Enemies in the Plaza. Thomas Devaney

      

      Enemies in the Plaza

      THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES

      Ruth Mazo Karras, Series Editor

      Edward Peters, Founding Editor

      A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

      Enemies in the Plaza

      Urban Spectacle and the End of Spanish Frontier Culture, 1460–1492

      Thomas Devaney

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2015 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4713-8

       For Elizabeth, Ella, Julia, and Eoin

      CONTENTS

       List of Abbreviations

       Introduction

       PART I

       1. The Anatomy of a Spectacle: Sponsors, Critics, and Onlookers

       2. The Meanings of Civic Space

       PART II

       3. Knights, Magi, and Muslims: Miguel Lucas de Iranzo and the People of Jaén

       4. A “Chance Act”: Córdoba in 1473

       5. Murcia and the Body of Christ Triumphant

       Conclusion

       Notes

       Glossary of Spanish Terms

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      ABBREVIATIONS

AC	Libros de Actas Capitulares
ACC	Archivo de la Catedral de Córdoba
ACM	Archivo Catedralicio de Murcia
AMC	Archivo Municipal de Córdoba
AMJ	Archivo Municipal de Jaén
AMM	Archivo Municipal de Murcia
APC	Archivo Histoórico Provincial de Córdoba
BAE	Biblioteca de Autores Españoles
BIEG	Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Giennenses
CCE	Colección de Crónicas Españolas
CHE	Cuadernos de historia de España
CR	Cartas reales
CSM	Alfonso X el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa María, ed. Walter Mettmann, 3 vols.
HID	Historia. Instituciones. Documentos.
MCV	Mélanges de la Casa de Velásquez
MHJ	Medieval History Journal
MMM	Miscelánea medieval murciana
Partidas	Las Siete Partidas, ed. Robert I. Burns, trans. Samuel Parsons
	Scott, 5 vols.
PCG	Primera crónica general de España, ed. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, 2 vols.

      FIGURE 1. Sword of Fernando III. Courtesy of the Excmo. Cabildo de la Catedral de Sevilla.

      Introduction

      Magical swords can be useful things. While preparing an invasion of Muslim-ruled Granada in 1407, the Castilian prince and regent Fernando “de Antequera” made his headquarters in the city of Seville. During his stay, he visited the cathedral of Santa María la Mayor and gazed on the funeral effigy of King Fernando III, a hero of the “reconquest” who had captured the city as well as much of the rest of Castilian Andalucía from the Muslims in the thirteenth century. A fourteenth-century description of this effigy noted that “in the right hand is a sword, said to be of great virtue, with which [Fernando III] conquered Seville…. And whoever desires protection from evil, let him place a kiss on the sword and he will be sheltered thereafter.”¹ It was perhaps with this in mind that the later Fernando took the sword from the effigy’s hand in a solemn ceremony viewed by many of his retainers.