Introduction

Summary

Castilian romances of chivalry, the libros de caballerías, were the dominant form of fiction when the Spanish Empire ruled so much of the world. During the sixteenth century, this genre multiplied with uncanny speed and at least eighty-seven different romances were written in the span of this century. More than two hundred Castilian editions of the libros de caballerías were published in this epoch; many of them were translated into Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, and Portuguese, thus multiplying its cultural influence. The pages of the libros de caballerías conquered the audience and readership of Castile, the Iberian Peninsula, Western Europe, and, despite their prohibition, they crossed the Atlantic into the New World. Whilst in Castile the popularity of the genre significantly decreased after the sixteenth century, outside the Peninsula several imitations and translations of romances of chivalry were written in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many adventures of these romances were adapted into other genres and media, such as ballads, plays, and operas. Therefore, the genre had a crucial part in the development of early modern fiction and it played a central role in the formation of modern Western fiction. Nevertheless, Hispanists and other literary scholars alike have often overlooked Castilian chivalric romance.

During the early modern period, it was not only Don Quijote's dreams that were full of Amadises, Esplandianes, and Belianises. The emperor, the nobleman, the soldier, the cleric, the merchant, and the peasant dreamt of defeating Endriagos, basilisks, and dragons alike. Equally, women were well acquainted with the damsels in distress and the damsels in shiny armour within the genre; some of them, such as Beatriz Bernal, themselves became writers of libros de caballerías, and some romances paid particular attention to their female audience. From a material perspective, the genre's widespread circulation and cultural impact was in part a result of the introduction of the movable-type printing press to Castile late in the fifteenth century. Most often, the transmission of Castilian romances of chivalry occurred in the new format, the imprint, and not in the old format, the manuscript book or codex. However, the new medium is not the only factor that explains the importance of the genre in the sixteenth century.