Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 02-11-08
Leonor Lopez de
Cordoba /Cordova (1362/3-aft.1414)
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"ALL THAT IS WRITTEN HERE IS TRUE, FOR I SAW IT AND IT HAPPENED
TO ME."
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Leonor's father, Martin Lopez de Cordoba (Cordova), was a highly placed courtier and soldier of the king of Castile, Pedro I; her mother was Pedro's kinswoman. After her mother's death, Leonor was married at the age of seven to a distant member of the royal family. In the same year, Pedro I was murdered by his half-brother, who assumed the throne as Enrique II. For almost two years Leonor's father was able to protect his family in a fortified town, but in 1371, he surrendered to Enrique under a promise of safe-conduct out of the country. Instead of being allowed to leave, however, Martin was executed, and the rest of the family --- including Leonor, her husband, and her brothers and sisters --- were imprisoned at Seville for nine years.
In 1379, Enrique II died, and Leonor and her husband, the only survivors of the imprisonment, were released. Leonor describes her imprisonment and the 20 years that followed in Memorias, which she began twelve years after the last incident of her story.
The work we have may be incomplete: the narrative ends in 1400, but Leonor's life continued to be eventful. In the years after 1403, she was at the court of Enrique III and his queen Catalina de Lancaster. Enrique III was ill, and Catalina (granddaughter of Pedro I and sister of King Henry IV of England) was a powerful figure. Leonor became the queen's camerera mayor, her chief attendant. When the king died in 1406 and was succeeded by infant son, Juan II, Catalina's power increased and, for a few years, Leonor was seen be her contemporaries as the power behind the throne. The chronicler of Juan III's reign wrote of Leonor that "Catalina trusted her so much, and loved her in such a way, that nothing was done without her advice. And if something was determined by the Council,... if she disagreed, no other thing was done but what she wanted" (quoted by Estow, 1982, p.35).
Eventually, however, Leonor became involved in a political quarrel between Queen Catalina and the queen's brother-in-law and co-regent. So, by 1412 Leonor had been banished from court, and was living again in Cordoba, and beginning to write her story.
Memorias is ostensibly a memorial to the help Leonor had been given by Mary, the mother of Jesus, but it appears to be quite as much a tribute to Leonor's own ability to climb back from the poverty that followed imprisonment to the position she believed was her right by birth. To a modern reader, Leonor may not appear an attractive personality: her years of suffering and loss often seem to have made her oblivious to the feelings of others and concerned only with self-justification.
However one responds to Leonor, the story she tells of her survival and efforts to regain her position is --- as she intended --- memorable.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from a translation in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. At Wikipedia, an entry on Leonor's life and writing.
2. At a Spanish-language site, after a biography and a bibliography of editions, translations and studies (through 2005), the end of Memorias, on the death and burial of Leonor's son and her forced departure from her cousin's home (for part of this in English, see below, under "In print").
3. An annotated list of named characters to be found in Memorias, compiled by Leonor Martin.
4. Lecture notes by Dawn Bratsch-Prince (most in Spanish, but with one comment in English quoted from Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux) on Memorias' organization and style.
5. In Spanish:
(a) A biography of Leonor by Blas Sanchez Duenas.
(b) A 1990 two-part essay by Maria Milagros Rivera, "Leonor Lopez de Cordoba: la autorrepresentacion."
6. A review by Alison Taufer of Louise Mirrer's 1996 study, Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile (for information on the book's treatment of Leonor, see "Secondary sources").
7. For historical background:
(a) The opening paragraphs of Henry Charles Lea's 1906-07 study, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, describe the political situation during Leonor's lifetime.
(b) Use your browser's search function to go to "Catalina" for a brief account of Queen Catalina de Lancaster, whom Leonor served in the early 1400s.
(c) In this chapter from John Edward Longhurst's 1962 The Age of Torquemada, go to "Catalina" for a few paragraphs on the queen's (and probably Leonor's) attitude toward Jews who declined to be converted.
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[This study /anthology contains an essay by Amy Katz Kaminsky and Elaine Dorough Johnson, "To Restore Honor and Fortune: 'The Autobiography of Leonor Lopez de Cordoba,'" which is followed by their translation of all of Memorias. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The Female autograph: theory and practice of autobiography
from the tenth to the twentieth century / edited by Domna C.
Stanton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, c1984. (xi,
244 p.: ill.)
LC#: CT25 .F45 1987; ISBN: 0226771210, 0226771202
Bibliography: p. 237-241.
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"...the tale of my deeds and miracles that the Holy Virgin
Mary showed me."
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[The opening, after the invocation of the Trinity and the Virgin Mary:]
Therefore, know all who see this document, how I Dona Leonor Lopez de Cordoba..., swear by this sign [the cross] which I worship, that all that is written here is true, for I saw it and it happened to me, and I write it to the honor and glory of my Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Virgin Mary his mother who bore him so that all creatures who suffered might be certain that I believe in her mercy, that if they commend themselves from the heart to the Holy Virgin Mary she will console and succor them as she consoled me.
And so that whoever might hear it know the tale of my deeds and miracles that the Holy Virgin Mary showed me, it is my intention that it be left as a record. I ordered it written as you see before you. [p.73]
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"...a chain on top of the irons, in which there were seventy
links."
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[Two years after her marriage, all of her family (except her father, who was executed) were imprisoned. One can envision the child Leonor counting the links in her brother's chain:]
The rest of us were kept prisoner for nine years.... Our husbands had sixty pounds of iron each on their feet, and my brother Don Lope Lopez had a chain on top of the irons, in which there were seventy links. He was a child of thirteen years [when he died], the most beautiful creature there was in the world.
And they singled out my husband to be put in the hunger tank, where they held him for six or seven days without food or drink, because he was a cousin of the lady princesses, daughters of Lord King Don Pedro. [p.75]
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"They took him out on a plank to the ironsmith's like a
slave."
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[When Leonor was 12, many of the prisoners died of the plague. A noble prisoner was normally allowed to die unemcumbered, rather than in shackles:]
At this juncture a plague came, and my two brothers, my brother-in-law, and thirteen knights of the house of my father all died.... And they took them all out to the ironsmith's like slaves to remove their irons.
After they were dead my sad little brother Don Lope Lopez asked the jailer who held us...: "Sir jailer, be so kind as to strike these irons from me before my soul departs, and do not let them take me out to the ironsmith's."
He answered him as if he were speaking to a slave, "If it were up to me I would do it," and at that moment his soul departed in my hands.
He was but one year older than I, and they took him out on a plank to the ironsmith's like a slave, and they buried him with my brothers and with my sisters and with my brothers-in-law in San Francisco of Seville....
And no one from my lord the Grand Master's house remained in the arsenal but my husband and me. [pp.75-76]
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"You well know how rights depend on the station you have."
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[Five years later, when the king who had imprisoned her family died, the 17-year-old Leonor and her husband were released --- destitute and reliant on Leonor's relatives for charity. For seven years her husband traveled throughout Spain trying to regain his property and his position, but he was not successful:]
And I stayed at the home of my lady aunt Maria Garcia Carrillo [in Cordoba], and my husband went to reclaim his property and those who held it esteemed him little, because he had no rank nor means to claim it, and you well know how rights depend on the station you have on which to base a claim.
And thus was my husband lost, and he wandered seven years through the world, a wretched man, and never did he find a relative or friend who did him a good turn or had pity on him.
And at the end of seven years, they told my husband... that my relatives had done me much kindness. He rode on his mule, which was worth very little money, and what he wore was not worth thirty maravedis. And he came through the door of my lady and aunt. [p.76]
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"With the help of my lady aunt and the labor of my hands...."
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[Those last sentences may suggest what joy Leonor felt in being reunited with her husband; Memorias never mentions him again. From this point Leonor turns to the Virgin Mary to help her regain her wealth and position; she provides the reader with appropriate prayers to accomplish the same. During this time of re-building, a servant who has opposed her dies, which seems to have pleased her. Later, Leonor performs an "act of charity" by raising as Christian an orphaned Jewish boy (probably orphaned by the first major pogrom in 1391 or by one of those that followed):]
I believe that for the charitable act I performed in raising that orphan in the faith of Jesus Christ, God helped me in giving me the beginning of a house....
At this time, it pleased God that with the help of my lady
aunt and the labor of my hands I built in that courtyard two
palaces and a garden and another two or three houses for the
servants. [p.78]
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"I did not know why."
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[After some years of security, plague sends Leonor and her children out of Cordoba in 1400. Inadvertently she brings the plague into the family with whom she is staying; because of this, a number of people die, including Leonor's son. Caught up in her own grief, Leonor seems unable to understand her hostess' fear:]
And Dona Teresa... became very angry that my son was dying for that reason in her house, and with death in his mouth, she ordered him to be taken out.
And I was so wrought with anguish that I could not speak for the shame that those noble people made me bear....
But Dona Teresa had designs against me, and I did not know why. [p.80]
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[This anthology also includes Kaminsky and Johnson's translation of Memorias (here called Autobiografia. The introduction is less detailed than in The Female Autograph (above), but the original Spanish is given in parallel columns with the translation. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Water lilies = Flores del agua: an anthology of Spanish women
writers from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century / Amy
Katz Kaminsky, editor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
c1996. (xix, 494 p.; 26 cm)
LC#:PQ6173 .W38 1996; ISBN: 0816619441, 0816619468
Spanish and English. Includes bibliographical references (p.
493-494)
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[An alternative translation of Memorias, by Kathleen Lacey, is contained in this anthology. There are no notes to the translation, but Elizabeth Alvida Petroff give a brief introduction:]
Medieval women's visionary literature / [edited by] Elizabeth
Alvilda Petroff. New York : Oxford University Press, 1986. (xii,
402 p.)
LC#: BR53 .M4 1986; ISBN: 0195037111, 019503712X
Bibliography: p. 373-391.
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[Lacey's translation of Memorias --- minus the opening invocation --- can also be found in this collection, with a brief introduction by the editor. A nice touch in this book is a table of contents according to subject; see "Women, Marriage, and Family" on pp. xxi-xxii for documents reflecting women's lives in Iberia from 500 to 1500. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Medieval Iberia: readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish
sources / edited by Olivia Remie Constable (Middle Ages series).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c1997. (xxvii,
426 p.: ill. maps)
LC#: DP97.4 .M43 1997; ISBN: 0812233336, 0812215699
Includes bibliographical references (p. [403]-408) and index
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[This collection of essays includes Gregory S. Hutcheson's
"Leonor Lopez de Cordoba and the Configuration of Female-Female
Desire," which discusses Leonor's relationship with women,
both those described in Memorias and those with Catalina
de Lancaster in the years after 1400. Hutcheson's notes describe
relevant earlier studies. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Same sex love and desire among women in the Middle Ages /edited
by Francesca Canade Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn (The new Middle
Ages). New York: Palgrave, 2001. (vi, 312 p.: ill.)
LC#: HQ75.5 .S25 2001; ISBN: 0312210566, 0333915399
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[Clara Estow's essay in this collection. "Leonor Lopez de Cordoba, A Case for Writing Women," summarizes earlier studies of Memorias (including Spanish-language studies) and discusses what is revealed about Leonor by her life at court as well as by her written work. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Models in medieval Iberian literature and their modern reflections:
convivencia as structural, cultural and sexual ideal / edited
by Judy B. McInnis (Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic monographs). Newark,
Del.: Juan de la Cuesta, c2002. (lvii, 377 p.)
LC#: PQ6039 .M56 2002; ISBN: 1588710092
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[Estow's earlier article gives a detailed account of how the Castilian nobility and chroniclers of the period saw Leonor when she was advisor to the queen. Estow gives her translations and the originals of the documents she uese:]
Estow, Clara. Leonor Lopez de Cordoba: Portrait of a medieval
courtier. Fifteenth Century Studies, 5 (1982), 23-46.
LC#: CB367 .F53; ISSN: 0164-0933
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[One chapter of Louise Mirrer's study is "Leonor Lopez
de Cordoba and the Poetics of Women's Autobiography," in
which the author discusses Lopez de Cordoba's use of language
and her creation of a "female space":]
Mirrer, Louise. Women, Jews, and Muslims in the texts of reconquest
Castile (Studies in medieval and early modern civilization).
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1996. (x, 190 p., [6]
p. of plates: ill., maps).
LC#: PQ6060 .M57 1996; ISBN: 0472107232
Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-186) and index
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[This collection contains an essay by Alan Deyermond, "Spain's First Women Writers," which discusses Memorias, and gives the original and translation of several passages:]
Women in Hispanic literature: icons and fallen idols / edited
by Beth Miller. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1983.
(viii, 373 p.)
LC#: PQ6048.W6 W65 1983; ISBN: 0520042913, 0520043677
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[Theresa Ann Sears' 6-page entry on Leonor in this reference
book discusses her life and the themes of family honor, loyalty,
and treachery to be found in Memorias. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Spanish Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book. Edited
by Linda Gould Levine, Ellen Engelson Marson, and Gloria Feiman
Waldman. Greenwood Press. Westport, Conn. 1993. (632 p)
LC#PQ6055 .S63 1993; ISBN 0313268231.
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Updated 02-11-08