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Miracles in the Making of Twentieth-Century Spanishness: Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Buñuel’s Viridiana and Isidro El Labrador
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
This paper will suggest how the recounting of miracles (the first textual, the other filmic) was designed to support a particular ideology of Spanishness during the twentieth century. Both miracles here analysed were presented as having taken place during the late eleventh or early twelfth century, a key moment in the history of Spain, a point at which its Christian kingdoms began successfully to challenge the dominance of the Muslim states of Al-Andalus.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2005
References
1 Grimaldus, Vita Dominici Exiliensis, III.10, ed. Vitalino Valcárcel, La ‘Vita Dominici Silensis’ de Grimaldo. Estudio, edición crítica y traducción, Centro de Estudios ‘Gonzalo de Berceo’ 9 (Logroño, 1982), 478.
2 Ramón Menéndez Pidal, The Cid and his Spain, tr. Harold Sunderland (London, 1934), 291–2; Spanish text in idem, La España del Cid, 2 vols (1st edn, 1926; rev. edn, Madrid, 1947; repr. Madrid, 1969), I: 424–5.
3 See Anthony, Lappin, The Medieval Cult of Saint Dominic of Silos, MHRA Texts and Dissertations 56 (Leeds, 2002), 354–61 Google Scholar.
4 Discussed in Lappin, The Medieval Cult, 9. Menéndez Pidal did not think that the miracles were arranged in chronological order, yet was prepared to date this miracle on the basis of an extrapolated chronology: La España del Cid, 1: 268.
5 Grimaldus, Vita Dominici, III. 10, 11. 1–2, ed. Valcárcel, 478.
6 Peter Linehan, The Court Historiographer of Francoism? La Leyenda Oscura of Ramón Menéndez Pidal’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Glasgow) 73 (1996), 437–50; M. E. Lacarra, Xa utilización del Cid de Menéndez Pidal en la ideología militar franquista’, Ideolo gies and Literature 3 (1980), 95–127.
7 Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy, Le Cid, d’après de nouveaux documents (Leiden, 1860), 33 (cruelty), 51 (cruelty again), 107 (perfidy and cruelty), 113 (treachery), 122 (giving captive Christians to a Muslim ruler), 134 (lying), 152 (devastation of Christian lands), 202–3 (blood-lust), 210 (greed).
8 Dozy, Le Cid, 109 (my translation). He also included (p. 117) the treachery of a Navarrese knight who was involved in a fratricidal attempt to assassinate the emir of Saragossa; the attempt failed, and the emir had the knight decapitated.
9 Dozy’s musings upon Philip II’s pious hope to have the Cid sainted are a good example of his abrasive style: ‘but it is quite remarkable that it was the dour and standoffish Philip II who asked for the Cid to be placed on the list of saints; the Cid who was more Muslim than Catholic, who, even in his tomb, wore Arab dress; the Cid whom Philip would have had burnt as a heretic, and as a blasphemer by his Inquisitors, had he lived under his reign; the Cid whom the nation had idolized because it looked on him as the champion of liberty, of that liberty that Philip knew well how to stifle in Spain’, Le Cid, 253 (my translation). Dozy’s views were adopted by Anglo-American scholarship: see, for example, H. E. W., ‘El Cid’, in Encyclopedia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, 29 vols (nth edn, Cambridge, 1910–11), at http://52.19nencyclopedia.0rg/C/CI/CID.htm (consulted on 23 January 2004).
10 Joaquin Costa, ‘El programa político del Cid Campeador’ and ‘El Cid en Santa Gadea’, in idem, Oligarquía y caciquismo, Colectivismo agrario, y otros escritos (antología), ed. Rafael Pérez de la Dehesa, Libros del Bolsillo 51 (Madrid, 1969), 172–4, 174–9, esP-172–3, 179.
11 Alonso, Julio Puyol y, ‘El Cid de Dozy’, Revue hispanique 23 (1910), 1–53, 2–3 Google Scholar (my translation).
12 Barton, Simon, A History of Spain (London, 2004), 207 Google Scholar; Balfour, Sebastian, Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War (Oxford, 2002), 52–120 Google Scholar.
13 Boyd, Carolyn P., Praetorian Politics in Liberal Spain (Chapel Hill, NC, 1979), 183–208 Google Scholar.
14 Schultenover, David G. SJ, ‘Luis Martín García, the Jesuit General of the Modernist Crisis (1892–1906): on Historical Criticism’, The Catholic Historical Review 89 (2003), 434–63, 444–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 See above, n. 4.
16 Dozy, Le Cid, 2, 85.
17 Cantar de Mio Cid. Texto, gramática y vocabulario, ed. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, 3 vols (Madrid, 1910–11), 1: 19–28, 32–3, 73–6; Obras completas de R. Menéndez Pidal, III. Cantar de Mio Cid. Texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols (2nd edn, Madrid, 1944–46), 1167–70; he later suggested that two authors (one of c.1110, one of c.1140) were responsible: Ramón Menéndez Pidal, En torno al ‘Poema del Cid’ (Barcelona, 1963), 117–64. The early dating has been all but abandoned in recent years in favour of a date c. 1200: see, for example, Juan Carlos Bayo, ‘La datación del Cantar de Mio Cid y el problema de su tradición manuscrita’, in Alan Deyermond, David G. Pattison and Eric Southworth, eds, Mio Cid Studies: ‘Some Problems of Diplomatic’ Fifty Years on, Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar 42 (London, 2002), 15–35; Cantar de Mio Cid, ed. Alberto Montaner, Biblioteca Clásica 1 (Barcelona, 1993), 8.
18 Dozy, Le Cid, 2; Richard, Fletcher, The Quest for the Cid (London, 1989), 202 Google Scholar.
19 Ramón Menéndez Pidal, El Cid Campeador, Collección Austral 1000 [sic] (Madrid, 1950), 14 (my translation); there is, perhaps, an allusion in Pidal’s use of a word I have translated as ‘lurid’, rojizo (i.e., reddish), to the secondary, Cold-War meaning of rojo, namely radical or revolutionary [Real Academia Española, Diccionario manual e ilustrado de la lengua española (Madrid, 1950), 1343], and which suggests a political slant to the criticism of the unnamed Dozy for his reliance upon infidel historians.
20 Viridiana. Dir. Luis Buñuel. Producciones Alatriste (Mexico), Films 59 (Spain), UNINCI SA. (Spain). 1961. Bunuel: 100 Years. It’s Dangerous to Look Inside/Buñuel: 100 años. Es peligroso asomarse al interior (New York, 2001; 1st publ, (with French translation) Madrid, 2000), 102. A translation of the script is available in Luis Buñuel, Viridiana, ed. Inga Karetnikova, trans. Piergiuseppe Bozzetti, Script and Director (Portsmouth, NH, 1996). The French film was Une aussi longue absence. Dir. Henri Colpi. Procinex-Lyre, Galatea (France/Italy). 1961.
21 John Baxter, Buñuel (London, 1994), 254–5. Now, however, the DVD of the film is being distributed in Italy by Multimedia San Paolo (the Catholic religious order most concerned with evangelization through the media) in the series ‘L’occhio della libertà’: DV 16, 236647DS.
22 Baxter, Buñuel, 3,255.
23 Baxter, Buñuel, 255.
24 Ibid.
25 Isidro el labrador. Dir. Rafael J. Salvia. Cifesa (Spain). 1963.
26 The original thirteenth-century life is by one Ioannes Diaconus (perhaps the Franciscan, Juan Gil de Zamora), Vita hidori agricole (BHL 4494), ActaSS, 3 May, 514–16, or F. Fita, ‘Leyenda de San Isidro por Juan Diácono’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Historia 9 (1886), 97–157; further discussion in Javier Pérez-Embid Wamba, Hagiologia y sociedad en la España medieval: Castilla y León (siglos XI-XIIl) (Huelva, 2002), 331–7. Lope de Vega consecrated one epic poem [San Isidro Labrador (1599)] and three plays [San Isidro Labrador de Madrid (published 1617), La niñez de San Isidro, La juventud de San Isidro (both 1622, to celebrate his canonization)]; Lope also presided over a poetic contest in the saint’s honour [published as the Justa poética en honor de San Isidro (1620)] and published Fiestas en la canonización de San Isidro (1622). Philip III had sought Isidro’s beatification after being cured by his intercession; this was decreed by Paul IV on 24 June 1619; Gregory XV canonized him on 13 May 1622. The saint’s relics were translated during the second half of the eighteenth century from the church of San Andrés to the Colegiata de San Isidro in Madrid, where they still remain.
27 Marsha Kinder, Blood Cinema: the Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain (Berkeley, CA, 1993), 31, 35, 332.
28 Buñuel: 100, 102.
29 Raymond, Carr, Modern Spain, 1875–1980 (Oxford, 1980), 164 Google Scholar.
30 Rafael María López Malús, Vida de San Isidro Labrador (Seville, 1998), 13. Another variant is that Isidro is accused before his master of working less than others, because of his frequent attendance at Mass, but then his parcel of land produces more grain than anyone else’s; see, for example, ‘San Isidro labrador’, ETWN: Red Global Católica, at http://www.ewtn.com/spanish/Saints/Isidro_labrador5_15.htm (consulted 7 December 2004).
31 Maria’s relics were not venerated until the late sixteenth century; she was canonized by Benedict XIV in 1752 (Manuel González López-Corps, ‘Santa María de la Cabeza Viuda, 9 Septiembre’, http://www.congregacionsanisidro.org/santa.htm, consulted on 7 December 2004).
32 A reproduction is provided at ‘Bibliografía: San Isidro de Madrid‘, by the Congregación de San Isidro de Madrid: http://www.geocities.com/congregacionsanisidro/libro.htm (consulted on 7 December 2004).
33 Two filmic hagiographies were released in Spain during the same year as Viridiana: Teresa de Ávila [Dir. Juan de Orduña. Agrupa Films Cooperativa Cinematográfica (Spain). 1961] and Rosa de Lima [Dir. José María Elorrieta. Esp. Coop. Cinemat. Unión (Spain). 1961] – the latter starring (as Rosa herself) Maria Mahor, who also played as the saint’s wife in Isidro el labrador. Rosa de Lima had an unavoidable emphasis upon self-mortification, and its production was spurred by the resounding success of Fray Escoba [Dir. Ramón Turrado. Copercines (Spain). 1961. See Rafael Escoba, ‘España y América: 500 años a través del cine’, Film Historia 2 (1992), 181–219]. Knowledge that Rosa was underway may perhaps have been important in the direction that Buñuel took with Viridiana, particularly as Rosa has a much more conscious struggle to resist the sexual attractions of an aged roué.
34 Buñuel’s own words, cited by Agustín Sánchez Vidal, Luis Buñuel: obra cinematográfica (Madrid, 1984), 249 (my translation).
35 Gravdal, Kathryn, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law, New Cultural Studies 4 (Philadelphia, PA, 1991), 24 Google Scholar.
36 On the Freudian model of female sexuality, see John Forrester, ‘Rape, Seduction and Psychoanalysis’, in Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter, eds, Rape: an Historical and Social Enquiry (Oxford, 1986), 57–83; John M. Macdonald, Rape: Offenders and their Victims (Springfield, IL, 1971), 91–2.