WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

continue his alliance with the Muslims as it is a gift of God and bane against his enemies,
suggesting that Mustlims are necessary to the welfare of the Castilian State. 314 Further,
Benaharin blames the nobles themselves with the same rhetoric they used against Pedro:
bien sabedes que los christianos fizieron contra vos vergonnosa cosa que sea suma obra de dezir e
fazer, en guisa que non se puedan lauar, sy non despues de grand tienpo, e non la ouieron de fazer
por mengua de vuestra fidalguia, nin por vos non seer pertenesçiente a sennorio real…se catan e se
veen por pecadores non por manera de los penitençiar, ca non pueden seer conosçidos los del
vuestro estado real syn ellos, pues sennor obrad contra ellos el reues de las maneras por que vos
aborresçieron.
You know well that the Christians did a shameful deed against you, that would be grave thing to
say and do, in a way that cannot be washed, if not after the passage of great time, and they did not
do it because of a lack of your honor, nor because kingly lordship did not belong to you…they
now know and see themselves as sinners, not in order to punish them, because the nobles of your
household cannot be known without them, therefore, Lord act to them in an opposite manner of
how they have detested you. 315
In this “good” and “true” advice, Benaharin explicitly turns Enrique’s attack against Pedro. He
links infidelity with tyranny against the Trastamaran cause: “fizieron contra vos vergonnosa cosa
que sea suma obra de dezir e fazer” ‘they did against you a shameful thing that would be the
worst thing to say and do.’ This judgment may seem ironic in Benaharin’s mouth, but his
arguments against the legal basis of the nobles’ attack (that there was nothing in Pedro’s royal
character or management of the realm that merited the uprising), coupled with the moral and
theoretical exempla he puts forth regarding governance, make a solid case why in betraying
Pedro the Trastamaran nobles should “se veen por pecadores” ‘see themselves as sinners.’
However, the wide dissemination of Ayala’s Corónicas in Trastamaran Castile means
that Benaharin’s role as an infidel wise man was not inimical to the interests of Enrique’s
successors. Therefore, the letter’s origin from a Muslim wise man has more to do with a common
way of supporting a tradition of wisdom literature than with attempting to convince the reader of
314 “Sabed que el que oy demandere pelea con vos, veyendo vuestra bien querençia con los moros, vuestros vezinos,
e auiendo quanta gente e noble tenedes, sería vençido con ayuda de Dios…Pues agradesçed a Dios por ello e
guardad esta cosa e esta grand amistad.” ‘And know that whoever today would ask to fight you, seeing your good
friendship with the Moors, your neighbors, and having so many people and noble that you have, would be conquered
with the help of God…Therefore, thank God for that and keep this thing and this great friendship’ (Ibid).
315 Ibid. 176.
187