Front Lines - Miguel Martinez Material Texts

Скачать книгу

of Peru, New Spain, the Philippines and other islands of that ocean.” Furthermore, just as bisoños were expected to be trained in the arts of war by the pláticos, it seems that training in letters was also part of the process of military socialization. Escalante offers his work as only a provisional contribution to the art of war “until some of you can write with more propriety about this art, since you practice it so courageously” (hasta que algunos de vuestras mercedes escriban con más propriedad esta arte pues la ejercitan con tanto valor). If we believe Escalante, the ability to read and write seems to have been widespread among those “illustrious gentlemen” (muy ilustres señores)—a common form of soldierly respectful address, regardless of social background—“of the Spanish infantry that serve in the presidios of the kingdoms and estates of king Philip, our lord” (de la infantería española que asiste de presidio en los reinos y estados del rey Felipe nuestro señor).89 Escalante was not particularly self-delusional: a Jesuit criticizing the newly founded Reales Estudios de San Isidro (1629) claimed that what was taught in the Chair of Fortifications in one year “would be read amply by a soldier from Flanders in three months.”90 Books must have been as familiar a presence on the front line as in the college classroom.

      Texts, as Escalante suggests and we know well, also traveled easily between the Old World and the New thanks to a large extent to the conquistadores and settlers who ventured to cross the Atlantic. The circulation and consumption of books, particularly those of chivalry, among the Spanish conquistadores is a well-known story since Irving Leonard’s classic study, although his idealizing view of this phenomenon has been rightly criticized.91 Books also circulated among garrisoned or retired soldiers in the Indies. In his will, the Chilean veteran Melchor Xufré del Águila declared that he owned “about eighty bound books” (como ochenta cuerpos de libros), most of which we should assume came from Spain. The retired soldier also stated that he left “a ream of paper” (una resma de papel) and three more books at Lieutenant Andrés de Góngora’s house, which he was supposed to sell as part of a debt settlement.92 According to Bernal Díaz, moreover, the conquistadores of Mexico carried in their memories romances viejos—old narrative ballads of octosyllabic verse that rhymed assonantically—that were frequently sung during the conquest wars and to a certain extent shaped their interpretations of New World events. In turn, the heroic feats of the respected commander Hernán Cortés gave way to the composition of new ballads that were transmitted orally and crossed the Atlantic back to the metropolis.93

      The spaces generated by global armed conflict and imperial expansion during the early modern period also allowed for the cross-cultural dissemination of all kinds of literary products and genres, far beyond ballads, relaciones, or sonnets. With the occasion of Philip IV’s ascension to the throne in 1621, the cabildo—municipal council—of Manila decided to organize a theater festival to bring a glorious end to the city’s celebrations. Despite the fact that Manila had a university and a large number of active lettered clerics, the cabildo appointed the soldiers of the San Felipe garrison to carry out every aspect of the performances. According to Diego de Rueda y Mendoza, one of the soldiers who participated in this theatrical event, the cabildo found “among the soldiers of this garrison some skilled in this matter [of theater] to whom it commissioned three [plays]. Some of them being men of good taste, and others witty, funny, and talented musicians, they took them in charge, and designed the stage, dramaturgy, and costumes” (habiendo hallado entre los soldados de este campo algunos práticos en esta facultad les encargaron tres; que unos como hombres de buen gusto y otros de donaire y gracejo y diestros músicos las tomaron a su cargo y fueron dispuniendo de su traza, invenciones y vestuario).94 Soldiers of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian origin were present among the attendants to the performances, along with a highly heterogeneous audience of Tagalog, Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese civilians who lived in Manila, one of the most diverse cities of the early modern world. Similarly, Rueda y Mendoza was invited to a Chinese wedding in Manila where he described “a comedy in the Chinese style” (una comedia … a usanza de China) that was performed over lunch.95 Miguel de Loarca, another soldier serving in the Philippines like Diego de Rueda, also described a Chinese performance in his Relación del viaje que hecimos a la China. Being received by a local governor in southern China, the soldiers and priests in the Spanish legation were the privileged audience to “a play, and the entremeses lasted for the whole meal, and there were singers and vihuela players” (una comedia, que duraron todos los entremeses toda la comida, hubo cantores, músicos de vihuela de arco).96 By virtue of their wandering, multicultural, and socially heterogeneous nature, the armies of the monarchy of Spain were spaces of cultural encounter as much as they were the frightening carriers of extreme violence that they were and are known to be. The production, circulation, and reception of the body of literature on the matters of war were intricately related to the progressive formation and increasing institutionalization of these spaces and with the social practices and discourses that constituted them.

      The spaces of war were not structured sites of assembly but unstable, moving, and heterogeneous spaces of cultural production and exchange. Lettered soldiers are bound together not only for their interest in the matters of war as producers but also as consumers and agents of exchange of literary materials. The circulation of texts discussing “las cosas de guerra” among its practitioners is crucial to understanding the soldiers’ republic of letters but also the society of soldiers at large. One of the main arguments of this book is that soldierly literature, both manuscript and printed texts about the matters of war, was not only distributed in the already existing structures of social intercourse enabled by the global military machine but also constitutive of them, being a crucial factor in the articulation of the society of soldiers. The literary sociability enabled by the circulation and consumption of these multiple forms of writing, moreover, contributed to a great extent to the development of a collective identity for the common soldiery.

      Whereas many writing soldiers explicitly addressed their works to “those who know how to fight” (los que saben pelear), thus articulating a public of fellow comrades-at-arms, all kinds of textual products were distributed and consumed in the soldiers’ republic of letters, and not only those produced by insiders.97 The complexity of the soldiers’ literary practices is illustrated by an episode from the Sack of Rome in 1527.

      The prestigious Italian humanist Paolo Giovio, perhaps one of the most renowned historians of the time in the intellectual milieus of Renaissance Europe, had set out to write a monumental history of his own present time. His Historiarum sui temporis tomus primus (Rome: Laurentii Torrentini, 1550) started with a series of “epitomes” that summarized books 5–10, covering the years from 1498 to 1512, and 19–24, which covered the decade from 1517 to 1527. The original books seem to have been dramatically disfigured under unclear circumstances, since Giovio’s elucidation of these lacunae was contradictory and changed over time.98 First, the humanist explained that he had hidden the manuscripts in the crypt of a church, but they nonetheless fell into the hands of the furious sackers. Two Spanish captains, named Herrera and Antonio Gamboa, are said to have kept those written on vellum and bound, while disdainfully discarding everything written on paper. The former would eventually be ransomed by the humanist, imprisoned with Pope Clement VII in the Castle of Sant’Angelo; the latter was used by the soldiers as toilet paper (dissipati in foedos usos).99 According to a second version of the events, the manuscripts were recovered from the troop “with the aid of certain famous generals who understood their import for their own fame.”100 And one of Giovio’s Spanish translators gave yet another, similar account of the kidnaping of the humanist’s manuscripts. The slight variation, nonetheless, is significant, since in this case the protagonists are not two Spanish captains but the collectivity of the soldierly mass: “The soldiers came across these papers and tore some of them apart. Once peace was reestablished thanks to the pope’s commands, together with Giovio’s begging and money, they returned the books to him, although damaged and incomplete” (Viniendo estas escrituras en manos de soldados, rompieron y hicieron pedazos algunas dellas. De apaciguadas las cosas, con mandamientos del Papa, con ruegos y dineros del Jovio, volvieron los libros a su poder, aunque en algunas partes faltos y rasgados).101

      While it might seem that Spanish soldiers acted in that manner out of sheer ignorance

Скачать книгу