of those ceremonies best known through chivalric narrative discourse, frequently transmitted in Latin and French texts. But it is also possible that both the distortion and the fragmentation of existing knighting ceremonies are the rule rather than the exception in the case of textual representations of such ceremonies. This is perhaps best examined from a perspective recently suggested by Philippe Buc. Buc focuses on ceremony and ritual during the Early Middle Ages, but his formulation is also valid for a phenomenon such as chivalry, which exists mainly through the later medieval period. According to Buc, due to their prominence, rituals afford us only a problematic glimpse into medieval political culture. He affirms that “they were too momentous for their depictions not to be highly crafted” (Dangers of Ritual, 9). Therefore, the unpolished quality of most written accounts of knighting ceremonies from medieval Castile is perplexing. These written accounts variously depict the passage into knighthood, but many are also allusive, fragmentary, and somewhat disconcerting. Perhaps because the rituals in question are so well known that it does not seem necessary to describe them in detail, or perhaps because they lack the ceremonial importance generally ascribed to them—especially when compared to French, German, and Latin clerical sources.
The problem deepens when a ceremony is richly described, although this happens only infrequently. For the purposes of this discussion, it can be circumscribed to a very brief period of time: between the Partidas 2.21 (around 1260) to the knighting ceremony of Alfonso XI (held in 1332). There are a few other examples from the same period: that of the powerful Castilian noble Don Juan Manuel (1282–1348), who deals with this issue in his Libro del cavallero et del escudero (Book of the Knight and the Squire; 1326–1327) and in the Libro de las tres razones (Book of the Three Reasons; ca. 1337); the Cantar de las mocedades de Rodrigo (Song of Rodrigo’s Youth; ca. 1370); and the case of the double investiture of Roboán in the Libro del cavallero Zifar (Book of the Knight Zifar; ca. 1330).12 I will undertake an analysis of these texts later in this chapter.
To speak of chivalric investiture, Latin authors from Castile always use an essentially inscrutable expression: cingulum militiæ accingere, to put on the military sash. This “military sash” is an accessory associated with the republican and imperial eras of Rome. It was a sign of distinction and consisted of a thin golden sash wrapped around the soldier’s waist, adorned along the front with fringe made of the same material. This military sash was no longer worn during the Middle Ages, and therefore not issued to new knights.
In its Roman context, the expression cingulum militiæ accingere refers to the entry of a soldier into the ordo equitum, the most distinguished group in the Roman cavalry. This, as Claude Nicolet has demonstrated, constitutes an ordo in itself. Nicolet’s study is even more interesting in that it reveals a fundamental tension between entry into the ordo equitum and the obtaining of noble rank within the Roman republic (Nicolet, L’ordre equestre à l’époque républicaine).13 The situation is akin to that in medieval texts on monarchic power: the king who invests the knight also confers noble rank upon him. This monarchic prerogative is the keystone of the significant sociopolitical transformations beginning to take place at the start of the fourteenth century.
It can be argued that the use of the expression cingulum militiæ accingere during the medieval period was metaphoric. It is more likely, however, that it is the expression preferred by those who worked in chancery Latin and among those who had, at the same time, advanced juridical, historical, and theological knowledge. The specific places within Castile where we find this expression reveal a cultural setting of this sort. The anonymous author of the Historia Roderici (History of Rodrigo; ca. 1147) employs it in a very specific way: “Hunc autem Rodericum Didaci Santius, rex tocius Castelle et dominator Hyspaniæ, diligenter nutriuit et cingulum militie eidem cinxit” [“That Sancho, king of all Castile and ruler of Hispania, raised up Rodrigo Díaz with all his love and put the military sash on him”]. (Martínez Díez et al., Historia latina de Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar 54).14 The language here is not neutral. It deploys terms and expressions that belong to imperial chancery Latin, and the Latinate institutions of the empire of Justinian and Theodosius. King Sancho, who knights the Cid, is here referred to as “king of all Castile,” a phrase that enjoys a semantic confluence with the Imperium Totius Hispaniae [“Empire of All Hispania”] formula coined by Alfonso VI (1040–1109, self-proclaimed Imperator Totius Hispaniae in 1070) and made to take on greater prominence during the reign of Alfonso VII (r.1126–1157, referred to as imperator from the beginning of his reign), the same period during which the History of Rodrigo was composed.
The bishop and historian Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada (1170–1247) makes use of the cingulum militiæ accingere formula when speaking of the knighting of Conrad III Hohenstaufen (1173–1196), son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (1122–1190), and likewise that of Alfonso IX of León (1171–1230), both carried out by Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1188 in the city of Carrión de los Condes:
Mortuo rege Fernando successit ei eius filius Aldefonsus. Hic fuit homo pius, strenuus et benignus, set susurronum vicissitudine mutabatur; et a consobrino suo Aldefonso rege Castelle et Sancio rege Portugalie infestatus circa primordia regni sui uenit ad rege Castelle, et in curia Carrionis accintus ab eo cingulo militari, manum eius fuit in plena curia osculatus; et in eadem curia rex Castelle nobilis Aldefonsus Conradum filium Frederici imperatoris Romani accinxit similiter cingulo militari.
[With the death of King Fernando (II of León), his son Alfonso (IX of León) succeeded him to the throne. He was a pious, strong, and good man, but he was much altered by the vicissitudes of events and was attacked by his cousin Alfonso, the king of Castile, and Sancho, the king of Portugal. Near the beginning of his reign he went to the king of Castile, and in the curia of Carrión he had the military sash put on him by this same king and he kissed his hand in front of the full curia; and in that same curia the noble Alfonso, king of Castile, similarly put the military sash on Conrad, the son of Frederick, the Roman emperor.] (Jiménez de Rada, Historia de rebus Hispaniæ, 246)
Thus, in both cases of chivalric investiture, the Latin scribe employs the cingulum militiæ accingere formula.
The cingulum militiæ accingere formula seems to have no directly comprehensible meaning in Spanish, if we are to judge based on how it is translated within the Estoria de España, composed in the scriptorium of Alfonso X. There is a certain degree of anxiety in the manner in which this translation is produced. The translators do not seem to think that the reference to the military sash is self-explanatory, so in each case they add a supplement to reinforce its meaning. While they maintain the archaeological substratum of the expression that they have inherited, they incorporate another, more modern one that may reveal a good deal about the ritual act that is taking place:
(Alfonso IX de León) fue guerreado de su primo don Alffonsso, rey de Castiella, et de don Sancho, rey de Portogal, çerca de los comienços de su regno. Et ueno estonçes el rey don Alffonsso de Castiella a Carrion a cortes que fizo y; et cinxo alli este rey don Alffonsso de Castiella la çinta de caualleria a don Alffonsso rey de Leon, su primo cormano, et armol alli et fizol cauallero; onde esse rey don Alffonsso de Leon beso alli la mano a don Alffonsso rey de Castiella ante todos, la corte llena. Et en essa misma corte otrossi esse noble rey don Alffonsso de Castiella çinxo la çinta de caualleria et su espada a don Corrado fijo de don Fradric emperador de Roma et fizol cauallero.
[(King Alfonso IX of León) went to war with his cousin Alfonso, king of Castile, and Sancho, the king of Portugal, near the beginning of his reign. At that time, King Alfonso of Castile arrived in Carrión to preside over his Cortes; and there King Alfonso of Castile put the sash of chivalry on King Alfonso of León, his first cousin, and there armed him and made him a knight; at which point King Alfonso of León kissed the hand of King Alfonso of Castile in front of everyone at the full Cortes. And at this same Cortes the noble King Alfonso of Castile girded the sash of chivalry and his sword on Conrad,
