quiso a Dios una oraçión fer.
e, com’era costumbre, sus donos ofreçer.
“Señor—dixo—que tienes el mundo en poder,
a qui çielo y tierra deven obedesçer,
Tú guía mi fazienda sit cae en plazer,
que pueda lo que asmo por mí acabeçer.
“Tú da en estas armas, Señor, tu bendiçión,
que pueda fer con ellas atal defunçïón,
qualque nunca fue fecha en esta difinçión,
porque saque a Greçia de grant tribulaçión.”
Quand la oraçión ovo el infant acabada,
enclinó los ynojos e besó en la grada,
desent alçós un poco e çiñós la espada;
es día dixo Greçia que era arribada.
Ante que se moviesse el infant del logar,
armó más de quinientos de omnes de prestar;
a todos dio adobos muy graves de preçiar,
ca todos eran tales que lo querrién pechar.
Cavalgó su cavallo e salió al trebejo;
el cavallo con él fazié gozo sobejo;
viniénlo sobre sí veer cada conçejo,
dizién todos: “Criador nos ha dado consejo.”
[The prince came to take up arms,
But, as he was sensible and wise,
He first chose to pray to God,
And, as custom dictated, to offer his allegiance.
“My Lord,” he said, “who has all the world in his power,
Whom heaven and earth must obey,
Guide my actions if it pleases you,
So that I might accomplish my objective.
“Give these arms, my Lord, your blessing,
So that with them I may carry out such annihilation
As has never been accomplished in this world,
So that I might rescue Greece from great trouble.”
Once the prince concluded his prayer,
He kneeled down and kissed the step,
And then stood up and girded his sword;
This was the day when Greece claimed to have arrived.
Before the prince moved from that place,
He armed more than five hundred deserving men;
To all of them he gave armor of serious value,
Since all were men who would offer something in return.
He mounted his horse and rode out to show his equestrian skill;
He managed with his horse to thrill those present;
People came from every city and town to see him,
And everyone said: “The Creator has come to our aid.”]
(Cañas Murillo, Libro de Alexandre, 159)6
Alexander does not follow any specific type of ceremony and the poem’s description does not make it possible to compare it to other ceremonies found in historical narratives. It is extraordinarily generic. The only ceremonial detail that might be gleaned from these verses is the prayer and the petition of the benedictio ensis, or blessing of the sword, in a prayer to God by the aspiring knight himself.7 The most notable aspect of this ceremony is not that Alexander takes up arms himself, but that it is he, not a cleric, who solicits the blessing of the sword. This gesture asserts independence from both secular authority (i.e., the nobility) and lettered clerics, as the poet reiterates throughout his verses.8 The ceremony culminates when Alexander girds on his sword and, immediately afterward, arms five hundred knights. This last act is the one instance that appears to be linked to some type of custom, or consuetudo, as seen in verse 120d: “e, com’era costumbre, sus donos ofreçer” [“and, as custom dictated, to offer his allegiance”]. Finally, the prince engages in a display of horsemanship to the surprise of the inhabitants of the cities (“cada conçejo” [“every city and town”]). The sphere of action of this ceremony is broad—it subsumes three different societal states: independence from the clergy, dominance over nobility, and admiration from the citizenry.
This display before the three societal estates serves to underpin the creation of the figure of an independent and dominant monarch, unencumbered by either lineage or intellectual and theological authorities. Indeed, neither members of the aristocracy nor the clergy may participate in this performance except as spectators.
Investiture is a promise of action or reform. The narrative of investiture is essential to the Book of Alexander, to the extent that, as Amaia Arizaleta has argued, it supersedes the coronation itself (La translation, 245–46).9 To the motifs identified by Arizaleta, we might add another: in this scene of chivalric investiture, the poem pointedly questions Alexander’s legitimacy, generating a serious crisis of identity. Just a few verses earlier, the poem cast doubt on the belief that Alexander is the legitimate son of Philip II of Macedon and even remarks on the fact that, by pushing him off a tower, Alexander has murdered Nectanebo—the Egyptian man who was supposed to be his true biological father. As a result, Alexander’s right to inherit the throne of Macedon through the conventional avenue of patrilineal descent is challenged, and it is only his own heroic and chivalric virtue that earns him the throne.10
The articulation of the chivalric fable is crucial here. The poem inserts the promise of chivalric action as the protagonist is facing an impasse with respect to traditional structures of power. The proposed solution is the renovation of these structures and the transformation of the historical conditions that frame this crisis. The chivalric fable is imbued with meaning by its insertion into a pedagogical fable in which the chivalric hero receives technical knowledge. In the case of Alexander, the pedagogical fable is binary, and in both cases provided by Aristotle. On one hand, Aristotle has trained Alexander as if he were a cleric, offering him knowledge rooted in the liberal arts. Later, with respect to Alexander’s patrilineal identity crisis, Aristotle has endowed his student with historical knowledge that allows the chivalric hero to recapture territory as well as his political and economic independence. Within the fictional timeframe of the poem, Greece was mired in a period of powerlessness and was straining under the fiscal pressure imposed by the Persian Empire.11 Alexander’s assertion of independence through knighthood mirrors the Greek will for independence from to the Persian Empire and its recovery of territorial and political jurisdiction.
In terms of the textual tradition, Alexander’s knighting ceremony constitutes a distortion of the best-known ceremonies and
