WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

The tropic devices of the speculum help highlight the letter’s un-timeliness because, by
tradition, specula were directed not to a rex but to a princeps, to a youth still in the process of
education. As Giles of Rome wrote in the speculum translated by Fray Juan García de Castrojeriz
for a young Pedro, kings had to be educated in their infancy because “en esta edad de la ninnez
toman los ommes para en su vida cuáles han de ser, buenos o malos, ca si buenas costumbres
tomaren serán siempre buenos, e si malas, serán siempre malos” ‘in this age of childhood, men
take what they will be in their life, good or evil; that if they take good customs, they will always
be good, and if they take bad ones, they will always be evil.’ 316 The narrative itself intensifies the
sense of un-timeliness in the way it introduces Benaharin’s advice: Pedro does not ask for help,
and if his news of the battle to the Moor had implicitly required it, Benaharin’s letter is a product
of the mistiming of the monarch who sent his letters of joy to the wise man at a time in which he
could not personally come to counsel him.
The idea of missed time even suffuses the main analogy which Benaharin’s speculum
uses to differentiate legitimate sovereignty from illegitimate tyranny, a short exemplary fable in
which Benaharin likens a king to a shepherd:
316 Garcia Castrojeriz 2.147.
E la manera del rey con sus gentes es semejada al pastor con su ganado. Sabida cosa es el uso del
pastor con su ganado, la grannd piedad que ha en el que anda a buscar la major agua e el buen
pasto, e la grannd guarda de los contrarios, assi commo los lobos, trasquilar la lana desque apega,
e ordenan la leche en manera que non faga danno a la vbre, nin apesgue sus carnes, nin fanbriente
sus fijos. E dixo un omne a su vezino: Fulano, tu cordero leuo un lobo, e eche en pos el, e
tomegelo. E dixole: Que es del, o do esta? E dixole: Degollelo e comilo. E dixole: Tu e el lobo vno
sodes. E si el pastor usa desta guisa con el ganado, e lieva mala vida o se dexa de seer pastor,
quanto mas deue seer el rey con los sus subditos e naturales?
And the manner of the king with his peoples is similar to the shepherd with his flock. A wise thing
is the use of the shepherd with his flock, the great piety which he has in that he goes to seek the
best water and the good grass, and the great care against those contrary to it—like the wolves—to
take away the fleece once it starts clumping, and to milk them so that their udders will not hurt,
nor damage their flesh, nor make their children hungry. And a man said to his neighbor: Neighbor,
a wolf took your lamb, and I went after him, and I took him. And the other said: What happened to
[the lamb], or where is it? And he said: I killed him and ate him. And the other said: You and the
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