Order and Chivalry. Jesus D. Rodriguez-Velasco

a language game—the linguistic and logical context where a particular semantics makes sense and is performed by the instances before whom an utterance has been produced. We can, therefore, keep in mind that the ceremony—the ideation and development of the apparatus—is in essence a semiotic investigation of the constituents that order themselves for its functioning. In this sense, the Song of Rodrigo constitutes an unusual epic text in which theories and forms of political independence are articulated according to legal documents whose vigor is either recent or soon to be enforced.³⁵

      Within Alfonso XI’s literary circle, and in his knighting ceremony, the value of ritual is called into question, or at least submitted to very different theses. We find the most salient example in the Libro del cavallero Zifar.

      The Libro del cavallero Zifar is a prose narrative first redacted sometime around 1330.³⁶ It narrates Zifar’s recovery of the monarchic state from which he descends. This loss and recovery mirrors the loss and recovery of his own family—his wife, Grima, and his two sons, Garfín and Roboán.³⁷ Once he has accomplished this recovery, through anagnorisis, the narrative focuses on the moral education that he provides his two sons, achieving a connection between the chivalric and pedagogical fable, the two genres that together form the theoretical structure for chivalry in the Zifar. The book also narrates the double knighting of Roboán, which poses political questions meriting further examination.

      Roboán’s first knighting takes place as the result of the acknowledgment between Zifar (now recognized as the “Knight of God”) and his two sons. The ceremony is not explicitly described: “el rey los resçibio por sus vasallos, e fizolos caualleros con muy grandes alegrias segund el uso de la tierra” [“the king received them as his vassals, and he very happily made them knights according to the usages of the land”] (BNF Esp. MS 36, f. 72v). One of the manuscripts of this work, which may be dated near 1468 and currently found in the French national library (BNF Esp. MS 36), has close to three hundred miniatures in addition to the text. One of them, located on folio 72v, provides a graphic representation of the knighting ceremony, but the image does not correspond to any textual description of knightly investiture in Castilian. In this image, Roboán and Garfín are kneeling before their father, while he taps their shoulders with the tip of his sword. It is likely that the miniaturists—who were not part of any Peninsular workshop—did not have access to any textual version of the ceremony and depicted a popular image from their country of origin (likely somewhere in central Europe).

      It is in the second knighting ceremony, when the emperor of Trygrida (also known as the “Emperor Who Does Not Smile”) knights Roboán, that the latter offers an explanation of the ritual by which his father has transformed him into a knight:

      Preguntole el enperador de commo le fezieron cauallero, e el dixo que touo vigilia en la eglesia de Santa Maria vna noche en pie, que nunca se asentara, e otro dia en la mañana, que fuera y el rey a oyr misa, e la misa dicha que llegara el rey al altar e quel diera vna pescoçada, e quel çiño el espada, e que gela desçiño su hermano mayor.

      [The emperor asked him how he had been knighted, and he said that he held a vigil in the Church of Saint Mary for an entire night on his feet and never sat down, and the following day, in the morning, the king went there to hear mass. Once mass was over, the king went to the altar and gave him a blow to the neck and girded his sword, and then his older brother ungirded it.] (Wagner, El libro del cauallero Zifar, 440)

      Except for certain changes in order, this knighting ceremony is based on the section of the Partidas 1 have mentioned above. For the emperor of Trygrida, who doubts whether it is opportune to knight Roboán a second time, the description of the ceremony definitively convinces him to do so: “Agora vos digo, dixo el enperador, que puede resçebir otra caualleria de mi, ca grant departimiento ha de la costunbre de su tierra a la nuestra” [“‘Now I say to you,’ said the emperor, ‘that he can be knighted again by me, as there is a great difference between the customs of his land and ours’”] (Wagner, El libro del cauallero Zifar, 440).

      The difference in ceremonial forms is not the only argument that the emperor employs to justify a new investiture. It is, however, the ultimate argument, summing up all others. The argument that the emperor submits appears precisely as he first manifests his desire to make Roboán a knight and his doubts regarding a second knighting ceremony. It is this argument that allows us to investigate the issue of the definition of relations and conflicts of power among which chivalry is given birth:

      “Señor,” dixo el infante, “¿que es lo que pierde el cauallero sy de otro mayor cauallero puede resçebir otra caualleria?” “Yo vos lo dire,” dixo el enperador, “que non puede ser, por el vno contra el otro, quel non estudiese mal, pues caualleria auia resçebido del.” “¿E non vedes vos, dixo el infante, que nunca yo he ser contra el rey mi padre, nin contra vos por el, ca el non me lo mandarie nin me lo consejaria que yo fallesçiese en lo que fazer deuiese?” “Bien lo creo,” dixo el enperador, “mas ay otra cosa mas graue a que ternian los omes oio: que pues dos cauallerias auia resçebido, que feziese por dos caualleros.” “E çertas,” dixo el infante, “bien se puede fazer esto, con la merçed de Dios, ca queriendo ome tomar a Dios por su conpañero en los sus fechos, fazer puede por dos caualleros, e mas, con la su ayuda.”

      [“Sir,” said the prince, “what does a knight lose in being knighted again by some greater knight?” “I will tell you,” replied the emperor, “that it cannot be done by one knight to oppose the other, he cannot act against one of his knighters on behalf of the other one and be without blame, since he had been knighted by him.” “And do you not see,” said the prince, “that I will never oppose my father, nor will I act against you on his behalf, because he would not order me, nor would he advise me to fail to do what I am obligated to do?” “I believe so,” said the emperor, “but there is a more serious matter that we should be aware of: if a man is knighted twice, he should act as two knights.” “Clearly,” replied the prince, “this can be done, with the mercy of God, because if a man wishes to take God as his companion in his actions he can do deeds as two knights, and even more, with His help.” “You should receive knighthood from your father and no other man.”] (Wagner, El libro del cauallero Zifar, 439)

      Roboán’s answer is an affirmation of the loyalty he owes his father and natural lord. It is also a confirmation of the hierarchies to which the principles of natura and naturaleza are bound, as defined by Alfonso X in Partidas 4.24. The subjective and objective loyalties of the chivalric individual (father, lord, God) are above the solemnities of admission into knighthood. While the first are necessary, the investiture is totally contingent and can even be reduplicated. Family bonds, as interpreted by the individual, cannot be similarly modified.

      The ceremony imposes a formal difference but does not amend the political contracts previously established by natural relations. The ceremony indicates a manifestation of affect, amor: the joy of the father upon recovering his sons and that of the Emperor Who Does Not Smile at finding Roboán—affect that is also political yet precedes the ceremony and could exist in its absence.

      The political thesis posited in the dialogue between the emperor and Roboán concerns two different spheres of medieval power relations. It is the dialectic of natural bonds taking shape in the concrete space between familial and political bonds. We find several specific examples of this dialectic in the political events of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Castile, such as the rebellion of Sancho IV against his father, Alfonso X, which resulted in the latter’s loss of the throne. The knighting ceremony plays a crucial role in this case, since Sancho refuses to be knighted by his brother Fernando, as King Alfonso had ordered. Jaume I, the king of Aragon, advised Sancho to be knighted by none other than his father (“que predades cavalleria de vostre padre e no d’otro homne”), but the king does not knight Sancho.³⁸ A similar case of political and familial conflict dealing with chivalric investiture is that of the “denaturation” of Don Juan Manuel regarding Alfonso XI.

      In light of these events and their concrete reality, the Zifar proposes a different dialogue, issuing from what might be described as au-dessus du réalisme (in Lévinas terms). The dialogue between