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Structural Confusion in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Navigating Unstable Narratives in the Miracles of Castrojeriz
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2024
Abstract
This article addresses links between musical-poetic structure and architecture in four songs of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Made at Alfonso X of Castile’s court in the latter years of his reign (1252–84), the Cantigas present a unique case of miracle narratives (cantigas de miragre) set to song. As Parkinson has shown, the four songs in the Castrojeriz set present technical faults that hinder effective comprehension of their miracle texts. This article shows that the songs’ cyclical structures can aid textual logic by aligning narrative highlights with points of sonic focus in the poetry and music. Tension between textual and musical-poetic form often mirrors the songs’ narratives, which concern difficulties during the construction of Castrojeriz’s church. This article argues that such tensions can be read as a text-as-building metaphor, also alluded to in the songs as they appear in surviving manuscripts.
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Footnotes
Many thanks are due to the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen (FWO), the Clarendon Fund, and Merton College, Oxford for funding me while writing this article. Earlier versions of this article appear in my doctoral dissertation: Henry T. Drummond, ‘Accommodating Poetic, Linear Narratives with Cyclical, Repetition-Based Musical-Poetic Structures in the Cantigas de Santa Maria’, 2 vols (DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 2018), i, 120–51. The following conference papers also contained material related to the present article: ‘Wonder in the Miracles of Castrojeriz’, Wonder: Aspects and Approaches, Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, St Edmund Hall (8 April 2016); ‘Sounding Wonder in the Miracle of Castrojeriz’, 44th Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference, University of Sheffield (6 July 2016).
The music, text, and translations are my own. Textual editions are based upon Walter Mettmann, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Acta Universitatis Conimbrigensis, 4 vols (Universidade de Coimbra, 1959–72), ii, 358–59, 375–76, and iii, 5–6, 41–42. Translations are adapted from Stephen Parkinson, Alfonso X, the Learned. Cantigas de Santa Maria: An Anthology, MHRA Critical Texts, 40 (MHRA, 2015, 249–50); and Kathleen Kulp-Hill, Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X, the Wise: A Translation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 173 (ACMRS, 2000), 293, 302, 306, 323. Musical editions are based upon Higinio Anglés, La música de las Cantigas de Santa María del rey Alfonso el Sabio. Facsímil, transcripción y estudio crítico, 3 vols (Diputación Provincial, Biblioteca Central, 1943–64), iii, 3, 267, 276, 280, 297; and Manuel Pedro Ferreira, The Notation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Diplomatic Edition, 3 vols (CESEM, 2017), iii, 265, 272, 276, 290. The following manuscript sigla are used in this article:
To Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 10069
T Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS T.I.1
F Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, MS B.R.20
E Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS J.B.2.
References
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4 On the intellectual context that generated Alfonsine literature, including the Cantigas, see Drummond, Henry T., The Cantigas de Santa Maria: Power and Persuasion at the Alfonsine Court, New Cultural History of Music (Oxford University Press, 2024)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chs. 1–2; Kirstin Kennedy, Alfonso X of Castile- León: Royal Patronage, Self-Promotion and Manuscripts in Thirteenth-Century Spain (Amsterdam University Press, 2019), chs. 1–3.
5 While features of the original Castrojeriz church survive, the original stone vaults intended for the collegiate church were either never erected or collapsed; those now present in the structure date from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. Note also the significance of local shrines within the Cantigas, of which the Castrojeriz set are but one instance. See Parkinson, Stephen, ‘Two for the Price of One: On the Castroxeriz Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, in Ondos do mar de Vigo. Actas do Simposio Internacional sobre a Lírica Medieval Galego-Portuguesa , ed. Flitter, Derek W. and de Baubeta, Patricia Odber (Seminario de Estudios Galegos, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Birmingham, 1998), 72–88 Google Scholar (pp. 72–73, fn. 14–20).
6 The narrator alludes to other miracles in ‘Tan gran poder a ssa Madre’ (‘En Castroxeriz foi est | de que vos quero contar, | que por fazer a ygreja, | de que vos fui ja falar,’ 2.1–2). Here the use of ‘ja’ suggests an implied common knowledge of the set as a group defined by a common theme of structural problems.
7 The Castrojeriz set appear in codices F and E. For CSM 242: F 68 (fols. 87v–88r) and E 242 (fols. 220v–221r); and CSM 249: F 69 (fols. 88v–89r) and E 249 (fols. 226v–227r).
8 F 63 (fols. 81v–82r) and E 252 (fols. 229r–v).
9 F 65f (fol. 84r) and E 266 (fols. 239r–240r).
10 Parkinson, ‘Two for the Price of One’, 76–80.
11 Parkinson, Stephen, ‘The Miracles Came in Two by Two: Paired Narratives in the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, in Gaude virgo gloriosa: Marian Miracle Literature in the Iberian Peninsula and France in the Middle Ages, ed. Conde, Juan Carlos and Gatland, Emma, Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 69 (Queen Mary, University of London, 2011), 65–85 (pp. 73–74)Google Scholar.
12 On this complex series of stages, see Parkinson, Stephen and Jackson, Deirdre, ‘Collection, Composition, and Compilation in the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, Portuguese Studies, 22.2 (2006), 159–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 On the collaborative nature of the Cantigas compilation, see Manuel Pedro Ferreira, ‘Alfonso X, compositor’, Alcanate, 5 (2006–07), 117–37; Stephen Parkinson, ‘Alfonso X, Miracle Collector’, in Alfonso X, las Cantigas de Santa María. Códice Rico, MS T-I-1, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, ed. Laura Fernández Fernández and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, 2 vols (Patrimonio Nacional, Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2011), ii, 79–105; Parkinson and Jackson, ‘Collection, Composition, and Compilation’, 160–61.
14 See Walter R. M. Lamb, Plato: Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias, Loeb Classical Library, 166 (Harvard University Press, 1925), 454–57; and Stephen Usher, Dionysius of Harlicarnassus: The Critical Essays, 2 vols, Loeb Classical Library, 466 (Harvard University Press, 1985), ii, 22–25; cited in Cowling, David, Building the Text: Architecture as Metaphor in Late Medieval and Early Modern France, Oxford Languages and Literature Monographs (Oxford University Press, 1998), 140–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 See Frank Granger, Vitruvius: On Architecture, 2 vols, Loeb Classical Library, 251 (Harvard University Press, 1931–34), i, 24–25; cited in Cowling, Building the Text, 17–8.
16 See Donald A. Russell, Quintilian: The Orator’s Education, 5 vols, Loeb Classical Library, 126–27 (Cambridge, 2001), iii, 150–1 and 462–3, iv, 74–75; cited in Cowling, Building the Text, 141.
17 See Spence, Sarah, Figuratively Speaking: Rhetoric and Culture from Quintilian to the Twin Towers (Bloomsbury, 2007), 19–96 Google Scholar; and Paul Crossley, ‘Ductus and Memoria: Chartres Cathedral and the Workings of Rhetoric’, in Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary J. Carruthers (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 214–49.
18 See Mary J. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 14–21; and Friedrich Ohly, ‘Haus III (Metapher)’, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum: Sachwörterbuch zur Auseinandersetzung des Christentums mit der antiken Welt, ed. Theodor Klauser and others (Anton Hiersemann, 1986), 954–71.
19 Psalm 118. 22, quoted by Jesus and reported in Matthew 21. 42, Mark 21. 10, Luke 20. 17, and i Peter 2. 7. Note also the large number of New Testament passages that draw links between architecture and words/text: for Matthew 7. 24–27, Luke 6. 46–49, and i Corinthians 14. 26. Likewise, those that draw links between the strength of a building and the faith of the assembly of believers, such as i Peter 2. 7, and Colossians 2. 7.
20 See Carruthers, Mary J., ‘The Concept of Ductus, or, Journeying through a Work of Art’, in Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary J. Carruthers, (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 190–213 (pp. 197–98)Google Scholar.
21 See Nancy van Deusen, Theology and Music at the Early University: The Case of Robert Grosseteste and Anonymous IV, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 57 (Brill, 1994), 37–53.
22 Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia latina, 217 vols (Garnier, 1844–91), cxii, 849–50; cited in Cowling, Building the Text, 143. Additional architectural references are noted in Maurus’s Bible commentaries. See Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, 3 vols (T&T Clark, 2000), ii, 48, 109, 267, 334.
23 Leach, Elizabeth Eva, ‘Nature’s Forge and Mechanical Production: Writing, Reading and Performing Song’, in Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Carruthers, Mary J. (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 72–95 (p. 73)Google Scholar.
24 Paul Binski, ‘“Working by Words Alone”: The Architect, Scholasticism and Rhetoric in Thirteenth-Century France’, in Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary J. Carruthers (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 14–51 (p. 36).
25 Edmond Faral, Les arts poétiques du XIIe et XIIIe siècle (É Champion, 1924), 199; see translation in Margaret F. Nims, Geoffrey of Vinsauf: Poetria Nova (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010), 20; cited in Carruthers, ‘The Concept of Ductus’, 190.
26 Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 19–21. See, for instance, Hugh of St Victor, who in a text-as-building metaphor notes that once students of scripture have completed their reading, ‘the foundations of the story have been laid in you’ (p. 20).
27 With reference to Hugh of St Victor, see Karlfried Froehlich, Sensing the Scriptures: Aminadab’s Chariot and the Predicament of Biblical Interpretation (Eerdmans Publishing, 2014), 56–59.
28 Ibid., 38, 94–95.
29 It is generally assumed that the performers and listeners of the Cantigas were those at the Alfonsine court, who were educated to a significant degree in the liberal arts; however, for all their lavish display, the Cantigas’ reception was probably limited. See Manuel Pedro Ferreira, ‘The Medieval Fate of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Iberian Politics Meets Song’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 69.2 (2016), 295–353 (pp. 301–16); Drummond, The Cantigas de Santa Maria, preface.
30 See, for instance, Teresa Jiménez Calvente, ‘El prefacio del Breve compendium artis rethorice de Martín de Córdoba. Edición, traducción y estudio’, Revista de poética medieval, 2 (1998), 227–42 (pp. 229–34).
31 The role of architecture in the Cantigas is profound, making the relevance of such a metaphor apparent to its readers. See Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, ‘Tres ensayos sobre el arte en las Cantigas de Santa María de Alfonso el Sabio’, El Museo de Pontevedra, 33 (1979), 265–94; José Guerrero Lovillo, ‘Las miniaturas. Estudio técnico, artístico y arqueológico’, in El Códice Rico de las Cantigas de Alfonso X, el Sabio. MS T.I.1 de la Biblioteca de El Escorial, ed. Matilde López Serrano and others, Serie B: Códices artísticos, ediciones facsímiles, 2, 2 vols (Edilan, 1979), ii, 269–320; Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, ‘Pintura monumental en tiempos del Códice rico de las Cantigas de Santa María’, in Alfonso X, las Cantigas de Santa María. Códice Rico, MS T-I-1, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, ed. Laura Fernández Fernández and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, 2 vols (Patrimonio Nacional, Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2011), ii, 377–443.
32 Parkinson, ‘Miracle Collector’, 88–93. On the extensive work surrounding older miracle collections, see Bayo, Juan Carlos, ‘Las colecciones universales de milagros de la Virgen hasta Gonzalo de Berceo’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 81/7–8 (2004), 849–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record, and Event 1000–1215, The Middle Ages Series (Scolar Press, 1982), 33–165.
33 Conquered from Aragon by Alfonso VII of Castile-León (1155–1214), the town was assimilated under Castilian rule in 1131. Nuestra Señora del Manzano, formerly part of a Benedictine monastery, was transferred to Burgos Cathedral by Alfonso VII and secularized under his grandson Alfonso VIII of Castile.
34 Berengaria’s marriage to Alfonso’s grandfather, Alfonso IX of León (c. 1171–1230), reunited the crowns of Castile and León after decades of political struggles. It was partly due to Berengaria’s political manoeuvring that her son Ferdinand III (c. 1199–1252) was able to inherit the Castilian throne outright through his maternal line. Following her husband’s death, Ferdinand inherited Castile and León, passing on a united realm to Alfonso. Referring within the Cantigas to a church whose construction she ordered may have served as an implicit reminder of her role in a united Castile. See Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography, The Medieval Mediterranean, 16 (Brill, 1998), 42–43; H. Salvador Martinez, Alfonso X, the Learned: A Biography (Brill, 2010), 20–33.
35 Parkinson, ‘Two for the Price of One’, 72–73.
36 For a useful summary of existing debate surrounding Alfonso X’s level of involvement in the composition of his works, see Kennedy, Alfonso X of Castile-León, introduction; on general issues that challenge medieval aspects of authorship, see Alastair Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), ch. 3.
37 On the need to understand local manifestations of general trends in lyric song, see Aubrey, Elizabeth, ‘Vernacular Song I: Lyric’, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Music, ed. Everist, Mark and Kelly, Thomas Forest, 2 vols (Cambridge University Press, 2018), i, 382–427 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
38 Parkinson, ‘Two for the Price of One’, 73–82.
39 Ibid., 82–85. Parkinson argues that T and F’s folio layout requirements of eighty-eight lines called for seven-strophe songs. Such dimensions would allow each song to start at the top of a new folio.
40 On further use of the exordium in vernacular song, see Roger Dragonetti, Le technique poétique des trouvères dans la chanson courtoise: contribution à l’étude de la rhétorique médiévale (De Tempel, 1960), 140–41; Jennifer Saltzstein, The Refrain and the Rise of the Vernacular in Medieval French Music and Poetry, Gallica, 30 (D. S. Brewer, 2013), 53, 64–67, 105. On its use within the Cantigas, see Francisco, Elvira Fidalgo, ‘El exordio en Las Cantigas de Santa María ’, Cantigueiros, 5 (1993), 24–25 Google Scholar; and Elvira Fidalgo Francisco, ‘Aproximación a un análisis del esquema estructural de Las Cantigas de Santa María (con relación a sus fuentes)’, in Literatura medieval: actas do IV Congresso da Associação Hispánica de Literatura Medieval, ed. Aires A. Nascimento and Cristina Almeida Ribeiro (Edições Cosmos, 1993), 325–32 (pp. 327–30).
41 Parkinson argues that strophe two’s opening ‘E dest’ un muy gran miragre | vos quer’ [eu] ora contar’, (2.1) suggests that it was the close of the original first strophe. The conclusive final strophe necessitated expansion elsewhere, while the first strophe (now strophe two) already explained the narrative logic of the song. The easiest solution was to create a new first strophe that instead paraphrased the refrain, rather than expand at the end of the song. See Parkinson, ‘Two for the Price of One’, 77.
42 For instance, both strophes four and five duplicate the stonemason’s appeal to the Virgin (‘e assi | coidou caer, e a Virgen | chamou’, 4.3; and ‘e assi chamand’ estava | a Sennor que nos manten’, 5.3).
43 Ibid., 86. It should be noted, however, that while modern performers frequently do excise strophes in recordings, this practice is not necessarily done with any consideration of narrative logic, and that numerous recordings merely include the minimal number of acceptable strophes that appear first in the manuscript sources. Support for song curtailing is given in Cummins, John G., ‘The Practical Implications of Alfonso el Sabio’s Peculiar Use of the Zéjel ’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 47.1 (1970), 1–9 (pp. 5–8)Google Scholar; Parkinson, Stephen, ‘False Refrains in the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, Portuguese Studies, 3 (1987), 21–55 Google Scholar; and Hans Spanke, ‘Die Metrik der Cantigas’, in La música de las Cantigas de Santa María del rey Alfonso el Sabio. Facsímil, transcripción y estudio crítico, ed. Higinio Anglés, 3 vols (Diputación Provincial, Biblioteca Central, 1943–64) iii.i, 189–235 (pp. 211–13).
44 From a purely performative stance, omitting Cantiga sections has been roundly rejected in Judith Cohen, ‘“Ey-m’ acá!” Cantigas Performance Practice in Non-Specialist Settings: An Ethnomusicologist-Performer-Educator Perspective’, Portuguese Journal of Musicology, 1 (2014), 53–66 (pp. 59–63). Note also Cummins’s observations on CSM 240, where the refrain is clearly meant to be declaimed, and hence is an integral part to the piece. See Cummins, ‘The Practical Implications’, 8.
45 For an attempt to group songs of the Castrojeriz set into structural categories along with the wider Cantigas repertory, see Manuel Pedro Ferreira, ‘A música no Códice Rico: formas e notação’, in Alfonso X, las Cantigas de Santa María. Códice Rico, MS T-I-1, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, ed. Laura Fernández Fernández and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, 2 vols (Patrimonio Nacional, Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2011), ii, 187–204 (p. 197).
46 On this unusual combination, and on text–music relations more generally, see Stephen Parkinson, ‘Phonology and Metrics: Aspects of Rhyme in the Cantigas de Santa Maria’, in Proceedings of the 10th Colloquium of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, ed. Alan D. Deyermond, Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 30 (Queen Mary, University of London, 2000), 131–44; Parkinson, Stephen, ‘Text-Music Mismatches in the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, Revista de Musicologia Portuguesa, 1.1 (2014), 15–32 Google Scholar; Alison D. Campbell, Words and Music in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: The Cantigas as Song (MLitt dissertation, University of Glasgow, 2011), 111–46.
47 On structure in the Cantigas, see David Wulstan, ‘The Muwaššah and Zaǧal Revisited’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 102 (1982), 247–64; Stephen Parkinson, ‘Questões de estrutura estrófica nas Cantigas de Santa Maria: estruturas múltiplas, assimetrias e continuações inconsistentes’, in Estudos de edición crítica e lírica galego-portuguesa, ed. Mariña Arbor Aldea and Antonio Fernández Guiadanes (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2010), 315–36; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro, ‘ Rondeau and Virelai: The Music of Andalus and the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, Plainsong & Medieval Music, 13.2 (2004), 127–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferreira, ‘A música no Códice Rico, 192–98; Campbell, Words and Music, 10–58; Alison D. Campbell, ‘Inside the Virelai: A Survey of Musical Structures in the Cantigas de Santa Maria’, in Analizar, interpretar, hacer musica: de las Cantigas de Santa María a la organología. Escritos in memoriam Gerardo V. Huseby, ed. Melanie Plesch (Gourmet Muiscal, 2013), 153–70.
48 See Parkinson, Alfonso X, the Learned, 12–15. Mudanza and vuelta are often used with reference to poetic structure to the exclusion of melody or narrative.
49 The refrain does nevertheless serve a useful role in providing exegetical furnishing to strophic texts. See Jesús Montoya Martínez, ‘Las “razones” en las Cantigas de Santa María: su función’, in Studies in Honor of Gilberto Paolini, ed. Mercedes Vidal Tibbits (Juan de la Cuesta, 1996), 11–24.
50 On the frequency of enjambement in the Cantigas, see Chisman, Anna McGregor, ‘Enjambement in Las Cantigas de Santa Maria’ (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 1974), 619–32Google Scholar; Anna McGregor Chisman, ‘Rhyme and Word Order in Las Cantigas de Santa Maria’, Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 23.4 (1976), 393–407; and Cummins, ‘The Practical Implications’.
51 Related ideas in other repertory are observed in Galvez, Marisa, Songbook: How Lyrics Became Poetry in Medieval Music (University of Chicago Press, 2012), 48–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 Ibid., 49–50; Drummond, ‘Accommodating Poetic, Linear Narratives’, I, 66–69. Drummond, The Cantigas de Santa Maria, ch. 2; Henry T. Drummond, ‘Linear Narratives in Cyclical Form: The Hunt for Reason in the Cantigas de Santa Maria’, Music Analysis, 38.1–2 (2019), 80–108 (pp. 84–95); Drummond, Henry T., ‘Sonic Cursing and Enjambement: Sounding Blasphemy in Two Songs of the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, Medium Ævum, 90.2 (2021), 300–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 ‘[3.4] E ouve d’ acaecer |…| [4.3] coidou caer, e a Virgen | chamou, per com’ aprendi, | os dedos en hũa pedra | deitou, e fez-lo tẽer |…| [5.3] e assi chamand’ estava | a Sennor que nos manten, | dependorado das unllas | e colgado por caer’.
54 Parkinson argues that the material for strophes three to five existed initially as strophes two to three of an older version of the song. It was due to ‘Aquel que de voontade’ having seven strophes that ‘O que no coraçon d’ ome’ was initially expanded: current strophe three was given a new ‘-al’ rhyme, and use of the stock phrase ‘na Virgen espirital’ meant that two strophes had insufficient space to accommodate the narrative, requiring expansion to three strophes. Strophe five of ‘Aquel que de voontade’ may be based on the narrative structure and rhyme sounds (‘-ou’) of the original strophe three, in ‘O que no coraçon d’ ome’. This necessitated the redrafting of strophes four and five in CSM 242 to adopt a new set of rhyme sounds, and relegating the original ‘-ou’ rhyme words to other points in strophe four. See Parkinson, ‘Two for the Price of One’, 82–84. Major instances of narrative duplication fall in lines 3.4 and 4.1–2; and 4.4, 5.2, and 5.4.
55 On the significance of the refrain’s moral message within the standard Cantiga poetic structure, see Montoya Martínez, ‘Las “razones”’, 11–24.
56 Noting their similar versifications, narrative structures, and unadventurous use of oxytonic rhymes, Parkinson remarks that transformations of rhyme endings could easily result in an entire strophe of ‘Aquel que de voontade’ being incorporated into ‘O que no coraçon d’ ome’. See Parkinson, ‘Two for the Price of One’, 80. Parkinson additionally notes that twenty-eight oxytonic lines across all four Castrojeriz songs only make use of fifteen different rhyme endings (see p. 78).
57 Cases of enjambement nevertheless fall in lines 2.4–3.2, 4.4–5.1, and 5.4–6.1.
58 Note, on the other hand, the duplicated references to the stonemason working in the mudanza of lines 3.1–2, 4.1–2, and the repeated mention of his fall in 5.1–2.
59 ‘Sen mentir’ is a common phrase that is frequently used to make up line lengths. Note its use in ‘Tan gran poder a ssa Madre’, line 1.2; however, unlike other stock phrases that frequently emerge in strophes (i.e., ‘per com’ aprendi’), ‘sen mentir’ has particular consequence in ‘Aquel que de voontade’ given its placement in the refrain at the end of a line.
60 See Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica (2.2.1.3.1) <http://www.dhsprior.org> (accessed 21 May 2024).
61 ‘Mentir’ deriving from the Latin ‘mentior’, itself a denominal verb of ‘mens’.
62 The ways in which a character’s psychological state is represented through song has been studied in other repertories, although not extensively in the Cantigas. For similar attempts at mirroring such states in vernacular song, see Kay, Sarah, ‘Desire and Subjectivity’, in The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. Gaunt, Simon and Kay, Sarah (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 212–27Google Scholar; Slavoj Žižek, ‘Courtly Love, or Woman as Thing’, in The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Woman and Causality (Verso, 1994), 89–112. On use of emotions in Alfonsine literature, see Doubleday, Simon R., ‘Anger in the Crónica of Alfonso X’, Al- Masaq, 27.1 (2015), 61–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63 ‘Serra’ is also chosen due to the paucity of available rhyming words for ‘-erra’ (of which the only remaining rhyme used in the Cantigas would be ‘Ingraterra’). Note also that ‘serra’ very frequently takes ‘porta’ as an object. See Maria Pia Betti, Rimario e lessico in rima delle Cantigas de Santa Maria di Alfonso X di Castiglia, Biblioteca degli Studi Mediolatini e Volgari, N. S. 15 (Pacini, 1997), 378. On rhyming skill in the Cantigas, see Parkinson, Stephen, ‘Meestria métrica: Metrical Virtuosity in the Cantigas de Santa Maria’, La corónica , 27.2 (1999), 21–35 Google Scholar.
64 Note the mention of doors – accompanying the topos of closure – at these points of structural division. Similar behaviour emerges in ‘De muitas guisas miragres’ (‘e a torr’ e o portal’, 2.4), and in CSM 232 (‘e pois entrou pela porta’, 8.3).
65 The use of the refrain as a narrative gloss has been considered in Vega, Carlos Alberto, The Role of the Refrain in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Study of its Functions and Literary Implications (MA dissertation, University of Virginia, 1976), 53 Google Scholar.
66 Galvez, Songbook, ch. 4.
67 Ibid., 150–51. See also Corti, Francisco, ‘Retórica y semiótica visuales en la ilustración de las Cantigas de Santa María ’, Alcanate, 7 (2010–11), 215–34 (p. 216)Google Scholar.
68 Parkinson, Stephen, ‘Layout in the Códices ricos of the Cantigas de Santa Maria ’, Hispanic Research Journal, 1.3 (2000), 243–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kennedy, Kirstin, ‘Seeing is Believing: The Miniatures in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and Medieval Devotional Practices’, Portuguese Studies, 31.2 (2015), 169–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 169–72).
69 See José Guerrero Lovillo, Las Cántigas: estudio arqueológico de sus miniaturas (CSIC, 1949). Corti, Francisco, ‘Retórica visual en episodios biográficos reales ilustrados en las Cantigas de Santa María’, Historia. Instituciones. Documentos, 29 (2002), 59–108 (pp. 72–76)Google Scholar.
70 Ibid., 59–60; Corti, ‘Retórica y semiótica visuales’, 215–16; Mihai Iacob, ‘A retórica visual no “Códice Rico” das Cantigas de Santa María’, Boletín Galego de Literatura, 36–7 (2006–07), 37–59.
71 Made possible on a practical level, since in both manuscripts they usually appear without miniature captions, and where the space is typically left blank. See Kulp-Hill, Kathleen, ‘The Captions to the Miniatures of the “Codice Rico” of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: a Translation’, Cantigueiros, 7 (1995), 3–64 Google Scholar.
72 All but one song in the set appears with miniatures; the places intended for CSM 249’s visual narrative on fol. 89r were ruled up, but the contents never included.
73 Parkinson, ‘Miracle Collector’, 85.
74 For wider discussion on Augustine’s writings on sonic propriety, see Leach, Elizabeth Eva, ‘The Sound of Beauty’, in Beauty: The Darwin College Lectures, ed. Arrington, Lauren and others (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 72–98 Google Scholar.
75 For a comparable allegorization of a crisis of faith by structural collapse, see Piers Plowman (XX.229). Here, imperfect priests are said to corrupt Christian doctrine, testing its validity and the faith of its believers, which translates into the collapse of Piers’s barn as a reference to the Christian church. See Barr, Helen, ‘Major Episodes and Moments in Piers Plowman B’, in The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman, ed. Cole, Andrew and Galloway, Andrew (Cambridge University Press, 2014), 15–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.