Arturo Jiménez Moreno

This work compiles, organizes and analyzes all the academic production that deals with the relationship of peninsular women with written culture around the end of the Middle Ages to show that the incorporation of women from the different peninsular kingdoms to the reading public occurred throughout the 15th century.
More than 250 women from Aragon, Castile and Portugal are shown, who can be related to written culture and who, to a greater or lesser extent, enjoyed sufficient capacity to read liturgical pieces, treatises, poetic compositions, entertainment works, letters, account or memory books. Along with the analysis of each of these women linked to written culture, a study is provided that outlines the fundamental lines of this approach of peninsular women to reading in the century that marks the transition from the Middle Ages to the 16th century.

This work starts from the mutual influence exerted by the authors of the literature in the vernacular - especially religious - and a women reading public, which is accelerating its emergence in the different kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula throughout the 15th century. In the absence of a joint study of wowen’s reading in the peninsular area, three cases are proposed of how a certain woman, a group of women or a group of women and men as readers and addressees of a work can determine its own gestation, the choice of content or the adoption of a certain style by its authors. Based on this approach, the objective of the work is to reveal the identity of the adressee and author of the treatise titled Vençimiento del mundo, which until now had not been found despite the fact that their names appear in the heading of the only surviving manuscript copy. Thus, the proposed addressee es Doña Leonor Ayala, who was one of the daughters of the 1st Count of Fuensalida, Pedro López de Ayala II, and María de Silva. And Alfonso Núñez, dean of the Collegiate Church of Talavera de la Reina, who served as Provisor and Vicar General with the Bishop of Zamora, also from Talavera, Juan de Meneses, is proposed as a possible author. Finally, the interaction between author and reader in el Vençimiento takes shape in Alfonso Núñez's attempt to legitimise the reign of Isabel of Castile before the representative of one of the most powerful families in Toledo, who was opposed to the monarchy.

El trabajo trata de demostrar cómo Fernando de Rojas pudo inspirarse en el contexto socialcultural que le rodeaba para configuar el personaje de Melibea. Los rasgos de Melibea como mujer instruida que es capaz de citar autoridades no solo obedecen a razones retóricas o internas ya señaladas por la crítica sino que Rojas pudo verlos en mujeres de la nobleza urbana que, además de haber sido instruidas, tenían afición por la lectura. Esta afirmación se basa en la incorporación de la mujer al público lector a lo largo del siglo XV como confirman los datos sobre el número de mujeres lectoras que es mucho mayor del que hasta ahora se creía.

There are not many documented cases of Castilian female readers of the first quarter of the sixteenth century with a significant library. Even more difficult to find are processes of transmission of books from mothers to daughters at the turn of the 16th century. A post-mortem inventory of the property of Doña María de Zúñiga (ca. 1462-1533) reveals that the II Duchess of Béjar had 82 pieces, including books -some inherited from her mother, Mrs. Leonor Pimentel-, letters or account notebooks. The transcription and analysis of the inventory indicates the religious orientation of her library, as well as her interest in certain spiritual currents such as the devotio moderna, the spirituality of visionary women and even Erasmianism.

Religious texts addressed to women during the fifteenth century tend to repeat some common content related to female behavior but also to their devotional practices or spirituality. These are texts of diverse nature and origin that anticipate some of the proposals that, from the cisnerianas reforms, occur in the Spain of the following century. In general, the analyzed texts intend to control both the times and the readings or the forms of devotion of the lay and religious women.

A documented case of transmission is analyzed by inheritance of books between I Duchess of Plasencia and Bejar, doña Leonor Pimentel, and her daughter, Maria de Zuniga II Duchess of Béjar between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Heredity is not simply limited to a mere transfer of parts but, through them, also the spiritual influence of the mother on the daughter perceived.

Religious texts addressed to women during the fifteenth century tend to repeat some common content related to female behavior but also to their devotional practices or spirituality. These are texts of diverse nature and origin that anticipate some of the proposals that, from the cisnerianas reforms, occur in the Spain of the following century. In general, the analyzed texts intend to control both the times and the readings or the forms of devotion of the lay and religious women.