señal de la interior; pero entendÃa aprovechar poco la linpieza del cuerpo e de las ropas e de las muy linpias vestiduras e aparatos si no se conseguÃan con ello la sinceridad de los pensamientos e la linpieza de las obras.
Pulgar 2007, 186
Cartagena could not abide being praised to his face, Pulgar went on to say, âporque si la conçiençia acusava de dentro, poco dezÃa él que aprovechan los loores de fueraâ. Brian Tate traced the origins of this notion of the interior man back to Augustine (Pulgar 1971, xliiâxlviii); others speculate that it may have been a mentality shaped by his converso background. At all events, it is evidenced throughout Memoriale, but clearly from Stoic sources: âper exteriores hominum operaciones discernuntur mores interioresâ, we read in II.24 39â40, or in ii.12 38 and 14 21â23 that true virtue and magnanimity depend on âinteriora bonaâ, not âque exterius occurrere possuntâ. Such phrases show that the preoccupation with conscience was already a component of Cartagenaâs thought in his earliest work. It was to influence his later view of precisely what constitutes true learning and wisdom, and hence his tempered and critical attitude towards the new studia humanitatis arriving from Italy. The future author of Oracional, a laymanâs treatise on prayer which stresses the inwardness of spiritual life, seems already in the 1420s to have been predisposed to spiritual currents concerning conscience that pointed forward to Devotio moderna and the Reformation.28
In these ways we see that Memoriale laid the basis for Cartagenaâs later contribution to fifteenth-century Spanish letters. This raises the ancillary question of the workâs subsequent fortune. Strangely, it is not listed in an inventory of Duarte Iâs books of 1433â1438, and there is no trace of any copy in Portugal.29 Nevertheless, âo Memorial das Virtudes que das Héticas dâAristótilles me ordenou o adayam de Sanctiagoâ is listed among the treatises on virtues âper cristãaos de todas maneiras, gentios, judeus e mourosââafter Egidio Romanoâs De regimine principum and alongside Andrea De Paceâs âPumar das Virtudesâ (Viridarium principum), Valerius Maximus, Ciceroâs De officiis, and John Cassianâs Collationes Patrumâin Leal Conselheiro, a compilation of âenssynos e avisamentos [â¦] de mal fazer se refrearem e pera viver virtuosamenteâ addressed by Duarte to his queen Leonor de Aragón in the 1430s.30 It has often been assumed that Cartagenaâs work influenced Duarte, but the chaotic list of authorities above hardly suggests a mind intellectually capable of digesting Memorialeâs drift, and apart from some parallels in Duarteâs attempt to discuss prudence (Ch. 55; Cartagena 2004, 34â35) DionÃsio (2004) concludes that there is little concrete point of contact.
Be that as it may, the six extant MSS and translation of Memoriale show that it achieved a certain diffusion. One MS was made from a copy that Cartagena took with him to the council of Basel, betraying a professional clerical interest; another was probably for deposit in Burgos cathedral (see descriptions of B and Q in Proleg. §â¯1, below). Some or all of the rest belonged to noblemen and reflected the nascent âaristotelismo cortesanoâ of the day. This lay Aristotelianism was impressively widespread, but mostly took the form of vulgar translations and compendia; it is there we should seek for traces of Memorialeâs influence.31 One text that shows interesting parallels is a vernacular compendium of EN described by Pagden as âby far the most popular version of an Aristotelian moral work to appear in Spain during the fifteenth centuryâ (1975, 299â302). In some copies this Ãthica de Aristóteles is even spuriously attributed to âAlonso de Santa MarÃa, obispo de Burgosâ, but in fact it was written by a noble, Nuño de Guzmán, for his brother the lord of La Algaba (Sevilla) in 1467, and he states that he took it from âuna esplanaçión en lengua aragonés [sic] fabricada e sin escollosâ, since he found it âmás esplÃcita e menos intrincadaâ than the translation âde la lengua latina en ydioma ytálicoâ he had commissioned twenty years before from the Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci.32 The text differs formally from Cartagenaâs compilation, being an example of what Cuenca i Almenar (2012, 8) calls âel gènere escolà stic de les conclusionesââedited highlights that strictly follow the order and wording of EN. Yet it too divides the work into chapters of a page or two and adapts it to the practical use of âthe Christian lay publicâ (Pagden 1975, 301â302). Thus it substitutes Aristotleâs εá½Î´Î±Î¹Î¼Î¿Î½á½·Î± as the aim of ethics by âla final bienaventurança del hombre, quier sea en esta vida siquier después de aquellaâ (Intro., sign. a3r), interpolates a distinction between natural and positive law silently drawn from Gratianâs Decretum (âmatar ombreâ vs. âandar camino en domingoâ, v.1, sign. e6r), and surreptitiously parts company with Aristotle on the question of suicide (v.8, sign. f4r). More striking still is its use of contemporary examples, explaining Aristotleâs δημοκÏαÏία by reference to âlas comunas de Ytaliaâ (v.2, sign. e7r; cf. n54, below), or the moral universality of some customs âassà como el fuego de la India e el de España en una manera escalientaâ vs. the credulous relativity of others âca el que nasce en Ãfrica es moro e el que nasce en Francia christianoâ (v.4, sign. e8râv). Noteworthy is a passage in the discussion of epiqueya on an example added to Aristotle by Aquinas from his master Albertus Magnusâs lectiones, who in turn found it in early commentaries translated from Greek (Aquinas 1969, ii, 323â324 n), of a law âin quadam civitateâ against foreigners being admitted to the cityâs ramparts. It is repeated by Cartagena, among others (MV i.15 13â19 & n121), and likewise by Ãthica de Aristóteles, but the vernacular compendium goes further than any of its Latin predecessors in decking out the phrase âin quadam civitateâ with the local colour of an historical allusion:
Tornando a lo de las leyes, dize que no pudieron ser más justas ni mejores en aquel caso. Verbi gracia, una çibdat opulenta asý como es Valencia, en la qual ay munchos estrangeros, castellanos en especial, está en frontera de Castilla; e por esto, agora ha çien años aviendo guerra estos dos regnos, los estrangeros oviesen sydo causa de perder la çibdat dando çierto lugar a los enemigos por que entrasen. Razonable ley avrÃa sydo en aquel caso sy el prÃnçipe desta çibdat ordenara en pena de muerte que nunca jamás estrangero, en especial castellano, subiese en las murallas, en tiempo de guerra mayormente. SÃguese que agora viniesen los moros de Granada e cercasen la çibdat, e los estrangeros subiesen a la muralla e la defendiesen; çierto es que avrÃa quistión destos tales sy deven morir por la ley ordenada o si han de reçebir benefiçio por la defensión que han fecho a la çibdat contra los enemigos. E vet aquà como la ley, bien que no pudo ser mejor en aquel tiempo, agora fallesçerÃa en aqueste otro.
Ãthica de Aristóteles v.733
Whether any of these parallels between Ãthica de Aristóteles and Memoriale mean that the author of the compendio had seen Cartagenaâs compilation (which he called compendium too, MV Concl. 11) remains an open question. Its Aragonese provenance would be no obstacle, since a copy of Cartagenaâs work could have reached that kingdom through Duarteâs consort Leonor de Aragón, just as the MS of Leal Conselheiro did (n30, above); but the parallels all have counterparts in other medieval commentaries and translations of EN. To peruse Ãthica de Aristóteles is to be struck in every paragraph by verbal reminiscences of Memoriale, yet to establish any direct influence would require a full word-by-word comparison, and even that might well be inconclusive. For the present we can assert only the parity of aims in the two books and their shared cultural outlook, not intertextuality.
In the same sense we adduce one further case. Ãñigo López de Mendozaâs Proverbios o Centiloquio was written in response to Juan II of Castileâs request (âme fue mandadoâ) for a mirror of princes for his teenage son, the future Enrique IV, during a royal stay in Mendozaâs palace at Guadalajara in 1436â1437. In its âProhemioâ Mendoza lays out his defence of the poetâs duty to deal with things âque provoquen a los omnes a toda virtud, esfuerço e fortalezaâ, beginning with a quote of the first words of EN 1094a1. The prologue is full of phrases reminiscent of Cartagenaâs paratexts to his mirror of princes for João Iâs son Duarte fifteen years earlier (Santillana 1988, 216â267, at 216â222):
Esta pequeñuela obra me cuydo contenga en sà [â¦] buenos exenplos, de los quales non dubdo que la Vuestra Exçelencia e alto ingenio non caresca; pero [â¦] como sean escriptos en muchos e diversos libros e la terneza de la vuestra hedad non aya dado tanto logar al estudio de aquellos, pensé de fazer algunas breves glosas o comentos, señalándovos los dichos libros e aun capÃtulos. [â¦]
Ca para qualquier prática mucho es neçessaria la theórica, e para la theórica la prática. E por cierto, de los tienpos aun non cuydo yo que sea el peor despendido aquel en que se buscan o inquieren las vidas e muertes de los virtuosos varones, assà como de los gentiles los Catos e los Sçipiones, e de los christianos los godos e los doze Pares, de los ebreos los Machabeos; e aun si a Vuestra Exçellençia plaze que tanto non nos alexemos de las vuestras regiones e tierras, del Ãid Ruy DÃaz e del conde Ferran Gonçález, e de la vuestra clara progenie el rey don Alfonso el Magno e el rey don Ferrando, el qual ganó toda la mayor parte de la vuestra AndaluzÃa. [â¦] Como dize Séneca en una epÃstola suya a Luçilio, siempre deven ser ante vuestros ojos. [â¦]
PodrÃa ser que algunos [â¦] dixiessen yo aver tomado todo o la mayor parte destos Proverbios de las dotrinas e amonestamientos de otros, assà como de Platón, de Aristótiles, de Sócrates, de Virgilio, de Ovidio, de Terençio e de otros philósophos e poetas. Lo qual yo no contradirÃa, antes me plaze que assà se crea e sea entendido. [â¦]
Pues, bienaventurado prÃncipe, tornando a nuestro propósito, Sçipión Africano [â¦] solÃa decir, assà como Tulio lo testifica en el dicho libro De offiçios, que nunca era menos ocçioso que quando estava ocçioso, nin menos solo que quando estava solo; la qual razón demuestra que en el ocçio pensava en los negocios e en la soledad se informava de las cosas passadas, assà de las malas para las aborresçer o fuyr dellas como de las buenas para se aplicar a ellas o las fazer a sà familiares.
Again, the multiple echoes are striking, and Cartagena may indeed have been present in Guadalajara when Proverbios was being written (Morrás 2012, 54â57), but there is nothing to prove influence; we have to do once more with a shared milieu and horizon of expectation. Yet what is most notable about Mendozaâs âProhemioâ is that, crammed as it is with quotations and allusions to ancient authors, not a single reference is to a Christian auctoritas. Perhaps the most significant novelty of Cartagenaâs Memoriale, whether or not it influenced the works mentioned above, was its message that, for the practical moral education of noble lay readers, a pagan philosopher like Aristotle might provide the most suitable teaching.
4 Style and Latinity
Towards the end of §â¯2 above (pp. 16â17) we mentioned the ramifications of Cartagenaâs claim to write in planior loquendi modus and cothidianus sermo (MV ii.Prol. 86â88), or what he elsewhere calls a plain, pedestrian style (âNec altum loquendi modum quesivi, sed plano et pedestri stillo et verbis ad nostram doctrinam utilibus usus sumâ, i.Prol. 49â51). âPlainâ means the opposite of âno styleâ, for simplicity is as much a conscious effect of language as difficulty; it may be harder to achieve, and is no less complex to analyse. In Memorialeâs case it involved among other things the use of various rhetorical tropes of amplificatio: proverbs, exempla, quotations. Here we focus on the style from a purely linguistic point of view.
The first surprising facet of Cartagenaâs disingenuously modest pose is that cothidianus sermo did not mean âeverydayâ, i.e. vernacular, speech. From his own claims it emerges that by âplanus et pedestris stillusâ he meant a discourse steered towards brevity and clarity:
brevitati non modicum detuli; sed nec brevius potui ut clare dicerem, nec clarius loqui ut breviter explicarem, claritatem brevitate et brevitatem claritate contemperans. Non enim decebat sub nomine Memorialis prolixitate verborum vagari, cum brevitas sit amica memorie.
Concl. 5â9
This ought to imply a style as transparent as possible, one in which the language strives for an effect of invisibility. Why, then, write in Latin for a reader who certainly could not read the language without conscious effort or outside help?34 Might Cartagena have done so because he could not speak Portuguese? No, this cannot be the answer, for he later went on to do the same in works addressed to nobles for whom he could have written in Castilian, but chose not to (Epistola ad comitem de Haro for Pedro Fernández de Velasco, Duodenarium for Fernan Pérez de Guzmán); besides, when he undertook to translate Cicero for the Portuguese prince, he did not hesitate to do so in Spanish.
Abandoning such circumstantial explanations, we are driven to consider more complex cultural reasons. The fact is that Cartagena did not compose any works in the vernacular apart from translations until he came to compile the laws of knighthood for the count of Castro in Doctrinal de los caballeros (c. 1444), where the choice of Castilian was determined by the sources, and a brief reply to Santillanaâs vernacular Qüestión sobre la cavallerÃa (1444) on Bruniâs De militia. In Duodenarium (1442) he answered Fernan Pérez de Guzmán at length in Latin, but in El oracional (late 1454) he decided to favour the same noblemanâs qüestión on the spiritual lifeâstrictly matter for Latin, one might thinkâwith a full-scale reply in the vulgar language or, as he put it, with the âcavallos e armas que a la tal conquista respondenâ:
QuerÃavos ayudar con espada e manto, como suelen ofrecerse los cavalleros de la armada cavallerÃa a sus amigos a quien quieren valer, porque estas son guarniciones que todo omne tiene consigo o prestamente puede tener. [â¦] ¿E que ál llamaremos en lo scientÃfico âespada e mantoâ sinon aquello que muy aýna sin mucho estudio se puede haver? E esto es lo que [â¦] la lengua vulgar que llamamos âmaternaâ sin mixtura de eloqüentes palabras puede expremir, por que en lugar de sciencia sirva lo llano con buena e sana intención explicado, e en lugar de eloqüencia vengan a servir la cottidiana e común manera de fablar [â¦]. Por ende, noble e discreto varón, sy en algunas otras qüestiones [= Duodenarium] vos respondà en lengua latina flaca e rústicamente conpuesta, aun agora más llano quiero ser, respondiéndovos en nuestro romance, en que fablan asà cavalleros como omnes de pie, e asà los scientÃficos como los que poco o nada sabemos [â¦]; mayormente que, pues a todos cumple saber lo que vós preguntades, convenible paresce que se responda en lengua que se entienda por todos.
Cartagena 1487, Prólogo, ff. a2râa3v, at a3r
Here âcotidiana e común manera de fablarâ finally means what we expected planior loquendi modus and cothidianus sermo to mean in 1422: nuestro romance, the âlengua que se entiende por todosâ. Thus we seem to be presented with the reverse of what is usually understood as the progress of the humanist revival of Antiquity: instead of moving towards writing in the classical language, Cartagena progressed the other way, starting with Latin and ending, in his last and in this respect most innovative work, with the vernacular.
From such a perspective it might be argued that in his first work Cartagena was simply doing what Aquinasâs Italian pupil Friar Egidio Romano had done in 1280 when he addressed his De regimine principum to the twelve-year-old heir to the throne of France in Latin even though, had the boy felt any inclination to read it, he would have needed a French crib.35 Despite outward similarities, however, the circumstances were quite different. Apart from Memorialeâs ostentatiously interpersonal mode of illocution springing from its origin in a conversation (âHec tibi, princeps illustris, mandato tuo parens [â¦], hiis terminis scribendo contentus quos statuit illa extrema colloquucio tuaâ, Concl. 1â2, etc.; addressed with tu/tuus 28 times), so that it strikes us as being directed to Duarte in a more real and active way than Egidioâs work to Philippe le Bel, there had been great cultural changes in the intervening century and a half. Foremost among them, as we are reminded by Cartagenaâs deliberate paradox of calling Fernan Pérez de Guzmán âstudioso cavalleroâ in Oracional (Prefacio, f. a4r), was the Renaissance drive towards the education of the aristocracy (§â¯3, at n26 above). Generally speaking, the fifteenth century would see a notable rise throughout Europe in the number of Latin works addressed to lay patrons, as also in the number of laymen desirous of reading them; but against this must be set the equally important rise of vernacular forms of humanistic enterprise. The picture is thus complex: although from certain points of view the decision to write Memoriale in Latin might be regarded as conservative, from others it was pioneeringâprobably the first text in Iberia of such a nature ever addressed specifically to a lay reader. Was the reason, then, the subject-matter: Aristotle, being a technical author, required treatment in the scholarly language? This was certainly an important part of Cartagenaâs thinking. The nub of his argument for compiling the Ethics was the typological distinction between works that âpersuadeâ us to virtue by eloquent oratory and those that teach us what it is by logical enquiry (MV i.Prol. 52â53 âaliud est ad virtutis opera suadendo exhortari, aliud quid ipsa sit virtus et diverticula ejus inquirereâ). The prologues to his translations of Cicero make clear that he regarded the first kind, âlos fermosos tractados de los eloqüentes oradores antiguosâ, as suitable for communicating in the vulgar language.36 Works of the second kind were another matter, for in them technical rigour was paramount, a point developed at length in the controversy with Leonardo Bruni ten years later.37 Ten years after that, in Epistola ad comitem de Haro, he again returned to the distinction; noble laymen were enjoined to leave theology and philosophical âsublimitiesâ to the professionals, and though they might learn âa littleâ Latin, dialectic, and rhetoric so as to ascend to moral âdocumentsâ, they could as well read the latterâworks of the âpersuasiveâ rather than âscientificâ sortâin translation.38
Yet this too can only be part of the answer. In the Middle Ages Latin was proudly regarded by clerics as the âdoorâ (janua) that divided them from non-professionals, the language exclusive to their estate; and yet Cartagenaâs project was specifically aimed at noble lay readers who, like Duarte, had never studied âin litterarum gy[m]na[s]iisâ (MV i.Prol. 3â4).39 At that date and place, and in view of its addressee, we should have to conclude, therefore, that the ultimate reason for Cartagenaâs choice of Latin was flattery. He intended the polite fiction that Duarte would be able to read Memoriale as a compliment to his royal patron; but at the same time as an equally polite encouragement for him to pursue the studies and knowledge necessary to that end (a conclusion that, incidentally, parallels Nascimentoâs argument concerning André do Pradoâs equally flattering dedication of his Latin Horologium Fidei to Prince Henrique three decades later, n9 above). Hence the circumstances of the original conversationâin the vernacular, of courseâ, the princeâs succeeding request for its âmemorializationâ, the involvement of Aristotle, and the subsequent presentation to Duarte of the work in Latin provide a paradigm of the social and cultural processes to which we have referred.
Nevertheless, the decision to do so presented the author with the tricky problem of writing a work designed to be transparent, yet couched in the prestigious but murky medium of a language with which men of Duarteâs estate were not expected to be conversant. This is the topic that concerns a stylistic critic. In the passage quoted above from Oracional, Cartagena states twice over that what distinguishes âlengua vulgarâ from Latinâeven ârusticâ Latinâis that, while plainer (llano), it lacks the ancient languageâs eloquence (eloqüentes palabras, eloqüencia). Such remarks problematize still further the claim to have written Memoriale in âplain and pedestrianâ ⦠Latin. Any analysis of Cartagenaâs stylus planus has to take into account such authorial statements of intent and attempt to resolve their manifold contradictions. When we speak below of his Latinity as being âsimplifiedâ or âvernacularizedâ, therefore, the comments do not refer to his command of or putative level of knowledge of the language and its grammar, but are meant as judgments relating explicitly to his stated aims of transparency and clarity vs. eloquence (or ⦠its absence).
A place to begin is by comparing Cartagenaâs compilation with its chief source, Aquinasâs Sent. Eth. One is immediately struck by how ruthlessly Cartagena applies the pruning shears to the Angelic Doctorâs scholastic quiddities. He states that he writes so that âabsque revolucione librorum legere valeas quod cum glosatorum crebris divisionibus et subdivisionibus legi soletâ; and indeed, the form of Aquinasâs lectiones is that of seemingly endless divisio (âthe Philosopher states A, then B; A is divided into three parts, B into two; the first of A is subdivided into two â¦â, and so on ad infinitum). For schoolmen this was a method of making Aristotle more memorizable for students; but for his amateur readers Cartagena lifts out the leading ideas and consigns the rest to the dustbin, along with its concomitant technical vocabulary. Compare, for example, the start of their respective treatments of fortitudo:
Aristotle:
á½ Ïι μὲν οá½Î½ μεÏá½¹ÏÎ·Ï á¼ÏÏὶ ÏεÏὶ Ïá½¹Î²Î¿Ï Ï ÎºÎ±á½¶ θάÏÏη, ἤδη ÏανεÏὸν γεγένηÏαιΠÏοβούμεθα δὲ δá¿Î»Î¿Î½ á½ Ïι Ïá½° ÏοβεÏá½± / Quoniam quidem igitur medietas est circa timores et audacias, iam et prius dictum est. Timemus autem scilicet terribilia.
EN 1115a6â7/Aristotle 1972â1974, iv, henceforth Vet. interp., iii.7, p. 421 5â6
Aquinas:
Quoniam quidem igitur medietas, etc. Postquam Philosophus determinavit de virtutibus moralibus in communi, hic incipit determinare de singulis in speciali. Et primo determinat de virtutibus quae sunt circa passiones interiores; secundo de iustitia quae est circa operationes exteriores, in v libro ibi De iustitia autem et iniustitia etc.
Prima autem pars dividitur in partes duas: in prima determinat de virtutibus moralibus quae sunt circa principales passiones respicientes ipsam hominis vitam; secundo determinat de virtutibus moralibus quae sunt circa quasdam secundarias passiones respicientes exteriora hominis bona, in iv libro ibi Dicamus autem deinceps, etc. Circa primum duo facit: primo determinat de fortitudine, quae est circa passiones respicientes corruptiva vitae humanae; secundo determinat de temperantia, quae est circa passiones respicientes ea quibus humana vita conservatur, scilicet cibos et venerea, ibi Post haec de temperantia, etc.
Circa primum tria facit: primo investigat materiam fortitudinis; secundo determinat modum operationis ipsius, ibi Terribile autem non in omnibus quidem, etc.; tertio determinat quasdam virtutis proprietates, ibi Circa audacias autem et timores, etc. Circa primum duo facit: primo resumit quod manifestum est ex praemissis de materia fortitudinis, scilicet circa quas passiones sit; secundo inquirit obiecta illarum passionum, prout circa eas est fortitudo, ibi Timemus autem, etc.
Dicit ergo quod iam supra dictum in ii, quod fortitudo est quaedam medietas circa timores et audacias; importat enim fortitudo quamdam animi firmitatem per quam animus stat immobilis contra periculorum timores. Deinde cum dicit: Timemus autem, etc., investigat obiecta passionum praedictarum secundum quod circa eas est fortitudo, et specialiter ex parte timoris, circa quem principalius est fortitudo, ut infra dicetur. Eadem autem sunt obiecta timoris et audaciae, nam illud idem quod per timorem aliquis refugit, per audaciam aggreditur. Circa hoc ergo tria facit: primo ostendit quae sint obiecta timoris; secundo ostendit circa quod genus horum sit fortitudo, quia circa timorem mortis, ibi Non enim circa omnia, etc.; tertio ostendit in speciali circa cuius mortis timorem sit fortitudo, ibi Videbitur autem utique, etc. Dicit ergo primo quod terribilia sunt quae timemus, quasi timoris obiecta.
Sent. Eth. iii.14.1â4
Cartagena:
Fortitudo est medietas quedam inter timores et audacias; importat enim quandam animi firmitatem per quam animus stat inmobilis contra timores periculorum. Est ergo fortitudo ille habitus electivus secundum quem homo se habet firme et intrepide circa pericula propter bonum. Objectum autem fortitudinis est illud quod terribile est, nam cum fortitudo sit circa timores et audacias moderandos, principaliter tamen circa timores, ut infra dicetur; et terribilia sunt que timemus.
MV i.17 1â7
The chief device of plainness here is brevitas. The first of Cartagenaâs three sentences cuts straight to ll. 17â18 of Aquinas, the last paraphrases his succeeding eight lines expounding Aristotleâs final six words, preserving the salient idea but excising the ponderous logic-chopping of secundum quod, specialiter, principalius, circa quod genus, etc. And this is so with the major part of the text. To discuss Memorialeâs vocabulary or syntax in general terms would be pointless, since much of its wording is copied from the sources; its âstyleâ consists in the first place of the things not copied, of which the most notable are the omitted technicalities and horrid jargonâthe very things that humanists mocked about âbarbarianâ scholastic Latin.
Despite his protestations, however, Cartagenaâs âplainnessâ betrays a concern not just for ease and brevity but also for elegance. In the first sentence he rewrites âquaedam medietasâ as âmedietas quedamâ, âcirca timores et audaciasâ as âinter timores et audaciasâ, âpericulorum timoresâ as âtimores periculorumâ, and omits the heavy repetition of fortitudo in the second clause. These details cannot be fortuitous; they are meant as better sounding, more accurate, or more rhythmic phrases. The recast last sentence shows similar concerns: circa is here the apt preposition, concessive cum + subj. renders the argument clearer, the addition of moderandos improves both sense and sound. Most striking is the intervening sentence, a concise definition of courage in terms of Aristotelian virtue ethics. It is not taken from Aquinas, but silently adaptedâagain with stylistic retouchesâfrom Geraldus Odonis.40
Alongside this evidence of attention to a lighter but more elegant register there is, to be sure, a certain tendency towards linguistic vulgarization; that is, adopting features of Romance lexis and syntax. An example is the use of 2nd-person demonstrative iste for este, where standard Latin would be hic. So we find:
Ista [âthe latterâ, virtutis doctrina quam in pelle didiscimus] bonos facit, illa [âthe formerâ, quam solum in animalium membranis] ad bonum inducit. [â¦] Illi [âthe formerâ, sapientes] adinveniunt, isti [âthe latterâ, alii] adinventis utuntur.
MV i.Prol. 6â7, 24
Sed ista [âwhat I have just saidâ = haec] intentui nostro non congruunt.
i.8 26â27
More vulgar still is use of abl. gerund as Sp. adverbial gerund, instead of pres. part. (e.g. âtam generaliter de eis loquendo [â¦] quam eciam specialiter de eis tractando [â¦] disseruitâ, i.3 5â7), fuisse in pass. perf. (e.g. âinter nos habitus fuit sermoâ, ibid. 8, for habitus est; cf. Sp. fue tenido), or words like barones, capitaneus, josta, marinarii, torneamentum, trufator. Yet such features do not have the overall effect of making his language less elegant than Aquinasâs; on the contrary, they render it lively, energetic, and immediate. Compare the following:
Sicut in quadam civitate statutum fuit sub poena capitis quod peregrini non ascenderent muros civitatis, ne scilicet possent dominium civitatis usurpare. Hostibus autem irruentibus in civitatem, peregrini quidam ascendentes muros civitatis defenderunt civitatem ab hostibus, quos tamen non est dignum capite puniri, esset enim hoc contra ius naturale ut benefactoribus poena rependeretur. Et ideo secundum iustum naturale oportet hic dirigere iustum legale.
Sent. Eth. v.16.9
Ut in exemplo, ferunt enim in quadam civitate statutum fuisse ne peregrini muros ascenderent, et peregrinus ascendens capite puniretur; cum autem hostes in civitatem irruerent civibus ignorantibus, peregrini a casu transeuntes muros ascenderunt et civitatem ab hostibus defenderunt. Attenta igitur justicia legali capite puniri deberent, quod absurdissimum et inconveniens esset et contra justum naturale, quod vult ut benefactoribus non mala sed bona rependamus. Sed interveniet hic epiqueya, et quod legislator si previdisset statuisset, hoc bonus legis minister faciet; non enim legis verbis observatis contra mentem ejus veniet, nam ut legiste dicunt, âin legem committit qui verba legis amplexus contra legis nititur voluntatemâ.
MV i.15 13â2241
Aquinasâs abrupt âSicutâ and drily legalistic âsub poena capitisâ are rewritten in more lively style as âUt in exemplo, ferunt enimâ and âet capite punireturâ, engaging the readerâs suspense in the story, while the barbaric syntax and SVO word-order of âquod non ascenderent murosâ are corrected to elegantly classical âne peregrini muros ascenderentâ; yet to the same end class. ablative absolute âhostibus autem irruentibus in civitatemâ is simplified as âcum autem hostes in civitatem irruerentâ (though cf. following âcivibus ignorantibusâ) and âperegrini quidam ascendentes muros civitatis defenderunt civitatem ab hostibusâ rephrased omitting the clumsy repetition of civitas and using parataxis for greater narrative vividness, but also with more emphatic classical SOV order yielding a striking rhyme: âperegrini a casu transeuntes muros ascenderunt et civitatem ab hostibus defenderuntâ. The sense of energy continues in the explanatory sequel, with its rhetorical exaggeratio âquod absurdissimum et inconveniens esset et contra justum naturaleâ embroidering âesset enim hoc contra ius naturaleâ; its personification of law and equity as subjects of active verbs (âjustum naturale, quod vultâ, âinterveniet hic epiqueyaâ); and the concluding amplificatio of a legal citation (n122).
The desire to lend colour and movement, to use language in an overtly emotive way, is unmistakeable; Memoriale is a great deal more stylish in this sense than other Aristotelian compendia. In short, by âplainâ and âclearâ Cartagena meant âmore directâ but also âmore entertainingâ; and if his Latin is not humanist, it is certainly not scholastic either. His vulgarisms are not âlowâ in either a stylistic or a linguistic sense; instead they function as a kind of modernizing colloquial intertextuality, a deliberate register intended for vivacity, as when he delights to tell usâapropos of nothing in Aristotle or the argumentâthe Spanish word for a siege palisade (âmuro quem vulgariter palenquum dicimusâ, MV i.20 53 & n149). And this sense of subjective engagement with realia, the eye for the concrete world of sense and experience, is the underlying characteristic of the style. Defining the distinction between ÏÏόνηÏÎ¹Ï (prudentia, practical wisdom) and á¼ÏιÏÏήμη (scientia, knowledge), for example, Aquinas explains that the former does not concern things determined by the laws of necessity (âneque de his quae sunt simpliciter impossibilia aliter se habere, neque de his quae sunt impossibilia agereâ); Cartagena says bluntly, no one plans whether the sun will rise (âNullus enim consiliatur si sol orieturâ, MV i.5 12â13 & nn70â71). Or again, Aquinas talks vaguely of aliquid prohibens, âsome prohibitionâ of diet; Cartagena specifies, âin Lentâ (i.31 41 & n186). For Aristotleâs Ïολλὰ κενὰ Ïοῦ ÏÎ¿Î»á½³Î¼Î¿Ï âempty alarms of warâ Aquinas exemplifies, âsicut fragor armorum, concursus equorum et alia huiusmodiâ; Cartagena, senses alert, concentrates on sound: âut strepitus equorum, fragor armorum, tubarum sonitusââand then adds the stunning image, âcum enim magna acies equestris se movet, videtur inexpertis quasi quidam terremotusâ (i.21 6â8). This is the âplain, everyday way of speakingâ in a nutshell.
Only in one respect does Cartagena relinquish his direct, concrete style to side openly with the âbarbarianâ scholastics: namely, in his fondness for technical Graecisms. It is strange that schoolmen clung with such tenacity to these unintelligible words, but they were regarded as scientific. Cartagena spared his lay reader many of his sourcesâ technicalities, but refused to abandon eubulia, synesis, gnomi; gnomiticus; castrimargus; banausia, apirocalia; kaymus, acrocolus, discolus; autochiastos or -phastos, eiron, blancopanurgus; bomolochi, agrioti, eutrapeli. A few entered Spanish, like policia âconstitutionâ (ÏολιÏεία, i.1 22, i.12 11â12, 15, 17), epiqueya âequityâ (á¼Ïιείκεια; see the passage from i.15 above & n118), ypocrita (á½ÏοκÏιÏá½µÏ, i.31 52 & n188), or melodia âconcordâ (μελῳδία, ii.9 5 & n235); most were forgotten.42 It can hardly be said that Cartagena or anyone else in Iberia properly understood the terms (they caused the scribes sad perplexity). It is noteworthy, however, that he did not accord the same treatment to, say, medical terms; thus Aquinasâs hydropisis, phtysis, and epilentiae are vernacularized as febris continua and terciana (MV i.34 47â48 & n197). It is clear that he saw Vetus interpresâs Graecisms in a different light, regarding them as indispensable to the philosophical rigour of his ethical project, even for amateur readers. This, indeed, was to be the central pillar of his argument in Declinationes against Bruniâs humanist translation of EN: that to replace such technical terms by supposedly more elegant Ciceronian periphrases was not to translate Aristotle but to traduce him. We may be able to think of rational objections to Cartagenaâs stance, but Bruni had no idea what they might be. Posturing buffoonishly as an ape, he tried to convince us this was no philosophical problem but simply a matter of, as he put it, âsniffingâ words for their antique literary credentials. The list of terms condemned by his olfactory organ included a number of those used in Memoriale:
Quid enim est aliud quam barbara simul et Latina et Graeca in unum confundere, et chaos, ut ita dixerim, literarum moliri? Vide quam multum inter me et illum intersit: ego millies singula verba olfacere soleo priusquam literis mandem, nullum denique nisi probatum et ab optimis auctoribus michi commendatum recipio; ille autem passim undecunque oblatum arripit. Itaque bomolchos et agricos et eutrapeles et epieces et cacectos et cetera huiusmodi monstra verborum probat.43
We should not, however, allow the ineptitude of Bruniâs defence to obscure the real strangeness of this vocabulary and, more still, of the linguistic choices that motivated it. In fact words like εá½Î²Î¿Ï λία (ârectitudo consiliiâ, MV i.6 2 & n74), ÏύνεÏÎ¹Ï (âbonum judicium de consilioâ, ibid. 19), γνώμη (âeleccio moderativa in casu particulariâ, 25â27) are not technical terms at all; there was no good reason not to use the straightforward Latin equivalents given by Cartagena. By contrast, there could be strong philosophical arguments for retaining the original names of fundamental concepts like á¼Î¾Î¹Ï, εá½Î´Î±Î¹Î¼Î¿Î½á½·Î±, á¼Î½á½³Ïγεια (i.4 7â11 & n66), or á¼ÏεÏá½µ; but in these cases Vetus interpres preferred its own inadequate or misleading renderings habitus, beatitudo, actio, virtus. Likewise to insist on keeping eutrapelia for εá½ÏÏαÏελία âtactful witâ was mindless pedantry, whereas to rename ÏÏÏÏοÏύνη and á¼Î³ÎºÏá½±Ïεια as temperancia and continencia, or more strikingly to refuse to use Aquinasâs philotimus or Geraldusâs euphilotimia for ÏιλοÏιμία âright ambitionâ and call it instead moderacio (ii.17 1â2 & nn264â265), shifted Aristotleâs argument towards an alien religious moral system of self-denial. We are drawn to conclude that, while Cartagenaâs attitude to the need for accuracy in philosophical vocabulary was indubitably justified, the Graecisms actually chosen were red herringsâneither needful nor accurate. For a society that knew no Greek, mangled words like gnomiticus, castrimargus, blancopanurgus, or autochiastos were not scholarly rigour, just decorative noise. Hence, paradoxically, the feature of Memorialeâs style that at first sight looks most rebarbative, technical, and unliterary turns out to be the most insubstantial, ludic, and purely acoustic of allâmere entertainment for the ear, not matter for the mind.
All the evidence, then, even including the topic of the last paragraph, combines to reveal Cartagenaâs strong voluntad de estilo (Marichal 1957, 21â61; and see Morrás 1994). Memoriale may be a compilation from other sources, but the stamp of its authorâs voice is everywhere present. In the course of this introduction we have had occasion to cite similes and metaphors, rhythmic cursus and rhyme, figures of alliteration, anaphora, and asyndeton; we have seen how the sources are rewritten in more elegant register, and how varied kinds of example are used both to clarify and enliven the content. As for the rhetorical theory of high, middle, and low styles, despite a disclaimer (âNec altum loquendi modum quesiviâ, i.Prol. 49â50) he consciously uses more than one level, rising in the Prologues and Conclusion to a declamatory register, in the body of the text adopting an expository one, and in a few places indulging in familiar language that on one occasion even descends to what looks suspiciously like a joke, though it turns out to be copied from Aristotle (ânaturale est quod omnes diligant opera sua, sicut parentes diligunt filios et poete poemata suaâ, ii.2 43â44 & n213).44 Should there linger any doubt as to the degree to which these suasory techniques were deliberate, one need only point to the abundant rhetorical questions, apostrophes, exclamations and other forms of authorial parecbasis in the Prologue and Conclusion to Bk ii. These are marks of a fully conscious and intentionally personalized author-function.
A final point regarding style remains. The MS tradition gives evidence, chiefly in the β branch but also in B and in a separate way in O, of what appears to be a degree of stylistic rewriting. The retouches are minor, commonest being replacements of pre-posed copulative et or sed at the start of sentences by enclitic ergo or autem, or inversions of order (e.g. postposition of adjs); one or two are syntactic (subj. for indic., fut. for pres.), but none amounts to a change of intention. The variants seem prompted by a desireânot always well-informedâto improve the Latinity, or at any rate to make it look more classical. Many of them were due, intentionally or otherwise, particularly in B and O (the most inaccurate copies), to the scribes; nevertheless, the history of the text shows that β derived from a copy in the authorâs possession in the 1450s and this raises the question, discussed below (Proleg. §â¯2, list (e) & n47), of whether some of the changes may have been Cartagenaâs own. The problem admits no definite answer, since none of the variants provides conclusive textual evidence of authorial intervention. If it could be shown that any revisions were Cartagenaâs, they might help show how his Latinity and style evolved, for instance through contact with humanists. We have pointed to a few cases where authorial intervention seems possible or even likely (e.g. nn77, 95, 175, 265), but have not undertaken any thorough study of the problem, the evidence in our present state of knowledge being too inconclusive. Nevertheless, we end with this mention of it, in the hope that some future scholar may be able to resolve it.
Memoriale virtutum, Liber i, Prologus, ll. 25â26, and Conclusio, ll. 4â5 (cited from the edition below, henceforth MV, by book, chapter, and line). The significance of the embassies is studied by Salazar (1976); the first is described in Alvar GarcÃa de SantamarÃaâs Crónica de Juan II, Año 1421 cap. 40, and Año 1422 cap. 27 on the follow-up visit of Jan.âApril 1423 (BNE Mss/1618, ff. 83, 1044âthe latter out of order on three leaves in another hand inserted between ff. 104â105 with a note by Jerónimo Zurita, âAntes del año m.cccc.xxiii, 104. | Sacada del original [i.e. SantamarÃaâs autograph, Esc. X-II-2] enel qual no está lo precedenteâ; Santa MarÃa 1891, i, 258â259, 310â311). Carvajal 1517 abbreviates (Año 1421 cap. 34, 1423 caps 58â59, ff. 74v, 81/1877, 411, 423â424), but his chief variant is âal doctor don Alonso de Cartajenaâ for âdon Alonso GarcÃa de Santa MarÃaâ. On the Portuguese side, Fernão Lopesâs Crónica de João I and its continuation by Gomes Eanes de Azurara reach only 1411 and the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 respectively; the version âreformedâ by Duarte Nunes de Leão (d. 1608) mentions the embassy, but adds nothing of moment (Leão 1642, Cap. 99, pp. 379â381).
The quotation is from the preliminaries to Tulio de senetute, dated Montemor-o-Novo 10/19 Jan. 1422 (BNE Mss/7815 f. 6r; Cartagena 1996, 157, 371 n48, and see 16â22; Moreno 1988, 355); CaÃda de prÃncipes is dated 30 Sept./9 Oct. 1422 (Cartagena 1495, sig. a2v); on Rethórica de Tulio see n56, below. âPrimogenitam hujuscemodi scripturamâ must therefore mean âof an original kindâ or âin Latinâ. Fernández Gallardo (1999a, ii, 447â449; 2012a, 34â35) argues that MV was written not in 1422 but in 1425, from the mention of the Canaries in i.14 25; Prince Henriqueâs abortive attempt to invade Gran Canaria in 1424 provoked angry protest from Castile, and Cartagena was sent to negotiate terms with João I in December of that year, leading later to the Treaty of Medina del Campo of 1431 and his Allegationes super conquesta Canarie at Basel in 1436 (Suárez Fernández 1960, 38â64 and 1963; Cartagena 1994; Lawrance 2013). We hold to the standard dating (Serrano 1942, 241; Cartagena 1996, 17 n20 and 2004, 29 & n42) on the grounds that Cartagena certainly could not have made a throw-away remark to Duarte about the Canaries during the tense confrontation of 1424â1425, but in truth it makes little difference. The one relevant fact is that, when writing MV, Cartagena had not heard of the controversial new trans. of EN by Leonardo Bruni (completed 1417â1418). In the prologue to his work critiquing the latter, Declinationes super nova quadam Ethicorum Aristotelis translatione addressed to the relator Fernan DÃaz de Toledo, Cartagena states that he first heard of Bruni during a later embassy to João I in 1427, where a certain Portuguese scholar back from Bologna showed him some of the Italianâs works; but his first sight of Bruniâs EN came âquadriennio fere post elapsoâ, when he was shown it one winter night in Salamanca (documents show this means either September 1430 or, more likely, November 1432) by Toledoâs nephew Pero DÃaz (âcum una noctium de moralibus se sermo ingessisset, ingeniosus adolescens nepos tuus novam quandam Ethicorum translationem in medium produxit quam Leonardum noviter scripsisse tradebatâ: Cartagena 2000, 194â196).
Commentaria in IV libros Sententiarum, Lib. i, Quaestiones ProÅmii 4 resp. âquadruplex est modus faciendi librum: aliquis enim scribit aliena nihil addendo vel mutando, et iste mere dicitur scriptor; aliquis scribit aliena addendo, sed non de suo, et iste compilator dicitur; aliquis scribit et aliena et sua, sed aliena tamquam principalia et sua tamquam annexa ad evidentiam, et iste dicitur commentator, non auctor; aliquis scribit et sua et aliena, sed sua tamquam principalia, aliena tamquam annexa ad confirmationem, et talis debet dici auctorâ (Bonaventura 1882â1902, i, 14â15; henceforth all emphases are ours unless otherwise indicated); see Parkes 1976 (on this passage, 127), and on the more general earlier semantics of compilare, Hathaway 1989. We return to the specific generic characteristics of compilatio, in particular its key component of ordinatio, below at n19 & ff.
Bonaventura, loc. cit., 15; see Minnis 1979, 1988 (on this passage, 94â95), 2008. The praise accorded to the authorâs âhumilityâ epitomizes the difference between medieval concepts of authorship/authority and our ideas of creativity/originality. Bonaventureâs quaestio addressed a specific issue; some commentators on Sentences argued that God was the author, Lombard a compiler, e.g. Robert Kilwardby, Quaestiones in IV Sententiarum, i, qu. 1 âLicet igitur huius libri possit Magister dici compilator vel promulgator, auctor tamen esse debet dici Deusâ. Yet Kilwardby went on to say that, being inspired by God, this âcompilerâ was both a sort of angel and the bookâs efficiens principalis (cited by Rosemann 2015, 1â12, at 7â8, who comments, âit is likely that the term auctoritas [in Bonaventure] should be rendered as âauthorshipâ. Yet of course it also means âauthorityââ¯â).
Foucault 2001 explores the fact that this âfonction-auteur ne sââ¯exerce pas dââ¯une façon universelle et constante sur tous les discoursâ. Whereas for us, for example, fiction is authorial and science anonymous, in the Middle Ages it was the other way around; works such as Cantar de Mio Cid or AmadÃs were anonymous, while âles sciences naturelles [â¦] nââ¯Ã©taient reçus [â¦] quââ¯Ã la condition dââ¯Ãªtre marqués du nom de leur auteur. «Hippocrate a dit», «Pline raconte», [â¦] cââ¯Ã©taient les indices dont étaient marqués des discours destinés à être reçus comme prouvésâ (p. 827/212). That is to say, the author-function ânââ¯est pas définie par lââ¯attribution spontanée dââ¯un discours à son producteur, mais par une série dââ¯opérations spécifiques et complexesâ (832/216); it is a âpropriété discursiveâ that modifies âles modes de circulation, de valorisation, dââ¯attribution, dââ¯appropriation des discoursâ, the âcomplexityâ lying in the variable ways in which this function operates in different cultures.
Vincentius Bellovacensis 1591, i, f. 1v Generalis prol. 4 âhoc ipsum opus novum quidem est simul et antiquum, [â¦] antiquum certè auctoritate et materia, novum verò partium compilatione et earum aggregatione [â¦], utique meum simpliciter non sit, sed illorum potius ex quorum dictis fere totum illud contexui. Nam ex meo ingenio pauca et quasi nulla addidi; ipsorum igitur est auctoritate, meum autem sola partium ordinationeâ (cited in part by Parkes 1976, 128, who glosses, âThe compilatio derives its value from the authenticity of the auctoritates employed, but it derives its usefulness from the ordo in which the auctoritates [a]re arrangedâ). Foucault (op. cit., 822/207) poses the inevitable question: âSi un individu nââ¯Ã©tait pas un auteur, est-ce quââ¯on pourrait dire que ce quââ¯il a écrit [â¦] pourrait être appelé une «oeuvre»?â This is the root of the problem being discussed here, and Vincent (who is cited at MV i.14 30) answers explicitly: yes, it can be a workâand an opus novum, at that.
Du Cange v, 336â337 gives sixteen entries s. xiâxv for memoriale, memorialis (liber)âdamned by Nolte as âsuspectâ and âfaultyâ despite Suet. Iul. 56.6 âmemorialis libelliâ, Macrob. Sat. iii.6.11, Gell. NA vii.7.8 âSabinus Masurius in primo memorialiumâ (Noltenius 1744, 614)âin senses ranging from âmemorial, monumentâ (cf. Vulg. Ex 3:15, Ps. 101:13, 134:13, Jdt 9:15) to ânecrologyâ; but most are legal (diploma, charta collectarum or datiorum, index, etc.; and cf. Cod. xii.19.10 âStatutos memoriales [â¦] in scrinio quidem memoriaeâ, 19.13.2 âmemorialium matriculaâ; Dig. l.16.144 âLibro memorialiumâ). Close to MVâs sense is Salamancan canonist Juan Alfonso de Benavente in 1453, âstudens debet facere memor[i]alia et epilogationes de textibus et glossis et notisâ (Benavente 1972, 90, i.5 §â¯80); and later Archbp MartÃn de Ayala of Valènciaâs Epitome constitutionum, 16 April 1566 âper archiverios capituli fiat unum memoriale omnium negotiorum [â¦] quæ litigiosa suntâ (Sáenz de Aguirre 1693â1694, iv, 147). The word occurs elsewhere in titles (e.g. Eulogius of Córdobaâs Memoriale sanctorum, PL cxv, 731â818; the alphabetic metrical summary of the Bible Roseum memoriale of c. 1430 in Petrus de Rosenhaym 1489; Gabriele Bucciâs historical Memoriale quadripartitum of c. 1480; and see n10, below); but Cartagenaâs device of inviting the reader to âcall the work âmemorialâ if you willâ (âsi visâ, i.Prol. 29â30; see n49 ad loc.) shows that he meant it to sound unusual and arresting, like his other Latin titles (Defensorium, Confectio Catoniana, Duodenarium, Conflatorium, Anacephaleosis).
On reportatio see Minnis 1988, 101â102, 192; Hamesse 1997 shows it was specially used in university law and theology. Cedula too was a juristsâ term (Du Cange ii, 247 âceda, cedula pro SchÄda, schÄdÅla [vulg. dim. < class. scÄda âleaf of paperâ] in veteri Vocabulario Juris utriusque. [â¦] Hispani et Itali dicunt etiam Cedula, Galli Ceduleâ); Cartagena surely had in mind Sp. cédula, cf. Palencia 1490, f. 457r âSingraphum es memorial obligatorio o subscripçión de çédula de la mano [cirographi]; [â¦] en las çédulas de mano se suelen solamente escrivir las substantias delo fechoâ. Cédula (real) is attested in corde à 723 in s. xv legal texts, à 33 in literary texts with senses close to the one here (e.g. Villena 1994â2000, ii: Traducción y glosas de la Eneida iâiii, glosa §â¯115, 57 âel primer cogimiento que escriven con los testigos [â¦] llaman çeda; e viene çédula dende, que quiere dezir [â¦] cualquier minuta, siquiere primero original que después se ha de reduzir en mejor formaâ).
On humanistic dialogue in fifteenth-century Spain see Zappala 1989; Vian Herrero 1991; Gómez Moreno 1994, 197â201; Solervicens 2005; Miguel, in Lucena 2014, 160*â164*. In the 1440s Cartagena wrote a series of answers to enquiries from noble laymen; in them he adopts the format of the epistle (Qüestión sobre el fecho de la cavallerÃa to Santillana, Epistola ad comitem de Haro, Oracional for Fernan Pérez de Guzmán), but he was familiar with Ciceronian dialogues, having translated De senectute in 1422, and in his Questio ortolana (Morrás 1996) he announced that he was emulating Ciceroâs Tusculanae disputationes, though only the circumstances are imitated (he boasts that his was a real debate in a real garden), the basic form being that of a scholastic quaestio. Nevertheless, in the same years he experimented with fictional dialogues between historical characters in Duodenarium (1442) q.4, caps 5, 10, 15 (Fernández Gallardo 2007, 75â83; Jiménez Calvente 2015). An instructive parallel is André do Pradoâs Horologium Fidei, addressed to Duarteâs brother Prince Henrique c. 1450. It too is a compilatio, a discussion of faith and reason based on the Apostleâs Creed (hence âClockâ: twelve apostles, twelve chapters, twelve âhoursâ) written at the princeâs request during a moment of otium (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Ms. Vat. lat. 1062 f. 1r/Prado 1994, 32 [Prohemium]), but in dialogueânot the humanist kind, but not a medieval disputatio or master-pupil doctrinal altercatio either, since the âcolóquio (não) havidoâ was meant to flatter Henrique by making him lead the discussion (Nascimento, in Prado 1994, 10â14). The Ãvoran Franciscan Prado had spent over thirty years in Italy as magister at Bologna and the papel curia (Costa 1967); he cites Aristotle from Bruniâs ânovam translacionemâ and other books âI read in Florenceâ (f. 11v/p. 82; Martins 1960, 282, 295), yet his florid Latin is far more scholastic than Cartagenaâs.
Carré (2002, 356 & nn3â9) for example cites such very well known authors as Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum i.1 âde meo pauca vel quasi nulla apposui, sed omnia quae dicentur de libris authenticis [â¦] compilaviâ; Brunetto Latini, Trésor i.1 âne di je pas que li livres soit estraiz de mon povre sens ne de ma menue science, mais il iert aussi comme une bresche de mel coillie de diverses flors, car cest livres est compilés seulement des merveilleus diz des autours ki devant nostre tens ont traitié de philosophie.â Further examples in Guenée 1985; of special interest, in view of the workâs title, is Jean de Saint-Victorâs prologue to his early fourteenth-century Memoriale historiarum claiming to be âhujus libri compilator, non inventorâ.
There is debate as to how Aristotelian Aquinasâs Christian synthesis in Sent. Eth. really is (e.g. Jordan 1992, 1993; Owens 1993; Doig 2001, 109â193); for example, did he replace θεÏÏία âmetaphysical contemplationâ (the highest end of man, EN 1177a10â20) by mystical visio beatifica in the afterlife (Donato 2003)?
A modified précis of EN 1176a30â1177a10 ἡ εá½Î´Î±Î¹Î¼Î¿Î½á½·Î± καÏá¾½ á¼ÏεÏὴν á¼Î½á½³Ïγεια/Sent. Eth. x.10.9. In his distinction between natural and supernatural happiness Cartagena follows Aquinas, who makes the contrast with Aristotle explicit in Sent. Eth. i.9.11 âLoquitur enim in hoc libro Philosophus de felicitate qualis in hac vita potest haberi; nam felicitas alterius vitae omnem investigationem rationis excedit.â See n14, below.
For an explanation of Aristotleâs debated natural teleology, together with a general exposition and critique of the philosophical content of EN, see the fine overview and bibliography in Kraut 2014, §â¯2 and passim.
For such debates, to which a fifteenth-century reader drew attention in the margin at MV ii.Prol. (n201), see Chenu 1927; Doig 2001, 1â108; Bejczy 2008a. Aristotle mentions the idea that virtue may be âgod-givenâ (θεόÏδοÏον, θεόÏεμÏÏον), but only to dismiss it as âmatter for another kind of investigationâ (EN 1099b9â17 ÏοῦÏο μὲν á¼´ÏÏÏ á¼Î»Î»Î·Ï á¼Î½ εἴη ÏκέÏεÏÏ Î¿á¼°ÎºÎµÎ¹á½¹ÏεÏον). Aquinas, Sent. Eth. i.14.3â5 well understood the different meaning of âgodâ for ancient Greeks and Christians, but agreed the topic could be skipped (âex dono deorum, id est substantiarum separatarum quas antiqui âdeosâ vocabant. [â¦] Sed dicit hoc esse magis proprium alterius perscrutationis, scilicet metaphysicaeâ), the crux being that virtue is discibile (âostendit tolerabiliter dici quod felicitas sit ex causa humana quia, etiam si sit a Deo principaliter, tamen adhuc homo aliquid cooperaturâ).
In places Cartagena envisages a wider readership (MV i.1 60â62 âhec sufficiant [â¦] ut sciat unusquisqueâ), ending âQuicumque ergo sit ille in cujus manus hic libellus noster devenerit, solent enim scripture ante multorum occulos devenire quos scribentes non cogitabantâ (Concl. 79â81); but he directly addresses only Duarte.
In putting the Cardinal Virtues first Cartagena followed popular Christian tradition and iconology; but this too was not exempt from scholastic debate. Albertus Magnus and Aquinas argued that prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude were the more important virtues even by Arist.âs own definition; later commentators like Geraldus Odonis and Buridan stated bluntly that, whatever Arist. said, they were the only essential ones (Bejczy 2008b). Cartagena certainly used the Franciscan Geraldus (n17), widely taught in Spain despite papal condemnation of certain views (Guiral Ot 2001, 10â11, 23â25) and the source for many of MVâs most interesting divergences from Arist.; outwardly, however, he continued to side with the orthodox Dominican mastersâpredictably, given his familyâs lavish patronage of the Blackfriarsâ Burgos friary of San Pablo, which between 1451 and 1456 he would promote to the rank of estudio general (Reichert 1900, 265; Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Clero Regular perg. 189.8, 11 and Códice 57-B Libro de fundaciones ff. 282â284v).
Geraldusâs Expositio cum questionibus is often the source when Cartagena reverses Aristotleâs overt meaningâwithout saying soâto adapt the argument to his purpose (see nn95, 103â105, 112, 124â125, 130, 133â134, 199, 231, 237, 241, 255â260, 263â268, 277, 286â288, 304, 309â311, 313). Geraldus too made free use of everyday examples and quotations from the Bible, Fathers, and law; in these respects Cartagena resembles him more than Aquinas (though none of them is as entertaining as Aristotle). Now forgotten, Geraldus was highly regarded down to the sixteenth century (for his standing among humanists see Lines 1999). Several medieval Spanish copies of Expositio are extant: e.g. BNE MSS/6546 (Bks iâii & part of iii, olim friary of Santo Tomás, Ãvila: Lohr 1998, 277), Tarazona, Archivo Catedral Capitular MSS 15 and 71, Sevilla, Biblioteca Colombina 7.5.14 (Lohr 1968, 163â165; Porter 2009, 248â259, the latter with a useful overview of the workâs significance). Interesting is Salamanca, Biblioteca General Histórica de la Universidad (henceforth BUS) Ms. 1869 (olim Colegio Mayor San Bartolomé; Lilao Franca & Castrillo González 1997â2002, ii, 203), for this might have been the actual source of Cartagenaâs knowledge of the work, though it is in suspiciously pristine state. If it was, it raises the interesting question of why he never mentions Geraldusâs name, given that it begins with the prominent rubric âIncipit scriptum super librum Ethicorum fratris Geraldi Odonis ordinis Fratrum Minorum bachalarii in theologiaâ. The answer would most likely be his outward allegiance to the Dominicans (n16, above).
Cartagena cites Boccaccio by name at MV i.30 85 (n184). The colophon of his translationâs first edition stated that the work was written âen enxemplo e castigo de todos los grandes Emperadores, Reyes, Señores e Señoras que sobre la haz de la tyerra en este circular orbe dominan, cuyos señorÃos no pueden exceder de passar por tal vÃa, [â¦] sojuzgados a la mayor parte so el desordenado poder de la Fortuna e su ruedaâ (Cartagena 1495, f. 149v; with a plate of Fortuneâs wheel on the title-p.). Memorialeâs exemplary stance is just as evident, but it tellingly replaces the irrational whims of Fortune by the ordered ethical operation of virtue vs. vice.
MV i.Prol. 30â33 & n50. Excluding i.3 (only 9 lines, on the theological virtues), the chapters range from 22â97 lines; the average in Bk i is 55â¯Â·â¯6, with a mean of 59â¯Â·â¯5; and in Bk ii, 55â¯Â·â¯9 and a mean of 56â¯Â·â¯5. Aquinasâs or Geraldusâs divisio into lectiones and quaestiones, based on their perception of the contentâs technical argument and designed for professionals in the schools (see Briggs 2008, and pp. 21â22 below), are to be distinguished from this âeasyâ style of packaging for noble readers, parallels for which are adduced by Campos Souto (Cartagena 2004, 195â196 n12), e.g. Enrique de Villenaâs division of his Eneida into 366 capÃtulos, one for each day of the year, to âquitar el enojoâ for his princely addressee and other âperezososâ romançistas: âacatando que en el presente tiempo non quieren tancto estar en el leer de las istorias cuanto cumple al entender dââ¯ellas [â¦], fizo esta división, e aun los capÃtulos los más breves que pudo, porque la brevedat dââ¯ellos combide e afalague al leedor, poniendo en cada uno sentençia complidaâ. Such âmaneras atractivas e alliçitivasâ he called âútiles [â¦] a los que han talante, e aun a los que non lo han, para las leerâ (Villena 1994â2000, ii: Traducción y glosas de la Eneida Libros iâiii, 28 & glosa §â¯108, 55â57), rebuffing the excuse that noblemen did not have âtimeâ to idle away on readingâif not they, then who?â, on which see Fernández Gallardo 2012a, 33â34, and n318, below.
On these forms of exemplification see Bizzarri 2016. Cartagena usually names his extra sources (âTulliusâ three times in i.1, i.5, though he borrows from Cicero silently on at least four other occasions; Vegetiusâfrom Aquinasâi.21; âSenecaâ, i.e. Martin of Braga, ii.13; Collaciones patrum, i.e. John Cassian, i.30; Ecclesiastica hystoria, i.e. Rufinus, ii.19; Gregorius Magnus, i.7; Vincent of Beauvais, i.14; Boccaccio, i.30), but the majority are biblical (19) or legal (39). On his use of such sources see Kohut 1973 and 1977; Cartagena 1996, 60â77, 205â207; Campos Souto 1997aâb; Fernández Gallardo 1999b; Olivetto 2010. As for embellishment, we note many examples like âVenus dolosa Ciprigenaâ in i.32 n192âif these were what Cartagena meant by âpauca que [â¦] jussa abire noluerunt, que ex nominibus auctorum cognoscesâ (i.Prol. 39â40), he was being deeply artful. In another category belong unacknowledged quotations, e.g. from Geraldus (n17, above) or biblical phrases like âunaqueque provincia habundat in suo sensuâ (MV i.12 41â42 âis fully content in its own opinionâ, cf. Rom 14:5).
In Doctrinal de los caballeros (c. 1445) Cartagena would distinguish three sorts of didactic work, âdoctrinas de sabidoresâ, âejemplos de los antiguos compilados por historiadoresâ, and âordenanza de leyesâ, his being explicitlyâdespite its titleâa compilatio of the last (âlas recorrà superficialmente y ayunté de ellas algunas [â¦] en esta breve compilación, [â¦] no guardando la orden de los tÃtulos que en sus lugares tenÃan; [â¦] pues que aquà están apartadas a este fin singular, me pareció que cumplÃa tener en ello la orden particular que a la intención perteneceââi.e. three Bks divided into assorted titles and laws); but though he adds rubrics âen comienzo de cada tÃtulo [â¦] para introducciónâ, he makes clear that, like Gratian (cf. Cartagena 2004, 214 n16), âen el tenor de las leyes no mudé palabraâ, concluding: âyo no hice leyes, más compilé aquellas hechas que a este vuestro propósito me parecieron hacerâ (Pról. and Concl., in Cartagena 2006, 64, 66â67, and 398).
In a letter to Francesco Pizolpasso of 15 October 1435(?) rebutting his opponentâs criticisms, Bruni remarked of Cartagenaâs persona that he âseemed to beâ a juris professor and advised him âut juris periti in jure suo se contineant, [â¦] ne cum superficiem aliquam norint, sibi de tota re judicium arrogare pergantâ; and of his arguments, that they displayed ignorance of not just Greek but Latin: ârecte suadebam juris perito ut in suo studio versaretur; haec enim quae de Latina lingua existimat ita sunt [â¦] ut nichil videri possit absurdiusâ (Bruni 1741, ii, 81â90 Ep. vii.4, at 85, 88; Cartagena 2000, 270â272). As usual he missed the philosophical point, being concerned only with grammar (we return to his verbal critique at n43, below). On the controversy, Cartagena 2000, Seigel 1968, 123â133; Morrás 2002; Hankins 2003, 200â207; Valero Moreno 2014, 264â280; Lawrance 2018.
The apparent antinomies of law and virtue ethicsâe.g. that while virtue is defined as a disposition to act morally and hence presupposes the voluntariness of those acts (STh. I-II.6.1), law places extrinsic restraints on action for utilitarian reasons; or that while ethics by definition cannot be embodied in general principles, law seeks to codify universal rules on deontological groundsâare debated by Aristotle (e.g. EN 1179bâ1181b/Sent. Eth. x.14â17: though freely exercising virtue is the proper end of man, it is necessary to restrain those incapable of acquiring it by coercive positive laws) and by Aquinas (e.g. STh. I-II.90â108, notably 92.1: if law is given for the purpose of directing human acts, insofar as those acts conduce to virtue it can help men become good). The controversy rages on, sharpened by such evident objections as that in democracies (of which both Aristotle and Aquinas disapproved) adjudication should depend not on inordinate trust in the virtue of judges but on criteria public and accessible to all. For historical critique and current arguments see for example Slote 1995; Huppes-Cluysenaer & Coelho 2013, particularly the editorsâ introduction and Lawrence B. Solumâs essay, âVirtue Jurisprudence: Towards an Aretaic Theory of Lawâ, pp. 1â32. But Cartagena shows no interest in such debates (ânon querimus investigare omnia que pertinent ad materiam justicie, nam illud prolixissimum esset et operosius proposito, sed solum volumus scire quid sit justicia prout est virtusâ, MV i.8 27â29); he regarded the relation as unproblematic (see i.8 32â54) and followed his jurist peers in regarding ius as the âars boni et aequiâ and lawyers as the sacerdotes of vera philosophia (Dig. i.1.1; see Castilla Urbano 2012, 140â141, citing Kelley 1976, 1988).
The toponym Azoia (formerly Azóia, < Ar. â®Ø§ÙزÙاÙÙÙÙØ©â¬â al-zÄwiya âcorner, nook, recessâ, hence âshrine, small mosque, hermitage of a saint or maraboutâ) is not easy to identify; there are places so called in the districts of, among others, Sesimbra, Santarem, Sintra, Leiria, and Loures. According to João Iâs itinerary, in spring 1422 the court was mostly in Lisboa (Moreno 1988, 356); likeliest, therefore, is Santa Iria de Azoia (Loures), by the promontory on the Tagus estuary where nobleman Nuno Vasques de Castelo-Branco would later build the castle-palace of Pirescoxe (1442), 7â¯km north of Lisboa on the road to Vila Franca de Xira where the king travelled on 9â13 April. The mention of lush woods and Duarteâs knowledge of the place (âquod nostiâ) might seem rather to point to the small hill-top village of Azoia with its Ermida de Alcolgulhe above the River Lena 3â¯km south of Leiria on the road to the royal monastery of Batalha, âlugar lavado de todos os ventos, por cuja causa talvez livre de contágios e sádioâ according to Padre João Nogueira in 1758, which became part of the Casa do Infantado (estate of the second son of the king) in 1655; but there is no record of the court travelling anywhere so far north in the spring either of 1422, 1423, or 1425 (Moreno, ibid., 356, 358, 363).
Cartagena 2020 (for the date, Fernández Gallardo 2012a, 229). On the âpanorama idealizadoâ of otium as an âespacio privilegiadoâ for literary pursuits in Cartagenaâs dedications, which Campos Souto links to the âmetas y aspiraciones del humanismo italianoâ, see Cartagena 2004, 194n9 and 326â327n4 on this passage, with parallels from the Ciceronian translations and Epistola. On Cartagenaâs advocacy of arms and letters, Morrás 1993.
For a brief exposition of Norbert Eliasâs concept of Verhöflichung or âcourtizationâ (Elias 2006) in this context see Lawrance 2012, and more broadly 1990. The rise of absolutism has been treated at length by political historians, e.g. Suárez Fernández 1959; Nieto Soria 1992aâb, 1993, 1994, and with special reference to Cartagena Fernández Gallardo 1999a, 2002; Morera 2007 rebuts the simplistic older view that the process involved a straightforward class struggle between letrado ânew menâ like Cartagena and the feudal caballeros.
On these strains in Cartagenaâs thought see Tate 1970; Fernández Gallardo 1993b, 268â269, 280â285; Villa Prieto 2010; Castilla Urbano 2012. The Neo-Gothic nationalist myth is the subject of a large and still contentious literature, of which Maravall 1981; González Fernández 1986, 2004, 2008; Ladero Quesada 1993 give overviews. For a reappraisal of Castroâs thesis of the role of converso attitudes in its revival by Cartagena in the fifteenth century, not as racial (pseudo)psychology but ârestated in terms of Bhabhaâs analysis of the disjunctive temporality of the nation [â¦], unsettl[ing] the image of a seamless national continuity from past to present because they place[d] greater significance on the re-creation of the nation as ânewââ¯â, see Rosenstock 2000.
The persistence of Cartagenaâs moral attitudes emerges from Campos Souto 2000. For a broad recent study of the âconverso thesisâ regarding the rise of this emphasis on inner conscience see Giordano 2010, especially pp. 52â62; and on Cartagenaâs consequent critique of the rhetorical turn of humanism, as expressed in his Declinationes on Bruniâs approach to EN (Cartagena 2000), after the pioneering work of Di Camillo 1976, 49â66 see for example, besides the studies cited in n22 above, Morrás 1995, 1996; Fernández Gallardo 2008.
âEstes são os livros que tinha el rey dom Duarteâ, in Livro da Cartuxa or dos Conselhos, a miscellany identified as the âlivro que comsigo sempre trazia de cousas familiares e especiaesâ mentioned by his chronicler Pina (1914, 88, Cap 4) but preserved only in late copies: Lisboa, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo Ms. 1928 (s. xvi ex., olim Cartuxa de Scala CÅli, Ãvora), ff. 212vâ215v, in Dias 1982, §â¯[54], 206â208; Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal Cod. 3390 (s. xvii), f. 163, in Duarte I of Portugal 1942, 414â416; and Cod. 13179, copied by Manoel Severim de Faria, chantre of Ãvora, 1613. For an attemptâmostly incorrectâto identify the 20 books âde latymâ and 64 âde lingoajemâ see Braga 1892, 209â238; MV was certainly not one of them. However, Sousa 1739â1749, i, 544â546 (Livro iii, §â¯41 âCollecção de algumas obras delRey D. Duarte, e no fim o Catalogo das que escreveoâ 529â558) edits the rubric as âMemória dos livros do uso delRey D. Duarte, a qual está no dito livro antigo da Livraria da Cartuxa de Evoraâ, perhaps meaning his source was a different MS (the lost original?). If this were correct, it would suggest the books were only the working portion of the kingâs collection; and, as Viterbo (1901, 1) reminds us, the main royal library perished in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (henceforth BnF) ms. Portugais 5âfrom the Aragonese royal library in Naples, very possibly Leonorâs own copyâff. 3â96, at f. 53râv, Cap. 50 âEm geeral da prudencia, justiça, temperança, fortelleza, e as condiçõoes que perteecem a boo consselheiroâ (Duarte I of Portugal 2012).
Pagden 1975, 287â293, 296â305; DÃez Yáñez 2013 and 2015, esp. pp. 212â221 on Memoriale; Valero Moreno 2014. On medieval Hispanic Aristotelianism in general see Heusch 1991aâb, 1996; Escobar Chico 1994.
The details are from the prologue, preserved only in Guzmánâs own MS, Oxford, Bodleian MS Span.D.1, f. 1v; whereas Ethica dâAristotele di messere Lionardo dâArezzo âtradotta in volgare in Firenze ad petitione di messere Nugnio Gusmano spagnioloâ is now New Haven, Yale University Library MS 151 (Pagden, loc. cit.; Russell & Pagden 1974; Lawrance 1982, 84 and 1989, 17â19 & n27; Mota 1992). The âAragoneseâ original, attributed to âel egregio bacheller de la Torreâ in the colophon of some copies of the heavily revised and re-written version printed at Zaragoza (Aristotle 1488â1490, sign. p7v), survives also in Catalan (Llibre de monà stica o ètica dâAristòtil, Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya Ms. 296, ff. 1â132v; Cuenca i Almenar 2012). A further eight fifteenth-century MSS and a repr. of the incunable recension survive; the attribution to Cartagenaâplus the fatuous claim that he based it on Bruniâs Latinâfigures in Cambridge University Library MS Add. 8275, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Ms. Ott. lat. 2054, and BNE Mss/1204 (s. xviii); the remaining witnessesâEsc. K-II-13, BNE Mss/4514, Mss/6710, Mss/7076, Madrid, Universidad Complutense BH MSS 152, Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona dâAragó ms. Ripoll 161, Aristotle 1493aâare anonymous. We cite from the last, unless otherwise indicated.
Quoted from the Oxford MS, f. 69r by Cuenca i Almenar 2012, 14; the passage is replaced in the incunable versionâpresumably the Union of Crowns of Castile-Aragon (1479) and conquest of Granada made it obsoleteâby an odd invention about blood-letting at court. Cuenca suggests the example may help date the compendium and fix its authorship in València, but the story is as much pro-Castilian (anti-AndalusÄ«) as pro-Valencian; a more pertinent question seems to be, did any such law exist in València? It seems not; at all events the source was certainly some such Aristotelian work as Memoriale i.15 or Sent. Eth. v.16.9 (see §â¯4, at n41 below).
We do not assert that Duarte was illiterate in Latin, even if all the works produced under his name were Portuguese; but there is a difference between being fluent, actively and passively, as Cartagena and his clerical peers were in Latin, and the kindergarden grammar likely to be acquired by princes. For the latter, the notion of any Latin being âplainâ or âeverydayâ involved taking the terms with a pinch of salt.
De regimine principum proved the most widely read work of its kind in the Middle Ages, and there were numerous versions for lay readers (compendia, glosses, French, English, Catalan, etc.). Haro and Santillana, for example, possessed Juan GarcÃa de Castrojerizâs Castilian gloss (extant in 22 MSS and an incunable of which 59 copies are known: Fradejas Rueda, Acero Durántez, & DÃez Garretas 2003; Haroâs copy, BNE Mss/12904; Santillanaâs, BNE Mss/10223); in addition Haro had the Latin (BNE Mss/9236), and Santillana Henri de Gauchyâs French translation (BNE Res/31).
The quoted phrase is from Tulio de senetute, Pról. (Cartagena 1996, 155). In Rethórica de Tulio he justifies a free approach to translating such texts on the grounds that, âsi el ynterpetrador sigue del todo la letra, necesario es que la escriptura sea obscura e pierda grant parte del dulçorâ; so for âdoctrinas que non tienen el valor por la abtoridat de quien las dixo nin han seso moral nin mÃxtico, [â¦] non me paresce dapñoso retornar la yntençión de la escriptura en el modo del fablar que a la lengua en que se pasa convieneâ (Cartagena 1969, 30â32).
Declinationes, Cap. 5 âQui scientiarum districtissimas conclusiones eloquentiae regulis subdere vult non sapit, cum verba addere ac detrahere ad persuasionis dulcedinem pertinet, quod scientiae rigor abhorret. [â¦] Sapienti viro illud congruum judico: sub restrictis et propriissimis verbis quae scientifica sunt discutere, post vero ad elimata documenta et purificatas doctrinas persuadendo verbis eloquentibus acclamareâ (Cartagena 2000, 232); cf. De los ofiçios (Cartagena 1996, 207) on scientific works that âaunque se trasladen en la lengua vulgar, non se podrÃan por el que non aprendió entender sin maestroâ.
Cartagena 2020, 113 (Cap. 9, f. 20r) âMulti enim ex gentilibus [â¦] in moribus tamen honeste loquuntur, alii virtutes ac vicia scientifice designando, ut Plato et Aristoteles, alii ad virtutum sequellam et viciorum fugam suo clamore excitando, ut Cicero et Senecaâ; 119 (Cap. 10, f. 22r) âMilitares igitur viri persuadendi sunt quod theologicas investigationes aut philosophicas sublimitates [â¦] illis professoribus qui ingenio et exercicio valent totumque vite sue tempus [â¦] huiuscemodi laboribus dedicarunt tractandas ac investigandas dimittant, ipsi vero aliis levioribus occupenturâ; 121 (Cap. 11, f. 23r) âut filii nobilium ydioma literale quod âgrammatice locutionemâ vocamus et de dialethica et rethorica aliquid discant, quatenus subtiliores ad intelligendum cetera fiant, deinde [â¦] ad moralia documenta, saltem sub vulgari lingua et groso tradendi modo, adiscenda aliquam operam dentâ.
Juan Alfonso de Benavente, Ars et doctrina studendi et docendi, Pars I, cap. 1 §â¯16 âsicut âbaptismus est ianua omnium sacramentorumâ [Decretum D.32.6 Verum; Glossa ord. i, 211 ad loc. d-Necessarior], sic bene legere totius discipline et omnium scientiarum ianua et fundamentum existitâ (1972, 52). On this and the following paragraphs see Lawrance 1991; Fernández López 1997; Fernández Gallardo 2012a, 194â195, 2012b.
âEst ergo fortitudo ~ pericula propter bonumâ resumes Guiral Ot 1500 iv.1, f. 55va âfortitudo est medietas circa timores & audacias, omnis autem timor & omnis audacia est circa terribile, & nos timemus terribilia, ex quo habetur quod obiectum fortitudinis est terribileâ; iv.2, f. 57ra âfortitudo est habitus medius circa ausibilia & terribilia in bellicis periculis aggressivus et expectativus propter desiderium boniâ; and iv qu.1, f. 60va âQuod autem sit [habitus] electivus patet [â¦] ubi dicitur quod fortis in bello eligit bonum pro omnibus tristitiis quas sustinetâ. Besides compression, stylishness is evident in such details as substituting hispid â[habitus] in periculis aggressivus et expectativusâ by âsecundum quem homo se habet firme et intrepide circa periculaâ.
See §â¯3 at n33 above, and nn121â122 below. The example was expanded from Byzantine commentaries on EN 1137b19â24, e.g. âHeliodorus of Prusaâ (attrib., c. 1350), Paraphrasis Eth. Nic. v.16 §â¯195 διὰ ÏοῦÏο Ïῶν á½¡Ï á¼Ïὶ Ïὸ Ïλεá¿ÏÏον ÏÏ Î¼Î²Î±Î¹Î½á½¹Î½ÏÏν οἱ voμοθέÏαι ÏÏοÏάζονÏαιΠÏὸ Î³á½°Ï Î¾á½³Î½Î¿Î½ á¼Ïὶ Ïὸ Ïεá¿ÏÎ¿Ï á¼Î½Î¹á½¹Î½Ïα καÏá½° Ïὸν καιÏὸν Ïοῦ ÏÎ¿Î»á½³Î¼Î¿Ï Ïὴν Ïόλιν á½ Ïελá¿Ïαι (Heylbut 1889â1892, ii, 109); or Anonymus, Scholia in Eth. Nic. v.14:
á½ Î½á½¹Î¼Î¿Ï ÎºÎ±Î¸á½¹Î»Î¿Ï ÏᾶÏ, οἷον [â¦] Ïὸν á½ÏεÏβάνÏα Ïὸ Ïεá¿ÏÎ¿Ï Î½Ï ÎºÏá½¸Ï ÏεθνάναιΠὠμÏÏ á¼Î½Î´á½³ÏεÏαί Ïινα [â¦] á½ÏεÏβá¿Î½Î±Î¹ Ïὸ Ïεá¿ÏÎ¿Ï Î½á½»ÎºÏÏÏ [â¦] μὴ Ïá¿· νόμῳ á½ÏÎµá½»Î¸Ï Î½Î¿Ï Îµá¼¶Î½Î±Î¹Î á¼Î½ Î¿á¼·Ï á¼¡ á¼Ïιείκεια Î´Îµá½·ÎºÎ½Ï Ïι Ïὸ καÏá¾½ á¼ÏανόÏθÏÏιν δίκαιον, οἷον á½ Ïι [â¦] Ïὸν μὴ μεÏá½° ÎºÎ±Îºá½·Î±Ï á½ÏεÏβάνÏα Ïὸ Ïεá¿ÏÎ¿Ï á¼Î»Î»á¾½ á¼Î½á½±Î³ÎºÎ·Ï á¼ÏειγούÏÎ·Ï Î¼á½´ á¼ÏάγεÏθαι. (Heylbut 1889â1892, iii, 249)
Cf. also Guiral Ot 1500 v.18, f. 117ra:
Verbi gratia, lex est in quadam ciuitate quod peregrini muros ciuitatis ascendentes capite puniantur. Contingit autem quod peregrini innocenter transeuntes per illam ciuitatem audiuerunt clamorem quod hostes contra ciuitatem repente irruerunt; qui peregrini promptiores quam ciues muros ascenderunt et urbem defendentes saluauerunt. Nunc ergo queritur quid iuris, utrum mori debeant sicut lex dicit; et respondet epiekes quod non, quia contra ius naturale est reddere malum pro bono, nec legislator si presens fuisset reos esse dixisset.
On the Graecisms mentioned see nn74; 125; 169; 228; 239, 271, 278; 281, 286, 289; 292, 294. PolicÃa is first attested in corde in 1414, and à 37 before 1500; epiqueya à 13 from the 1440s (Alfonso de la Torre, Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo, Alfonso Chirino) to the 1740s (Mayans); melodÃa à 141 to 1500, from Berceo onwards, but usually in the ordinary (etymologically correct) musical sense âmelodyâ, in which Cartagena uses it too at MV i.25 7; only two or three fifteenth-century attestations have the metaphoric sense âharmonyâ, one being Cartagenaâs own ApologÃa sobre el psalmo «Júzgame, Dios» âla melodÃa y concordia de nuestros pensamientos y deseosâ (n235); cf. Vicente de Burgos, in Bartholomaeus Anglicus 1494, sign. 2a2ra (f. 116r) viii.1 âEl mundo [â¦] ha en sý [â¦] unidad & consonançia syn discordia & una suavidad & melodia, segund dize sant AgustÃn sobre el Génesisâ; Alfonso de Zamora(?), Morales de Ovidio âla melodia de la oraçión & de la confessiónâ.
Bruni 1741, ii, 81â90 Ep. vii.4 (to Francesco Pizolpasso, 15 October 1435, cited in n22, above), at 88. Whether the flagrant Graecism Ïá½±Î¿Ï âchaos, the formless abyss of the first state of the universeâ was meant as ironic self-mockery (âut ita dixerimâ) is hard to say, but Bruniâs petulant self-importance makes it unlikely. âPutat enim non Graeca modo,â he adds, âverum etiam (ut ipse appellat) âGaleticaâ quaedam et Germanica et Hispanica vocabula in Latinam orationem esse admiscendaâ, a habit abhorrent âab omnium bene litteratorum opinioneâ which he attributes to Cartagenaâs being a juris peritus. Over the page he attacks Vetus interpres on similarly frivolous grounds, objecting to its use of architectonica, bomolcos, and agricos, or putting tristitia for dolor, honestus for bonus, eligere for expetere, and per se bonum or summum bonum for bonum (p. 89).
Cartagenaâs stylistic aims in Memoriale are sketched out in Fernández Gallardo 1999a, ii, 462â470, and 2012, 42â44. DÃez Yáñez 2015, 214â216 and MartÃnez Gómez 2016, 63â73 discuss aspects of his Latinity and rhetoric in more detail. The fullest literary treatment to date is by Hernansanz 1994, 181â186, who singles out the âmayor complicación sintácticaâ and âvocabulario más rebuscadoâ of the paratexts. This inflation of style is well observed (the anteposition âtremendamente efectistaâ of adj. in prep. phrases proprio in corpore, nostra in pelle, MV i.Prol. 4â6; subordinate clauses expressed by verb participles, long periods, SOV word order; lexical items like ginagiis, dedignacione, cedulam, fuscaret, conculcata, i.Prol. 4, 12, 28, 21, Concl. 30). He also speaks of a âradical changeâ to a more sober and monotonous expository style in the text itself, though mentioning the use of anecdotes and exempla, of which he assertsâsadly, without instancesââno es raro que [â¦] nos mueva cuando menos a sonreÃrnos [â¦] por el fino sentido del humorâ.