WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

literary masterpiece, a manual of advice entitled Leal Conselheiro. It is in turning to the
Conselheiro’s description of metaphors and authority that we can understand the literary
undertones and the ideological effectiveness of the beginning of Duarte’s letter to Eugene:
Fiz traladar em el algũus certos capitolos doutros livros, por me parecer que faziam declaraçom e
ajuda no que screvia. E no compeço d’eles se demostra donde cada ũu é tirado, filhado emesto
exemplo daquel autor do Livro do Amante que certas estorias em el screveo de que se filham
grandes boos conselhos avisamentos. E conhecendo meu saber pera eto nom suficiente nom hei
por empacho seer ajuda de taes ditos e seerem assi compridamente aqui traladados, posto que o
seu mui boo e fremoso razoar no per mim scripto faça grande abatimento, porque mais quero
aproveitar aos que ovirem, ca encobrir esta minguada maneira de meu screver.
And I made translate in [the Leal Conselheiro] some certain chapters of other books because it
appeared to me that they declared or aided something of what I wrote. And in the beginning of
these citations, it is shown from which source each one was taken, paying close attention to follow
the example of the author of the Book of the Lover [Confessio Amantis] which certain stories he
wrote in it that affix very good counsels and advices. And knowing that my own knowledge for
this is not sufficient, I do not hold it as a fault to be helped of such sayings. And they will be here
appropriately translated because I wish more to profit those that hear them than hide this lesser
manner of my writing since the very good and beautiful way of thinking, which is not written by
me, would make great cause for concern. 13
Literary authority, as Duarte describes it in his Leal Conselheiro, is a means of manipulating
what one says for the good of one’s listeners. Taking his cue from John Gower’s “Book of the
Lover” or Confessio Amantis, 14 Duarte understands the need to cite sources explicitly—to make
his reader turn to textual authority—as an important part of literary narration because it allows
the reader to “aproveitar” ‘profit’ from the work and not because it exculpates the writer’s
purpose. The king sees a profit in having the reader understand the literary exercise of authority
because he values the act of writing itself and not simply the conveyance of meaning.
Duarte, of course, tells us only a half-truth in saying that he will carefully reveal the
textual traditions of the “boos exemplos” ‘good exempla’ of his work. Just like his source
Gower’s Confessio, his Leal Conselheiro does not explicitly cite all of its major influences. Still,
13
Dom Duarte, Leal Conselheiro, ed. Maria Helena Lopes de Castro (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda,
1999) 12.
14
It has long been clear that Duarte’s reference to “do Amante” refers to the Confessio. See Bernardo Santano-
Moreno Bernardo, “The Fifteenth-Century Portuguese and Castilian Translations of John Gower, ‘Confessio
Amantis,’” Manuscripta, 35 (1991): 23, 29.
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