The Medieval Fate of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Iberian Politics Meets Song

Abstract

This article reviews the evidence for the medieval performance of the Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM) and discusses King Alfonso's intentions for the work, including the intended audience. The CSM were conceived as an ambitious cultural enterprise with both religious and political objectives, but were doomed to failure by the steep political decline of their creator. The only surviving evidence for the CSM's presence in any court outside Alfonso's is the Barbieri MS, an eighteenth-century descendant of a lost original, plausibly transmitted to the Portuguese court before 1270. Other traces of performative use are rubrics and marginal notes in an appendix to manuscript To and their corresponding reworking in manuscript E, which point to short-lived ritual use. Internal iconographical, literary, and compositional evidence suggests that Alfonso did intend the CSM to circulate among a broad range of social classes. He manipulated poetic and metrical forms from the troubadour tradition to highlight the dignity of the Virgin Mary, but he privileged forms directly inspired by the Andalusian zajal familiar to popular audiences and among the minstrels, to encourage the penetration of his songs beyond his courtly circle. The CSM were meant to consolidate Christian restoration in the recently conquered southern territories, but also to serve as personal and dynastic propaganda, asserting their author's royal supremacy over Castilian lords, his preeminence among Iberian kings, and his status as the Christian monarch most worthy of the office of Holy Roman emperor.

Work and Workers in Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria

“…As argued by Manuel Pedro Ferreira, "in Alfonso's imagination the CSM could reach the highest and lowest members of Castilian society, in some instances serving as a catalyst to the mingling of classes that medieval society tended to keep apart." [65] The popular form of the miracle songs mirrors Alfonso's aim to achieve a stable society in which each person, regardless of high or low estate, plays an integral part and performs "functions essential to the well-being of the whole." [66] The English philosopher, John of Salisbury (1115/20 -1180), used the image of the human body to describe an ideal society, a metaphor that was often repeated and occurs in the legislative works commissioned by Alfonso X.…”

Pensar el Códice de Florencia de las Cantigas de Santa María. Algunas valoraciones sobre su construcción y deconstrucción

“…De estos tres manuscritos, tan solo el Códice Rico pudo haber sido incorporado a un cierto uso de carácter performativo en ese contexto cortesano, puede que el Códice de los músicos en los últimos momentos de la vida del monarca. No obstante no debemos olvidar que previamente a los códices historiados al menos existió otro manuscrito que en 1276 estaba ya finalizado, tal y como relata la cantiga 95 de F (E209), códice que se podría identificar con el libro que sirvió como modelo a To (o para algunos autores con To); por otra parte existen referencias documentales de la difusión de algunas cantigas en Portugal (Ferreira, 2016), y lo cierto es que desconocemos si previamente a los códices historiados y al Códice de los músicos, existieron otros manuscritos de los que hemos perdido su huella, por lo que independientemente de la factura tardía de dichos libros, las Cantigas de Santa María como producto poético y musical debieron estar presentes en mayor o menor medida en el ambiente de la corte, y probablemente en algunos de los santuarios referenciados en el cancionero. No obstante, tal y como ha sido señalado por Kirstin Kennedy (2004, p. 211), el hecho de que el monarca no dotara de recursos a los lugares en los que tendrían que haberse interpretado las Cantigas no favoreció su incorporación a contextos ceremoniales, más allá de una posible interpretación de las cantigas dedicadas a las fiestas de María en el contexto de la Capilla Real en Sevilla (Ferreira, 2016, pp.…”