Libro de los huéspedes (Escorial MS h.I.13): A Unified Work of Narrative and Image for Female Pilgrims

LIBRO DE LOS HUESPEDES (ESCORIAL MS h.1.13): A UNIFIED WORK OF NARRATIVE AND IMAGE FOR FEMALE PILGRIMS John K. Moore,Jr. University ofAlabama at Birmingham Thomas Spaccarelli University of the South In convents, churches, and elsewhere along the Camino de Santiago, women on pilgrimage in the Middle Ages would have encountered an instructive feast for the ears and eyes - music and sermons, sculptures and paintings. Part of this edification may have included listening to the narratives andviewing dieir corresponding decorations in the largeformat , late fourteenth- to early fifteenth-century Escoriai MS h.1.13,1 We extend our gratitude to the Dean ofthe School ofArts & Humanities at the University ofAlabama at Birmingham, Bert Brouwer, and to the Dean ofthe College of Arts & Sciences at the University ofthe South, Rita Smith Kipp, for providing generous financial support toward publication. In addition, we wish to thank Frank Domínguez, Emily Francomano, Sheri Spaine Long, andjennifer I. Crook Moore for their suggestions on earlier drafts ofthis essay and, at La corónica, to George Greenia and the two anonymous readers for their feedback on the final stages ofthis article. Their comments have played an important role in the development ofour ideas. JohnJeremiah Sullivan helped clarify wording in a final draft. Finally, we are grateful to Manuel Terrón Bermúdez, Director of the Servicio de Gestión Fotográfica at Patrimonio Nacional, for permission to reproduce the images included in this article. 1 Two scholars who have addressed this manuscript's decorated initials are Sister Eleanore Michel and Roger M. Walker. Due to her edition's limited scope, Michel's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "Vidas de SardaMaríaMadalenay SantaMarta":An Edition ofthe Old Spanish Text (1930), discusses only those decorations in the first folios ofthe manuscript, the first two legends in the codex (xciv-xcvi). Walker, in£/ cavallero Plácidas (MS Esc. h-I-13) (1982), observes that decorated initials mark the beginning ofeach legend in the codex (vii). La corónica 35.1 (Fall, 2006): 249-70 250 John K. Moore, Jr. and Thomas SpaccarelliLa corónica 35.1, 2006 conventionally known as one of several Flores Sanctorum and more recendy christened the Libro de los huéspedes (LH).2 The LH contains nine Castilian translations of French legends: miracles on Santa Maria Madalena, Santa Marta, and Santa María Egipciaca; martyrdoms on Santa Catalina de Alexandria and San Eustacio; and romances on Guillelme, Florencia de Roma, an unnamed empress of Rome,3 and Sevilla, the wife of Carlos Maynes.4 The manuscript was considered a miscellany ofunrelated stories until 1982, whenJohn Maier andThomas Spaccarelli demonstrated die interrelatedness ofdie codex's narratives. Scholars, most recendy Emily Francomano ('"Lady"' and "Manuscript Matrix"), now agree that the legends in the LH were carefully chosen and purposefully sequenced.5 In terms of structure, the codex's narratives are ordered from the time and place of Christ to the reign of Charlemagne (Carlos Maynes) in medieval France, a trajectory that continually arcs toward the present moment and location of die LH's audience (Spaccarelli 23, 41); furthermore, narrative patterns, plots, and character types reappear throughout the codex to create a coherent body of texts (Francomano, '"Lady"' 138). An examination of the decorations and illustrations in the LH and their relationship to its - InA MedievalPilgrim's Companion, Reassessing El libro de los huéspedes (EscorialMS h.1.13), Thomas Spaccarelli bestows this title upon the codex due to the importance of hospitality and the guest/host relationship. We use his designation because it also conveys that the manuscriptwas organized as awhole and indicates its associationwithpilgrimage and pilgrims, male and female alike. 3 This figure is the same as the protagonist ofGautier de Coincy's "The Empress of Rome" in his Miracles de Nostre Dame. For an analysis ofthis narrative in relation to the decorative elements that accompany it, see Nancy B. Black. 4 In the same orderjust listed, the rubrics ofthe manuscript title the legends: "De sareta Mana Madalena" (MariaMadalena: fols. lra-2vb); "Commo santa. Marta partió lo que auja [en] seruiçio de Dios" (Santa Maria: fols. 3ra-7rb); "Aqwi comjença la estoria de santa Maria egiçiaca" (Maria Egiçiaca: fols. 7rll-14va...