Poema de Fernán González
Spain's Christian Hero in Castilian History
The daring exploits, great battles, and good works of Count Fernán González, the tenth-century founder of Castile, provide the basis for the long poem bearing the hero’s name. After the Poema de Mio Cid, the Poema de Fernán González is one of Spain’s great chivalric tales.
The Poem’s Form and Origins
It consists of 701 stanzas of cuaderna vía composed by a monk of San Pedro de Arlanza in the mid-thirteenth century. Based on a lost epic known as the Cantar de Fernán González, the extant manuscript is incomplete, so the reader must resort to the prose version found in the Primera Crónica General in order to follow the action of the story to its end.
Highlights of the Poema de Fernán González include a battle, an escape, and a ruse:
The Battle of Hacinas
The battle of Hacinas covers stanzas 429-460. Here, the struggle between the Castilians and the Muslims is represented as a conflict between the demonic and the divine as much as a contest of earthly powers. On the eve of the fight an enormous red serpent appears in the sky, terrifying the Christian combatants.
Just as his forces are on the verge of defeat and collapse, Count Fernán González prays, promising that he will never give in and that his faithful vassals will not have died in vain. At this point, St. James miraculously appears at the head of a heavenly army and sweeps the Muslims before him.
Imprisonment and Escape
The imprisonment and escape episode appears in stanzas 588-690. The king of Navarra entraps Fernán González by promising his daughter’s hand in marriage. At Cirueña, however, the king captures the count and imprisons him at Castroviejo, which is near Nájera.
The princess, nevertheless, meets him in prison. They agree to marry, she frees him, and they escape together, journeying westward as far as Beldorado where they converge with Fernán González’s Castilian vassals who have arrived via Arlanzón and Montes de Oca. The count and his future wife accompany his loyalists in triumph to Burgos.
The Ruse & the Liberation of Castile
The swindle that the count uses to acquire the independence of Castile from the king of León does not appear in the verse version of the Poema de Fernán González, but rather in the prose version in the Primera Crónica.
The count enters the king’s court on a magnificent horse and carrying a hunting hawk, both of which capture the king’s attention.
The king offers to buy the splendid animals on credit with the condition that the amount will double every day the debt remains unpaid. Before too long the obligation is beyond the means of even a king, so he grants Castile its freedom in exchange.
The Historical Hero of Spain
Just as Count Fernán González was an authentic person, the landscape where his adventures unfolded is real and accessible. A modern traveler may still trace his route, which runs parallel to the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.
Specific places the contemporary visitor may find interesting include: Cirueña, Nájera, Beldorado, Arlanzón, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Nájera, Beldorado, Villafranca-Montes de Oca, León, and Burgos. A pilgrim on the road to Santiago, especially, could enrich the journey with side trips to these areas.
Source:
The Sacred Face of War: Irredentist Ideology in Early Spanish Literature by Taran C. Johnston, Ph.D. (UMI 2004)
Iberian Peninsula in 1037
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