Great read, thank you. I'm so glad to see a colleague writing accessible posts about our field! Also, folks would probably love to hear about the origin of the name California in a future post....
Hi David! Is the name an otherworldly coincidence or are you the same David Wacks responsible for ‘Medieval Iberian Crusade Fiction and the Mediterranean World’?
If you are, this comment means a lot. Your work was incredibly helpful and formative for my current PhD project and my upcoming work is much indebted to it! Thank you for giving this a read!
Hi Clara, it is so good to see you get this up and out there. V Cool and like the premise for your thesis, but may feed you back a modern version, later.
And to see your new CV ascertainment of CRPO; a good cooked potato is heaven, but so many ways to get there. And the potato is one of the reasons so many Irish flocked here to Aus and to the US. Another story.
Chasing up so many things from your essay, but also pleasantly surprised that I did have some bedrock knowledge or at least a bit of it for the time (like the El Cid story which preceded).
Love the maps. A thing for me . I have a couple of Captain Cook era maps which I love till I discovered they were taken out of books.
Culture and identity shape behaviour immensely, and your sort of vignette of mod wealthy boy waiting in Seville to embark and only stories to go on, got me. A familiar repeat. And at the time perhaps a strong zealot Crusader mentality in the background.
So I wonder if this background not only shaped their later retellings but also their going there.
The idea that not being able to read would have separated people from these rich stories or ballads or songs is quite unlikely and thus not likely to have been socially contained to the v rich alone.
Oral transmission, especially on long things like trans Atlantic sea voyages would I believe have been the norm for good and popular stories etc.
I can well remember in my teens working with musterers camping out at night. Sort of early 70s, and many had poor literacy skills due to itinerant or impoverished lives. So no internet, no radio or TV. So people told stories or sang songs around the fire , and this was a big deal. Another, another story.
And you ask , what made this so attractive ? Sort of has this Paradigm Fit thing as you say, not just as they were writing later, but maybe when trying to make sense of the crazy and bad things they did on the way.
And I think you nail it with Hernan Cortes. he is writing to some of the most important people in the two Kingdoms, who are unlikely to ever go to the New World and part of his narrative is tp consolidate the reasons for his success and that what he did was good, not just for Spain, but for the peoples of The Americas.
Could have said a bit more, but do think there is a segway to modern era and how people create historical narrative. Thinking about movie Apocalypse Now.
Maybe they are not highlighted , but some questions in this reply.
Hi Cristoffa, thanks so much for this thoughtful comment!
I think certainly that the background of crusade culture, and specifically the idiosyncratic reception of it in the Iberian peninsula, plays an important role here. As does, in my opinion, the Spanish Christian kingdoms' sense that frontier warfare against religious 'Others' formed the basis of a kind of common identity that papered over their profound cultural differences. The urge to advance oneself socially by serving in these frontier projects was clearly an attractive option for those who lacked obvious paths towards social advancement in Spain itself.
Oral transmission is also for me an important part of the picture. The difficulty, obviously, is being able to trace that reliably. Bernal Díaz certainly gives us clues that speak to culture of story sharing amongst the men and I believe that one can build quite a convincing argument for oral transmission as a way that these stories might have affected the broader zeitgeist simply by examining the reading culture in late medieval Europe more generally.
Don Quijote, which is often disregarded as a source for details of social practice because of its satirical nature, has a really interesting scene where locals are discussing a specific book and a man recalls that the reapers in the fields all gather together at certain times to hear it being read aloud. This detail itself isn't the butt of a joke of any kind and I think in a book essentially about reading, the practice of reading, and the consequences of reading, scenes like this one that might give us insight into how people might have been accessing text should be re-examined more seriously. With that kind of thing in mind, I don't think its outrageous to suggest that one person in a group, having amassed the resources to purchase a copy of a popular book, might then use it in this way.
Where I am in SEQ (Aus) is still in post Deluge Tropical Cyclone Alfred , which has caused such havoc but less than could have been, perhaps.
Still,biggest power outage ever in the state and stuff like that. And all the creeks are up still. A sort of local saying, but they are going down where I live from about 8 m to 4 m above usual
So a good time to read and listen to music while we still have power.But do have a lot of books and batteries and even a wind up power radio.
Developed by CSIRO a decade or two ago for Pacifika friends. As was a later non tower based mobile phone tech. Piggybacked each phone as a base station. So limited range,but better than nothing and fitted in with small clan size groups.
So, maybe a sort of back segue way to oral history transmission and story telling.
A part of my clan Behan tradition it is said , as well as house painting and music for the more Dublin born.
And a long term fan of Don Quixote.
So, single point of oral transmission from the literate to the many more non, fits well.
And then actually owning a book which you could read..
Love your work, but hope you have some down time for a bit to be non-academic.
Great article!! I was wondering if you knew if there was an impact of oral tradition in spreading some of these literary conventions to groups who had higher rates of illiteracy? (I.e. in how Cortés encouraged his men with chivalric ballads)! I have very little background knowledge in this area so am assuming you’d have rural / early industrial working class crew with lower access to education.
This is actually something that I'm thinking really hard about in my research. My instinct is absolutely yes! And that example you raise of Cortés using the romancero to encourage his men is a really important clue as to how this culture of oral transmission might have manifested amongst these groups of men. The issue with this kind of thing is that it's just so difficult to trace and to prove so we have to pick up and run with clues like that one which are few and far between.
I personally believe that by conducting a wider analysis of literary culture and reading practices in late medieval and early modern Europe more widely, that you can quite confidently make the case for oral performances (something that's often associated with the romances of the High Middle Ages) persisting into this period. Public performances of texts are attested, families may have read all together etc.
Oral transmission could also explain how certain stories, characters and tropes became 'mainstream' even if many could not access the original text in the way that we might read it now. You don't necessarily have to have read something or even have listened to it in full in order to understand its key features. My analogy for this would be when a mega popular film is released these days and even if you haven't seen it yourself, often through interacting with those who have, you are able to build up a fairly clear picture of what kind of movie and storyline it is. It's entirely possible that these chivalric texts just became so ubiquitous that they influenced the cultural zeitgeist in all kinds of direct and indirect ways that could explain how moderately or even poorly educated people might have used them to conceptualise the New World and their role within it.
Great read, thank you. I'm so glad to see a colleague writing accessible posts about our field! Also, folks would probably love to hear about the origin of the name California in a future post....
Hi David! Is the name an otherworldly coincidence or are you the same David Wacks responsible for ‘Medieval Iberian Crusade Fiction and the Mediterranean World’?
If you are, this comment means a lot. Your work was incredibly helpful and formative for my current PhD project and my upcoming work is much indebted to it! Thank you for giving this a read!
Hi yes that's me and I'm very glad the book was useful for you!
Hi Clara, it is so good to see you get this up and out there. V Cool and like the premise for your thesis, but may feed you back a modern version, later.
And to see your new CV ascertainment of CRPO; a good cooked potato is heaven, but so many ways to get there. And the potato is one of the reasons so many Irish flocked here to Aus and to the US. Another story.
Chasing up so many things from your essay, but also pleasantly surprised that I did have some bedrock knowledge or at least a bit of it for the time (like the El Cid story which preceded).
Love the maps. A thing for me . I have a couple of Captain Cook era maps which I love till I discovered they were taken out of books.
Culture and identity shape behaviour immensely, and your sort of vignette of mod wealthy boy waiting in Seville to embark and only stories to go on, got me. A familiar repeat. And at the time perhaps a strong zealot Crusader mentality in the background.
So I wonder if this background not only shaped their later retellings but also their going there.
The idea that not being able to read would have separated people from these rich stories or ballads or songs is quite unlikely and thus not likely to have been socially contained to the v rich alone.
Oral transmission, especially on long things like trans Atlantic sea voyages would I believe have been the norm for good and popular stories etc.
I can well remember in my teens working with musterers camping out at night. Sort of early 70s, and many had poor literacy skills due to itinerant or impoverished lives. So no internet, no radio or TV. So people told stories or sang songs around the fire , and this was a big deal. Another, another story.
And you ask , what made this so attractive ? Sort of has this Paradigm Fit thing as you say, not just as they were writing later, but maybe when trying to make sense of the crazy and bad things they did on the way.
And I think you nail it with Hernan Cortes. he is writing to some of the most important people in the two Kingdoms, who are unlikely to ever go to the New World and part of his narrative is tp consolidate the reasons for his success and that what he did was good, not just for Spain, but for the peoples of The Americas.
Could have said a bit more, but do think there is a segway to modern era and how people create historical narrative. Thinking about movie Apocalypse Now.
Maybe they are not highlighted , but some questions in this reply.
Found your intro so provoking ! Congrats.
Hi Cristoffa, thanks so much for this thoughtful comment!
I think certainly that the background of crusade culture, and specifically the idiosyncratic reception of it in the Iberian peninsula, plays an important role here. As does, in my opinion, the Spanish Christian kingdoms' sense that frontier warfare against religious 'Others' formed the basis of a kind of common identity that papered over their profound cultural differences. The urge to advance oneself socially by serving in these frontier projects was clearly an attractive option for those who lacked obvious paths towards social advancement in Spain itself.
Oral transmission is also for me an important part of the picture. The difficulty, obviously, is being able to trace that reliably. Bernal Díaz certainly gives us clues that speak to culture of story sharing amongst the men and I believe that one can build quite a convincing argument for oral transmission as a way that these stories might have affected the broader zeitgeist simply by examining the reading culture in late medieval Europe more generally.
Don Quijote, which is often disregarded as a source for details of social practice because of its satirical nature, has a really interesting scene where locals are discussing a specific book and a man recalls that the reapers in the fields all gather together at certain times to hear it being read aloud. This detail itself isn't the butt of a joke of any kind and I think in a book essentially about reading, the practice of reading, and the consequences of reading, scenes like this one that might give us insight into how people might have been accessing text should be re-examined more seriously. With that kind of thing in mind, I don't think its outrageous to suggest that one person in a group, having amassed the resources to purchase a copy of a popular book, might then use it in this way.
Hi Clara,it is good to get your reply.
Where I am in SEQ (Aus) is still in post Deluge Tropical Cyclone Alfred , which has caused such havoc but less than could have been, perhaps.
Still,biggest power outage ever in the state and stuff like that. And all the creeks are up still. A sort of local saying, but they are going down where I live from about 8 m to 4 m above usual
So a good time to read and listen to music while we still have power.But do have a lot of books and batteries and even a wind up power radio.
Developed by CSIRO a decade or two ago for Pacifika friends. As was a later non tower based mobile phone tech. Piggybacked each phone as a base station. So limited range,but better than nothing and fitted in with small clan size groups.
So, maybe a sort of back segue way to oral history transmission and story telling.
A part of my clan Behan tradition it is said , as well as house painting and music for the more Dublin born.
And a long term fan of Don Quixote.
So, single point of oral transmission from the literate to the many more non, fits well.
And then actually owning a book which you could read..
Love your work, but hope you have some down time for a bit to be non-academic.
Cristoffa.
Great article!! I was wondering if you knew if there was an impact of oral tradition in spreading some of these literary conventions to groups who had higher rates of illiteracy? (I.e. in how Cortés encouraged his men with chivalric ballads)! I have very little background knowledge in this area so am assuming you’d have rural / early industrial working class crew with lower access to education.
Hi Jessie! Thanks so much for this question.
This is actually something that I'm thinking really hard about in my research. My instinct is absolutely yes! And that example you raise of Cortés using the romancero to encourage his men is a really important clue as to how this culture of oral transmission might have manifested amongst these groups of men. The issue with this kind of thing is that it's just so difficult to trace and to prove so we have to pick up and run with clues like that one which are few and far between.
I personally believe that by conducting a wider analysis of literary culture and reading practices in late medieval and early modern Europe more widely, that you can quite confidently make the case for oral performances (something that's often associated with the romances of the High Middle Ages) persisting into this period. Public performances of texts are attested, families may have read all together etc.
Oral transmission could also explain how certain stories, characters and tropes became 'mainstream' even if many could not access the original text in the way that we might read it now. You don't necessarily have to have read something or even have listened to it in full in order to understand its key features. My analogy for this would be when a mega popular film is released these days and even if you haven't seen it yourself, often through interacting with those who have, you are able to build up a fairly clear picture of what kind of movie and storyline it is. It's entirely possible that these chivalric texts just became so ubiquitous that they influenced the cultural zeitgeist in all kinds of direct and indirect ways that could explain how moderately or even poorly educated people might have used them to conceptualise the New World and their role within it.