The printed word was by then affordable for almost anyone.
The circulation of printed matter among the soldiers, as in other social groups, enhanced awareness of the written word in general and of the technologies and practices of writing itself, which fostered rather than inhibited the production and distribution of manuscript texts.26 The death inventory of Diego García de Paredes (1533), one of the most famous soldiers of Renaissance Europe, included four printed items: a book of prayers, a book of hours (like that of the anonymous soldier at Santiago’s hospital), a Bible, and Caesar’s Commentarii.27 The paucity of Paredes’s printed library, which resembles that of many early modern soldiers, contrasts with the abundance of his manuscript papers. Up to eight items in his inventory refer vaguely to loose sheets, unbound quires, and notebooks containing different kinds of writings “by his own hand” (de su propia mano). The mention of the portable writing desk (escribanía) and the note-taking device, perhaps erasable, known as libro de memorias confirms that writing was an everyday activity for soldiers like him.28 Indeed, it was among these autograph papers that his Breve suma de la vida y hechos de Diego García de Paredes, one of the first autobiographies written by a soldier in Renaissance Europe and arguably one of the first nonfiction memoirs of any kind written in Spanish, was found.29
The spread of the printing press and its products also contributed to make literacy a desirable goal among larger social sectors. While the costs of learning basic reading and writing skills remained high throughout the period for the Spanish poor, there were abundant alternatives that allowed them to achieve literacy. Parish priests and ordained relatives taught many destitute children for free. Some religious orders, such as the Franciscans and, especially, the Jesuits, also provided free instruction at different levels. Municipal councils in many towns and cities across Castile subsidized schools and supervised the activities of private masters. The children of poor parents could also attend school de limosna, by paying only a fraction of tuition, according to what they could afford.30 During the sixteenth century, this is how some of the Muses’ comrades, like many other commoners, learned their first letters in childhood, as they themselves will often record.
In his many lives, Miguel Piedrola was a tinker (as was Virgil’s father) and a nobleman, a captive and a wandering troubadour, a soldier and a prophet. Born a commoner, Piedrola learned his first letters with an unnamed priest. Later on, he abandoned the tinker’s apprenticeship to go serve another priest who gave him a vessel of holy water (acetre), “which is the way they help poor boys pay for their studies” by using it to beg for alms from door to door: “With the money I got, I paid for grammar lessons,” that is, Latin. Then he went on to serve as a soldier for many years in the Mediterranean and was taken captive on several occasions. He claimed to be a prophet like those he read about in the Old Testament of a Bible he bought from a bookseller in Naples. The soldier-prophet, as he became widely known, wrote letters and prophecies to the king and the pope, and for a while he seemed to have enjoyed credit among followers and opponents alike. Eventually, however, the Inquisition charged Piedrola with sedition against the king and “usurpation of divine and celestial authority.”31 The paths to literacy may be tortuous for a soldier, but as this case shows, the ability to read and write often turned soldiers into a threat to authority and the social order.
Other writing soldiers provided similar accounts of their childhood schooling. In his autobiography, soldier Jerónimo de Pasamonte recounted how his legal guardian, a maternal uncle and a priest, taught him some Latin (gramática). Similarly, while he does not make explicit mention of his education, rank-and-file soldier Miguel de Castro was mentored in Valladolid by a friend of his uncle, who was also a priest and a licenciado (university graduate). Alonso de Contreras, the son of commoners, attended the school of one of those proverbially cruel masters of primary letters in Madrid around 1590. Contreras “escribía de ocho renglones,” referring to the “renglón de a ocho,” the “first size with which the teaching of writing starts” (tamaño primero con que se empieza a enseñar a escribir), when he had to end his education abruptly because of a violent feud he had with a richer classmate.32 As I will discuss later, some poor boys—future soldiers—learned how to kill as soon as they learned how to write.
Most writing soldiers thus seem to have become literate before they joined the army. The spaces of war attracted men familiar with the written word and even skilled in the arts of the pen, and the urban origin of many recruits, as profiled by Ian Thompson, might also help explain the higher literacy rates among soldiers.33 Though harder to document, it is also very likely that other soldiers learned how to read and write after enlistment. There are aspects of military life, such as disciplinary socialization, military idle time or otium, and the practice of war reporting that may have contributed to the spread of literacy among serving soldiers, regardless of their social background. Written documentation was a familiar presence in the everyday lives of Renaissance soldiers. From the moment a soldier enrolled—asienta plaza—and was required to sign his name in the company’s books to the moment he was paid or discharged a series of complex administrative operations were mediated by the technologies and materials of writing and record keeping. Scribes, auditors, accountants, and paymasters, as we see in Cervantes’s vivid account in El licenciado Vidriera, were some of the clerks who supported the Renaissance army as the highly complex assemblage of techniques and structures.34 The bandos or ordinances that governed military life were published in the spaces of war in manuscript or even printed form, and every soldier was required to abide by them under the threat of severe punishment.35 Moreover, Spanish and Latin American archives contain hundreds of thousands of documents that soldiers carried around folded in their pockets or in tin cans, as did the fictional lieutenant Mellado in Francisco de Quevedo’s Buscón and the anonymous soldier of the ballad “Mirando estaba el retrato.”36 Cédulas, memoriales, informaciones, testamentos, and probanzas, usually written by professional notaries but occasionally autographed by the soldiers themselves, were the main instruments of interlocution between the soldier and the imperial military authorities. They attested to their professional achievements and military services to the crown. They enabled rank-and-file poor soldiers to request mercedes or rewards, offices, and occasional financial support (ayudas de costa). The presence of the written word in the spaces of war was more than quotidian; it constituted its very structure and enabled its functioning.
Other practices and institutions of army life must have also encouraged illiterate soldiers to engage with written culture. It is not unlikely that in the idle time of presidio life or in the winter quarters some soldiers could have learned how to read from literate comrades, whether gratis or for a low fee. In literature, camaradas are often depicted in fluent and everyday conversation about “matters of war.” The camarada or camarade (the source of the English “comrade”) was a rather informal association among three to six fellow soldiers who agreed to share lodging and meals, significantly reducing living expenses for the permanently underpaid rank and file.37 The term, referring either to one of its members or to the group as a whole, was defined precisely by Covarrubias: “Roommate who eats and sleeps in the same lodging. The word is used by soldiers and it is as much as saying companion and intimate friend, who is in the same company” (Compañero de cámara, que come y duerme en una misma posada. Este término se usa entre soldados, y vale compañero y amigo familiar, que está en la misma compañía).38 This form of institutionalized friendship allowed for a peculiar sociability based on strong bonds of brotherhood and intimate conversation but also fostered lettered practices and the circulation of literary materials. The material culture of sharing among comrades multiplied the potential readers of a book, like those “Hours of Our Lady and a Garcilaso without commentary” that the fictional Tomás Rodaja, “the son of a poor peasant,” “carried in the pockets of his breeches” when boarding a Neapolitan galley on the way to Genoa (unas Horas de Nuestra Señora y un Garcilaso sin comento, que en las dos faldriqueras llevaba).39 Soldier-poet Cristóbal de Virués found shelter against gossip and mockery in the intimacy of the camarade, which facilitated the exchange of poems with a fellow curioso soldier, also a poetry
