Juan Ruiz (), known as the

Archpriest The ecclesiastical title of archpriest or archpresbyter belongs to certain priests with supervisory duties over a number of parishes. The term is most often used in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches and may be somewhat analogous ...

of Hita (''Arcipreste de Hita''), was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Castilian poet. He is best known for his ribald, earthy

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meaning ...

, ''Libro de buen amor'' ('' The Book of Good Love'').

Biography

Origins

He was born in

Alcalá de Henares Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated municipality ...

. Little is known about him today, save that he was a

cleric Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

and probably studied in Toledo. Though his birth name is known to be Juan Ruiz, he is widely referred to by his title of "archpriest of Hita."

Imprisonment

According to his own book, he was imprisoned for years, thought to be between 1337 and 1350, as punishment for some of his deeds (if the poem is any guide, they were quite inconsistent with his position as

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

). However, the poem has long been considered as pseudo-

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

and the verses that mention his imprisonment appear at the end of the book and are generally thought to have been added after the fact. One of his poems states that he was imprisoned on the order of Gil Albornoz, the

Archbishop of Toledo This is a list of Bishops and Archbishops of Toledo ( la, Archidioecesis Metropolitae Toletana).

. It is not known whether he was sentenced for his irregularities of conduct, or on account of his satirical reflections on his ecclesiastical superiors. Nor is it possible to fix the precise date of his imprisonment. Albornoz nominally occupied the see of Toledo from 1337 to 1368, but he fell into disgrace in 1351 and fled to

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label= Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the commune had ...

. A consideration of these circumstances points to the probable conclusion that Ruiz was in prison from 1337 to 1350, but this is conjecture. What seems established is that he finished the ''Libro de buen amor'' in 1343. Indeed, almost nothing is known about the author(s) of the poem or if he was even named Juan Ruiz. One scholarly study found hundreds of clerics in mid-fourteenth-century Castile named Juan Ruiz.Henry Ansgar Kelly, “A Juan Ruiz Directory for 1380-1382,” Mester 16:2 (Fall 1988) 69-93; Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Juan Ruiz and Archpriests: Novel Reports,” La Coronica 16:2 (Spring 1988) 32-54. The name appears to be the equivalent of John Smith and may have been chosen to represent the everyman.

Death

It has been estimated that he died around 1350 (presumably in prison); by 1351, he no longer held the title of archpriest of Hita.

The Book of Good Love

''Libro de Buen Amor'' (''Book of Good Love'') is a massive and episodic work that combines poems to Jesus and Mary; Ruiz's unrequited love, and fables. The poem itself is 1,728

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...

s long. The breadth of the writer's scope, and the exuberance of his style have caused some to term him "the Castilian

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

." Speculation regarding whether or not the book was actually an autobiography is incessant. His language is characterized by its richness and its sermon-like tendency to repeat the same concept in several different ways. Noted for being very creative and alive, his work utilizes colloquial, popular vocabulary. His natural gifts were supplemented by his varied culture; he clearly had a considerable knowledge of the colloquial (and perhaps also of literary)

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

widely spoken in the Spain of his time; his classical reading was apparently not extensive, but he knew by heart the ''Disticha'' of

Dionysius Cato The ''Distichs of Cato'' ( Latin: ''Catonis Disticha'', most famously known simply as Cato), is a Latin collection of proverbial wisdom and morality by an unknown author from the 3rd or 4th century AD. The ''Cato'' was the most popular medieval ...

, and admits his indebtedness to

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

and to the ''De Amore'' ascribed to Pamphilus; his references to

Blanchefleur Blanchefleur ("white flower", also ''Blanziflor, Flanziflor'', cy, Blodyngwyn) is a female given name popular in the High Middle Ages. Fictional characters with the name include: *The mother of Sir Tristan, sister of King Mark and wife of Lord ...

, to

Tristan Tristan ( Latin/Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...

and to Yseult, indicate an acquaintance with French literature, and he utilizes the ''

fabliau A ''fabliau'' (; plural ''fabliaux'') is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes ...

x'' with remarkable deftness; lastly, he adapts fables and apologues from

Aesop Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales c ...

, from

Pedro Alfonso ''Pulcher ut Absalon, virtute potens quasi Sanson, instructisque bonis, documenta tenet Salomonis''. " edrois handsome as Absalom, as strong as Samson, and he possesses the wisdom of Solomon." —'' Poema de Almería'', ...

's ''Disciplina clericalis'', and from medieval

bestiaries A bestiary (from ''bestiarum vocabulum'') is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history ...

. All these heterogeneous materials are fused in the substance of his versified autobiography, into which he intercalates devout songs, parodies of epic or forensic formulae, and lyrical digressions on every aspect of life. He shows a profound knowledge of human emotion and is able to strike a balance between gentleness and brazenness in his shrewd and frequently ironic writing. Ruiz, in fact, offers a complete picture of picaresque society in the most complex and rich cultural geography of Europe during the first half of the 14th century, and his impartial irony lends a deeper tone to his rich coloring. He knows the weaknesses of both clergy and laity, and he dwells with equal complacency on the amorous adventures of great ladies, on the perverse intrigues arranged by demure nuns behind their convent walls, and on the simpler instinctive animalism of country lasses and Moorish dancing-girls. In addition to the faculty of genial observation Ruiz has the gift of creating characters and presenting types of human nature: from his Don Furón is derived the hungry gentleman in ''Lazarillo de Tormes'', in Don Melón and Doña Endrina he anticipates Calisto and Melibea in the ''

Celestina Celestina may refer to: In arts and entertainment: *''La Celestina'', a 15th-century Spanish novel *Celestina (novel), ''Celestina'' (novel), an 18th-century English work by poet Charlotte Turner Smith *''La Celestina'', Spanish title of ''The Want ...

'', and Celestina herself is developed from the Trotaconventos of Ruiz. Moreover, Ruiz was justly proud of his metrical innovations: the ''Libro de buen amor'' is mainly written in the ''cuaderna via'' modelled on the

French alexandrine The French alexandrine (french: alexandrin) is a syllabic poetic metre of (nominally and typically) 12 syllables with a medial caesura dividing the line into two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each. It was the dominant long line of Fren ...

, but he imparts to the measure a variety and rapidity previously unknown in Castilian, and he experiments by introducing internal rhymes or by shortening the fourth line into an octosyllabic verse; or he boldly recasts the form of the stanza, extending it to six or seven lines with alternate verses of eight and five syllables. But his technical skill never sinks to triviality. All his writing bears the stamp of a unique personality, and, if he never attempts a sublime flight, he conveys with contagious force his enthusiasm for life under any conditions — in town, country, vagabondage or gaol. Johan Ruys (original spelling), arcipreste de la Hita, was imprisoned by the Inquisition for a few years due to his one-sided love affair with a lady of the nobility. In our modern society, he would have been charged with "harassment". He is said to have died 7 or 8 years after his release from the Inquisition's holding facility. There are today three manuscripts of the ''Libro de Buen Amor''. The

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...

version, denoted S, resides in Madrid's Biblioteca Real and is considered the best of the three codices. The other two are the Academia Española version, known as Gayoso (G), and the Toledo (T) manuscript.

Legacy

Ruiz's influence is visible in ''El Corbacho'', the work of another jovial goliard, Alphonso Martinez de Toledo, arch-priest of Talavera, who wrote more than half a century before the ''Libro'' ''de buen amor'' was imitated by the author of the ''Celestina''. Ruiz is mentioned with respect by Santillana, and that his reputation extended beyond Spain is proved by the surviving fragments of a Portuguese version of the ''Libro de buen amor''. By some strange accident he was neglected, and apparently forgotten, until 1790, when an expurgated edition of his poems was published by Tomás Antonio Sanchez; from that date his fame has steadily increased, and by the unanimous verdict of all competent judges he is now ranked as the greatest Castilian poet of his century. Paul Heyse (18301914) published a translation into German of a poem by Ruiz in the 1852 collection '' Spanisches Liederbuch'' (Spanish Songbook), with the first line "''Nun bin ich dein, du aller Blumen Blume''". The translation was set to music for voice and piano by

Hugo Wolf Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf (13 March 1860 – 22 February 1903) was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Ro ...

(18601903), and published in his 1891

Lieder In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French s ...

collection also called '' Spanisches Liederbuch''.

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruiz, Juan 14th-century Castilian Roman Catholic priests 14th-century Spanish poets 1283 births 1350 deaths