de muerte o deshonrra. La octava por aforramiento de que non rescibe precio el que lo aforra. La novena por tornarlo christiano. La dezena por morança de diez años que faga en la tierra maguer sea natural de otra.
[The wise men of ancient times established ten kinds of natural obligation. The first, and most important is the relation which men sustain towards their natural lord, because they, as well as those from whom they are descended, were born and settled, and exist in the country of their said lord; the second is derived from vassalage; the third, that which arises through nurture; the fourth, springs from knighthood; the fifth, marriage; the sixth, from inheritance; the seventh, from rescue from captivity or liberation from death or dishonor; the eighth, from emancipation, for which the party who granted it received no reward; the ninth, arises through becoming a Christian; the tenth, through a residence of ten years in a country, although the party may be a native of another.] (4.24.2)20
The list is ordered hierarchically, as is customary in Alfonsine texts. The incorporation of chivalry within the list of natural bonds represents an innovation of the Partidas with respect to the Espéculo, Alfonso’s earlier systematic legal work, which only considered six types of natural bonds (Rodríguez-Velasco, “De oficio a estado”; “Invención”). Within the context of this innovation, Alfonso gives chivalry a prominent place. In this way, Alfonso does not only incorporate chivalry into political and juridical discourse; he also configures it as one of the principal means by which a theological hierarchy is translated into positive law.
The reasons for the production of this innovation reside in the strategies defined by ritual, that is, by the way in which this apparatus determines power relations. This apparatus is a way of transforming the structure of the kingdom, as it gives rise to a social class that is defined by the power of the monarch to construct all categories of the nobility. Critiques of this power, which proliferate throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, point out that the king is violating a natural right by essentially creating nobles by fiat during knighting ceremonies. The argument is predicated on the notion that it is on strictly theological grounds, and without any supplementary political aspect, that the existence of the nobility is justified. The differentiation between the theological and the political issues from the work of Bolognese jurist Bartolo of Sassoferrato (1314–1357), who distinguishes between theological nobility and civil and political nobility. This differentiation, as well as the debate surrounding it—which would endure for almost two hundred years and eventually become a criteria for the formation of the modern state—provides clear evidence of the strength of the thesis presented by Alfonso X in the process of creating chivalry, its rituals, and its relation to natural bonds. The strength of these theories and the presence of the chivalric ordo throughout Europe facilitate a dialogue that generally takes the form of a debate. This debate does not have as its ultimate goal a critique of the particular elements of the ritual, but these elements offer theoretical alternatives to regal sovereignty and the central jurisdiction of the monarchy.
The first is the case of Don Juan Manuel (1282–1348), a member of the high nobility and nephew of Alfonso X. Don Juan Manuel begins his textual activities more or less at the moment at which King Alfonso XI (1311–1350) comes of age in 1325 and assumes the throne. Don Juan Manuel has contributed to the tutoring of the young king and even served as regent; after 1325, however, he begins to distance himself from the politics set out by the monarch. The greater part of Don Juan Manuel’s written work is indeed guided by these personal political motivations. They do not dismiss, however, the theoretical and political importance of this magnate’s complex work, namely, that if he learns to write—in an inchoate sense—it is precisely to be able to develop theories regarding power relations. Don Juan Manuel’s Libro de la caballería (Book of Chivalry), in fact, written in 1325 and no longer extant, contained a rereading (most likely critical) of title 21 of the Second Partidas Judging by the summary of this work included in his Libro de los estados (Book of States) (1330), this book would have been a compendium on chivalry based squarely on Alfonsine law.21
The only reference Don Juan Manuel makes to a knighting ceremony is in the Libro del cavallero et del escudero, a work directly influenced by the Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria (Book of the Order of Chivalry), composed between 1279 and 1283 by Mallorcan philosopher Ramon Llull (1232–1316). Llull’s work causes a fundamental turn away from Don Juan Manuel’s previous positions, particularly regarding knightly investiture. The knighting ceremony that Llull describes is much more complex than the one devised by Alfonso, since apart from describing the gestures and movements of the ceremony, Llull also specifies the mode in which mass should be conducted and the type of sermon that should be delivered. According to Llull, the cavayler spiritual [spiritual knight] plays a fundamental role in this ceremony, while the secular role is reduced to the participation of he who conducts the ceremony, without the participation of a patron (197–200). The symbolism of arms that Llull develops is also decidedly religious, rendering the knight a bearer of a series of theological and political values (201–6), while Alfonso explicitly distances clerics from all chivalric ceremonies and from chivalry itself.22 Finally, Llull’s Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria fits within the broader Llulian project (De arte inveniendi veritatis, (The Art of Finding the Truth), which develops a logical and philosophical system of tropology and anagogy.23 This system forms the axis around which Llull’s notion of chivalry revolves and serves as the ultimate source for the creation of truth. Llulian discourse is based on theology and philosophy and is thus inseparable from a concern with the production of truth.
When Don Juan Manuel opts for the production of theological and philosophical truth within an explicitly Llulian framework, as opposed to the production of legal truth as framed by Alfonso, it is because he wishes to pose a specific question: how would it be possible to create a new political framework that supersedes the construction of sovereignty designed by the juridical model of central monarchic jurisdiction. He engages chivalry to explore the theological bonds of the nobility, steering away from the Alfonsine proposition to create a uniquely political or civil nobility.
Llulian influence in Don Juan Manuel is not only evident in the reproduction of the chivalric fable and its relation to the pedagogical fable (e.g., the hermit teacher, the book in which both read). We also see it in its own content, in the symbolisms and figures used by the Castilian noble, as well as in his knowledge about nature. The symbols and figures depict the arms of the knight as traces or marks of a theological mission. As established by Llull, who is in dialogue with the chivalric French literature of the Arthurian cycle known as the Vulgate, the achievement of knighthood resides in a transformation of the candidate’s body by its vestments. This external modification of the body is, however, a process that may alter the soul. Each of the pieces of the knight’s armor provides the body with means of defense or attack, but these amount to no more than a visible representation of the invisible process that is taking place: the pieces of armor are the theological virtues that dress the soul, and the sword mirrors the Christian cross. Knowledge of Nature, not unlike knowledge of natural relations, is an apparatus or strategy whereby a body of knowledge is mystically transmitted to a knight who aligns himself with an estate and officium of theological origin.
Don Juan Manuel’s reading is a strategy to separate the knight, or the noble, from the sort of subjection Alfonso imposes. This apparatus defines a power relationship that does not surpass the realm of the perceivable and therefore cannot be controlled either juridically or jurisdictionally. For Don Juan Manuel, the knighting ritual is also a sacramental act that emulates priestly ordination. As such, it does not define a social construction, but rather a holy office within a theological hierarchy. It bears remembering that his doctrine of the three orders and their sacramental aspects derives from a reading of the angelic hierarchy developed by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (ca. 500 C.E.). The elderly knight (now a hermit) who educates the squire in Juan Manuel’s book describes the investiture ceremony in a straightforward manner, as a way in which all bonds and systems of subjection and dominion are effectively eliminated: “la cavalleria a mester que sea y el sennor que da la cavalleria et el cavallero que la reçibe et la
