1 CuestasCarlos A. CuestasProf. Anne StoneMedieval Lyric ClassFall 2014

The Jongleur King and His Royal Songs: Centennial Organization in the Cantigas de Santa Marias Manuscript EThe impressive collection of the Cantigas de Santa Mara (hereby CSM) collected and produced by Alfonso X of Castile and his court are a great witness to the kings devotion to the Marian cult as well as a testament of the every day life of thirteenth-century Castilian society. Modern scholarship has much speculated and discussed about the origins of the three extant manuscripts, the way these were organized by the alfonsine scriptorium, and wether or not there could be a manuscript that can be taken as the seminal one from whence all other germinated (or at least should have), or if the different offices that carried out these manuscripts rendered independent codices from one another. This paper will analyze the structural placement of five poems in one of the manuscripts on the basis of narrative, rhyme schemes, poetic genre and overall metrical analysis. These five poems are special because they correspond to illuminations of king Alfonso X as a jongleur and are organized in centennials. Looked at more closely, these seem to be interrelated on more than one level, which may have been the reasons for the clerical decisions of strategic placement and planning around them. The collection of the CSM are believed to have occurred between the years of 1257-12791 and are narratives of Marian miracles that were commonly known throughout Europe, compiled from different known sources as well as from some local accounts of these extraordinary events2. There are four extant manuscripts, two of them housed in the Escorial library: Escorial J.B.2 or Cdice Princeps or de los msicos (E) and Escorial T.I.1 or Cdice Rico (T). The main difference between these two manuscripts is that MS E has the most poems set to music (427 total) and MS T contains the most illuminations per miracle, with over 1200 miniatures with 194 cantigas set to music.3 The third MS is the Banco Rari of the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence, formerly known as II.I.213 (MS F). This MS is considered to be a continuation of MS T (the rich codex) as it contains 113 cantigas, mostly taken from the second part of MS E. Unfortunately, the staves in MS F are empty, and the miniatures are in different states of completion.4 The last MS is commonly known as To and is housed in the Biblioteca Nacional (MS 10069). It was once housed in the Cathedral library at Toledo (hence its To denomination) and it contains 100 cantigas. This MS has no illuminations and only the music of the refrain and the first strophe are written in.5 The three completed facsimile and transcription editions of the music of the CSM so far have been based on MS E for the rather obvious reason that it is the only MS that is complete6 musically, poetically and pictorially. This approach has been criticized particularly by Stephen Parkinson and other scholars7 who see MS E as not the culmination of the [CSM] enterprise but the endgame by which a complete set of cantigas is recorded to back up the unsustainable effort of T/F.8 The basis for this criticism is the apparent state of disorganization[ rephrase] in MS E given that it separates, rather randomly, narratives of miracles that are found in close proximity or in succession in MSS To and T. That MS T/F was supposed to be the exemplar deluxe9edition is not up for debate and, had it been completed, this edition would have been the most authoritative source of study today. Its incompletion, however, along with the status of poetic exercise attributed to MS To10, raises the importance of MS E in modern editorial preferences, and the intentionality with which it was compiled should not be overlooked. The many elaborate aspects of medieval scriptoria demonstrate that compilation and construction of manuscripts are not centered around one aspect, be it narrative, pictorial, or musical, but rather that it is an architectonic construct of these three interdependent and interacting aspects made into a book. Nor are any manuscripts related to one another independently from the sources of their content. Because of the stylistic consistency[ look up a better word to describe the MSS] of the CSMs manuscripts in terms of authorial and poetic style (not content) as well as their relative geographical proximity it is tempting to assume that the purpose for this effort should have a hierarchy in which the relative narrational uniformity shown in MS To should take precedence and that every other aspect needs to revolve around this purpose. Whether such hierarchy was desired by the learned king[ passive voice] and his teams of scribes and clerks is up for debate, but should not be assumed when studying this repertoire. When the three manuscripts of the CSM have been compared vis--vis, scholars have come to the conclusion that To was first and that T was based on it, giving To a high status as the germinating seed[ lame. look for something like generator or something that conveys the thing where all came from] thus making of T its resulting plant. This imposed hierarchy has left MS E in poor status, as its organizational deviations from MS To and T make seems as tough its completion was rushed and disorderly.Yet11 the most important purpose of this collection is that of recording and setting to song Marian miracles, not to have three identical, interrelated manuscripts. The question begs, should the concern be the comparison of these three manuscripts and, therefore, should academia start ignoring the importance of MS E because of its shortcomings within this comparison? Or, can MS E be considered an independent source with a unique organizational structure that not only fulfilled the task of completion but that its structure can redeem it from the scholarly suspicion with which it is looked at?A general glance at the structure of MS E reveals five important features: 1. there are two genres in the collection, cantigas de miragro (songs of miracles) and cantigas de loor (songs of praise); 2. there is a collection at the end of 12 cantigas de Festas de Santa Maria (celebrations); 3. Every tenth song is a cantiga de loor with an illumination of two or more instrumentalists;12 4. Every cantiga with the number 5 preceding it (quint) is a significantly longer cantiga; 5. Every hundred cantiga there is an illumination of one instrumentalist thought to be king Alfonso X. The systematic illuminations of the cantigas de loor suggests that this was an element that heavily influenced the structuring of the manuscript. Moreover, the illumination of each centennial cantiga suggesting the portrait of the king, himself distinguished by its royal attire and luxurious chair13 must indicate both a greater concern by the clerk to construct the manuscripts around these illuminations, and the text relationship between these praise songs and the monarchs desire to be shown in active worship to Mary and the importance of the centennial cantigas, given that the last miniature of MS E is that of CSM 400. In addition, the organizational concept of MS To (one hundred poems separated in two halves14) may have influenced the overall structure of MS E and its concept of centennial cantigas.As previously stated, the centennial cantigas have an illumination of king Alfonso X playing an instrument, which determines the organization of the content of the manuscript around it. This author will consider three aspects to determine whether or not these Royal Songs play a more prominent role in the structure of the codex: 1. An analysis of the poetic content of each cantiga individually will determine the purpose and poetic voice; 2. Once the poetic voice is determined, an analysis of the poems as a group will reveal whether there is a narrative relationship between these poems; 3. An analysis of style may suggest an authorial hand, which will explain the predetermined structure of the manuscript itself. The rubric to the first CSM15 reads De loor de Santa Maria ementando os VII goyos que ouve de seu fillo (Praise to Santa Maria Listing the Seven Joys Her Son Had). The narrator refers to himself in first person on every line of the each stanza (eu, quero, ) and assumes the role of a story teller, as, one by one, it lists the seven joys of Christ: His annunciation, birth, praise from angels and magi, appearance to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, His Assumption to heaven, the spread of His story, and His reunion with Her in heaven and Her posterior coronation and placement. This refrain-less poem has eight stanzas, the first one serving as an introduction and the other seven as the development of the narrative. Interestingly enough, the poetic I so prevalent at the beginning of each stanza develops into us, splitting the role of the narrator as observer and protagonist of the story in stanzas 1 and 8. In this way, the poem is related to its itended audience as not only a listing of goyos but how the unfolding events in the narrative have directly affected the lives of those who hear it. This devise creates a narrative arch in which the first and last stanzas first person plural voice involves the audience and the king himself in the story, placing the king on the same status as anyone elses who hears this poem. The illumination accompanying this poem is a frontispiece occupying two columns and depicts king Alfonso X at the center of it. To his right there are the musicians and to his left there are the scribes and poets diligently working to his command. The prologue of MS T has a very similar image of the king and his staff hard at work varying only in number of people and background. This similarity could be significant and would give the idea of some degree of connection between the two manuscripts, but it unfortunately bears none. As previously discussed, MSS E and T are not only not related, but they were constructed independently and serve different purposes. CSM 100 is one of the most celebrated songs of this repertoire. Its relative simplicity and contagious melody make it an accessible song for modern audiences to experience. The rubric simply states Cantiga de loor and it celebrates the power Mary has to intercede on behalf of her believers. In the first of the three stanzas the narrator is tacit and just tells the story of how sinners are saved through Marys grace. In the second stanza, just like CSM 1, the narrator uses the first person plural to include himself in the narrative and appeal to his audience. The third stanza goes through a transition of poetic voice from first person plural (Guiar ben nos) to third person singular (pera quen en e el creer quiso) to first person singular in the last two verses (que prazer m-ia . . ./ que foss a mia). The transition of the poetic voice in this song takes the audience from knowing about the deeds of someone (sinners in the first stanza), to the collective knowledge of redemption through Mary in the second stanza, to the personal and intimate assurance of divine salvation, all told with remarkable beauty and craftsmanship. CSM 200 sits in the middle of the five royal cantigas, a significant position if one takes into account its highly symmetrical structure (each stanza and the refrain have 7 syllables throughout). An analysis of the metrical structure of the poems will be presented later in the paper. Another highly significant feature is that the narrator of this cantiga is exclusively in first person both in the stanza and the refrain, distinguishing it from the previous and latter centennial cantigas. There is an interesting narrative curve in this particular song through the narrators life stages. In the first two stanzas the Virgin shows the narrator the ways in which she helps good people in general and how Mary makes him experience directly Gods kingdom, parallel to being born in faith. The next three stanzas explain how Mary helps the narrator through trials of sickness, envy, and poverty, which could be read as the cycle of growing up and maturing. Stanza 6 shows the narrator in his most mature state, as he is waging war and Mary helps him not to err, and in a show of gratitude on the next stanza the narrator declares to nobility his wish to die for Mary if need be. The narrative closes in the next two stanzas when the narrator becomes increasingly reflective on his faith and deeds and wants to clearly state for the world to see that it was She the only one I loved.16CSM 300 is the longest one of the royal songs. It has ten-verse stanzas plus a four verse refrain, customary repeated at the end of each stanza. The narrative and poetic voice of CSM 300 is very different from the preceding ones. Whereas the songs leading up to now the narrator included himself in the praises to Mary, in this poem he is summoning his audience to praise her almost in an apologetic way, defending both the Virgin and his devotion to her. In stanza 3 and 4 the narrator summarizes the ways in which Mary intercedes for people, keeping mischief away from his believers. Because of her deeds, the narrator implores directly to her not to listen to what wicked people say and to take comfort in his praising. In the next stanza the narrator changes his plea and reflects as to why other learned men are disdainful of his praising, songs, razos, and tenzos (cantares, ses, razes, tenoes) concluding that such men are the ones with false hearts. The narrators reflection changes into a complaint, as in the last stanza he concludes that in his efforts to spread the praise of Mary (seemingly in his court) he has never found such evil and falsity which could be used to kill him. The last of the royal songs makes no direct reference to the Virgin Mary, and, judging by its content, it closely resembles secular poetic composition17. The poetic voice in this poem tells the audience about the creative process of the poem and how it is composed despite the poets lack of skill and poverty when compared to others who have given praise to God. By the third verse the narrator is reassured when he concludes that some divine praise is better than none and that by this effort God will bestow onto him one hundred virtues to better praise Him. It is only in the last stanza that the narrator dedicates his humble yet God-given ability to the one in whose womb the babe was formed, thus fulfilling the expectation of Marian praise and the conclusion of his efforts. When observing the centennial cantigas as a collection a tentative narrative may be considered. The first song introduces, in a joyful way, the interceding power of Mary and her privileged standing with God in heaven, listing seven joys which could be read as seven reasons for praise that Mary has given to the world. Therefore, the subject matter of this poem and the narrative content of it could be taken as a prologue of the extended narrative, a prelude that exhorts the audience to engulf in Marian praise and trust in the maternal figure of the Virgin mother. Following the idea of a hyper-narrative, the next poem, CSM 100, is a full-fleshed praise to the Virgin Mary, glorifying her pity and will to help her believers before God to achieve salvation. In short, after the giving the good news of Marian love, the narrator praises her and exhorts the congregation to do so as well. In CSM 200, which sits at the center of the collection, the narrative becomes more intimate and shows how the narrator, thanks to Mary, is saved through turbulent life experiences such as sickness, war, and poverty, yet with the happy ending for those who believe in the figure of the Virgin. CSM 300 talks about the relationship of the narrator with others, carrying the narrative from the relationship of the narrator to the physical world to that of his social one. This long and complex poem could be seen as the anticlimax of the whole narrative, and the understanding of the authors mortality and loneliness in his endeavors. Finally, in CSM 400 the author accepts the solitary nature of his life and how his effort of ever-lasting Marian praise is, after all, a more personal intent rather than an infectious, communal one. By telling how he trusts to please God with his song and in exchange receive more skill for his craft, the narrator goes on about his business by himself, in stark contrast with the original intent of communal praise and congregation-forming marian cult.Summarizing, when the royal songs are looked together as a collection, there seems to be a narrative that binds them together and a progression from optimistic, congregational praise to ever more isolated and intimate prayer which may reflect both a narrative of the maim character getting older and the kings political an social situation at court18. The motivation behind analyzing narrative and content in the royal songs and proposing a relationship between them is to attempt explaining the clerical reasoning behind choosing those poems to occupy the centennial structural backbone of MS E. If this claim is accepted, that is of the poems being related to each other, there are other poetic aspects worth exploring to further support the argument, such as metric, genre, and possible authorship. The rhyme schemes and genres of the poems may also offer another level of interrelationship and clerical intentionality. This is most evident in the framing poems (CSM 1 and 400), where the metrics are almost identical and are the only ones of this collection not to have a refrain. Table No. 1 compares back to back both poems:CSM 1CSM 400

Stanza8 6 8 6 6 8 6 6 8 68 6 8 6 8 8 6 8 6

No. of Stanzas84

Rhyme Schemeababbabbabababccdcd

Table 1 Metric Comparison CSM 1 and 400

As it can be observed, the first four verses of each stanza identically correspond one another both in rhyme scheme and metrical structure, alternating between masculine and feminine endings. Furthermore, the number of stanzas in the latter poem is half of the former one. Even though these are not the same genre (the latter one being a Zejel19), the similarities between these poems need to be accounted for and could evidence the intention of the clerks to assign these poems the framing of the royal songs.The proposed rhyme and metric relationships between the first and last poems predetermined the comparative analysis between the following two poems, CSM 100 and CSM 300, which are the next poems from left to right and right to left. As it will be seen, there are not as strong connections between these two poems as there were with the former two, but, for the sake of the exercise, these poems will be compared:

CSM 100CSM 300

Stanza8 8 8 8 9 [4 4] 11 [4 6]7 7 7 7 3 3 7 3 3 7

Refrain9 [4 4] 11 [4 6]5 6 5 6

No. of Stanzas 36

Rhyme SchemeAA|bbbbAA|ABAB|cddcccBccB|

Table 2 Metric Comparison CSM 100 and 300

Despite there not being identical correspondences between these two poems, the first four verses of each stanza are, again, similar to one another in their type of rhyme (both feminine) and number of syllables, tough admittedly not the same. CSM 300 is an extended Zejel, picking up the rhyme of the second verse (B) of the refrain as its vuelta. CSM 100 could also be considered a variation of the Zejel given its return to the rhyme scheme of the refrain, though its structure differs greatly from the Andalusian poetic genre.The poem that sits in the middle, CSM 200, is the most symmetric one and also the most traditional Zejel of the centennial collection. Table 3 summarizes the metrical data of the poem:

CSM 200

Stanza7 7 7 7

Refrain7 7

No of Stanzas9

Rhyme SchemeAA|bbbA|

Table 3 Metrical Data CSM 200

The metrical symmetry and the relative poetic simplicity of CSM 200 may have played a major role for this poem to be sitting right in the middle of the five royal songs. Furthermore, it offers a good narrative transition both in content and poetic voice from the overtly joyful, communal praising tone into the more intimate and insular one of the next two poems. Therefore, the strategic placing of this poem has to be recognized as such in MS E.Accepting the structural, metric, and genre similarities suggested before leads one to accept that an architectural structure is revealed by visualizing the placing of the centennial cantigas, suggesting a palindrome between the the framing poems (CSM 10 and 400), the following ones to the left and right of these poems (CSM 100 CSM 300), all being balanced by the most symmetrical of all, CSM 200. These poems form a series of arches that could have been taken into account when constructing the manuscript:

CSM 1CSM 100CSM 200 CSM 300CSM 400

Among this collection of royal cantigas, the two most similar in both style and structure are undoubtedly the first and last ones. Manuel Pedro Ferreira has speculated that these two poems might come from the learned kings hand itself20. When analyzing style and comparing it to surviving secular texts known to be Alfonso Xs, particularly the incomplete text Falavan duas irmanas,estando ante sa tia. The possibility of royal authorship in these two poems may explain their privileged position of inaugural and closing royal songs. In Ferreiras own words, A proximidade entre a primeira e a ltima cantigas de loor (CSM 1 e 400) e a cantiga de mestria praticada na tradio lrica Galego-Portuguesa, significando, atravs da sua posio respectivamente inaugural e terminal, precedncia hierrquica na planificao definitiva da coleco mariana, mais um sintoma do elevado estatuto artstico da cantiga tipo trovadoresco e deve encorajar-nos a prosseguir o estudo das Cantigas de Santa Maria tendo en mente a sia proximidade musical e potica relativamente lrica profana, na suas diversas facetas21.

Recognizing the structural importance of the centennial cantigas and considering them as an independent set of poems spread out through MS E strongly suggests that there is both a structural and a narrative connection between them, and that MS E is all but disorganized. These connections probably lead the clerks and scribes to purposefully reserve these poems as the foundational structure so vital for any codex, conceptually imitating the organization of the revered To manuscript, even though the dissimilarities of MS E point towards and independent creation of this codex.

1 Connie L. Scarborough, Women in Thirteenth-Century Spain as Portrayed in Alfonso Xs Cantigas de Santa Maria (Edwin Mellen Press: Wales, 1993), 1.2 For a full discussion of sources and compilation see Stephen Parkinsons and Deirdre Jackson Collection, Composition, and Compilation in The Cantigas de Santa Maria in Portuguese Studies Vol 22, No. 2 (2006) pp. 159-172.3 Scarborough, Women in Thirteenth-Century Spain, 3.4 Ibid.5 Ibid. 6 .Higinio Angls, La msica de las Cantigas de Santa Mara del rey Alfonso el Sabio, 3 vols. (Barcelona, Biblioteca Central, 1943-64). Roberto Pla Sales, Cantigas de Santa Mara, Alfonso X el Sabio: Nueva transcripcin integral de su msica segn la mtrica latina (Madrid, Msica Didctica, 2001). Chris ELMES, Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X el Sabio: A Performing Edition, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, Gata, 2004-13). Taken from Manuel Pedro Ferreira Editing the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Notational Decisions in Revista Portuguesa de Musicologia, Nova Serie Vol. 1 No. 1 (2014) p 33.7 Parkinson and Jackson in Composition, Compilation, and Culmination.8 Ibid, p 1609 Walter Mettmann in Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X, el Sabio (1221-1284) in Commemoration of its 700th Anniversary Year 1981 (New York, November 19-21), Ed. Israel J. Katz and John E. Keller (Madison: 1987) p 35610 Ibid.11 Parkinson and Jackson, Composition, Compilation, and Culmination.12 There are some exception in which the argument is that the instrument is too big to have two people13 Rosario Alvarez Los Instrumentos Musicales en los Cdigos Alfonsinos: Su Tipologa, Su Uso y Su Origen. Algunos Problemas Iconogrficos in Revista de Musiscologa, Vol. 10 No. 1 (January-April 1987) p 95.14 Parkinson and Jackson, Composition.15 All the metric analysis and most of the texts are taken from The Oxford Cantigas de Santa Maria Database and cantigasdesantamaria.com. All translations are mine.16 CSM Oxford Site, my translation17 Manuel Pedro Ferreira As Cantigas de Loor e a Lrica Profana Galego-Portuguesa in Memria dos Afectos: Homenagem da Cultura Portuguesa a Giuseppe Tavani. Accesed through https://www.academia.edu/5169293/Afinidades_Musicais_as_cantigas_de_loor_e_a_l%C3%ADrica_profana_galego-portuguesa on 12/20/201418 For an introductory discussion of the political situation of Castile in late 13th century see Victoria Granada, Marian Devotion Through Music, Lyric, and Miracle Narratives in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Masters Thesis. Accessed through ,https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=case1365170590&disposition=inline> on December 22, 2014.19 According to Parkinson in the Oxford Cantigas de Santa Maria Database. A rich discussion on zajel and muwashsha can be found in David Wulstan The Muwashsha and Zejel Revisited in Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 102 No. 2 (Apr.-Jun., 1982), pp.247-264. . Accessed on 12/20/2014. Manuel Pedro Ferreira A Case of Cross Fertilization: The Medieval, Andalus, Islamic Music, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria in Pol-e Firuzeh: Journal of the Dialogue Among Civilization Vol. 3, No. 12 (Summer 2004) pp. 91-117. Accesed through on December 22. 201420 Manuel Pedro Ferreira As Cantigas de Loor e a Lrica Profana Galego-Portuguesa.21 The similarities between the first and last cantiga de loor (CSM 1 and 400) and the cantigas de mestria practiced in Gallego-Portuguese lyric tradition, meaning, through its inaugural and terminal positioning respectively, a hierarchical precedence in the definitive planning of the marian collection, is more a symptom of the elevated artistic stature of the troubadour style cantiga and should guide us to continue pursuing the study of the Cantigas de Santa Maria taking into account their musical and poetic proximity of secular lyric and its diverse facets. Ibid., p 117.