Like the Queen of Heaven herself, Isabella was a wife, a mother, a Queen, and, of course, a devoted believer. She was also a warrior and a scholar. We find all these aspects of Isabella’s character in the songs, motets, masses, and other musical works that were played and sung in her court. In particular, as if providing a sound track to the miniature in her Book of Hours, we find a strong emphasis on the Virgin Mary, as much in liturgical music, as in secular music. Related to this is a parallel emphasis on feminine experience, a perspective shared by the Queen of Castile and the Queen of Heaven. The simple peasant girl who pours out her heart to her mother in the arresting quintuple time of Juan de Anchieta’s Con amores mi madre invites us into the intimate world of confidences exchanged between mother and daughter. Its gentle undulating phrases breathe with the rising and falling consolations and disappointments of love. Far from an isolated example, however, this wonderfully rich musical vignette is but one of a group of pieces that we find scattered through the cancioneros of the period:
I fell asleep, mother,
with love in my heart.
Asleep I dreamt
of what my heart pondered
Love consoled me
more than I deserved.
Love’s favour
lulled me to sleep;
the loyalty I offered him
consoled my pain.
[Con amores, mi madre,
con amores m’adormí.
Assi dormida soñava
lo que’l coraçón velava,
que’l amor me consolava
con más bien que mereçi.
Adormeçiome el favor
qu’amor me dió con amor;
dió descanso a mi dolor
la fe con que le serví.]
The Song Books
The repertory of secular music from the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella is preserved in five cancioneros or song books. The earliest of these is the Cancionero de la Colombina, so-called after Fernando Colón, the second and illegitimate son of the explorer. As a traveller and passionate collector of music books, he left a collection of over 15,000 volumes to Seville Cathedral on his death. He purchased the cancionero in 1534, although many of its almost 100 compositions were composed before 1490. Most of its compositions are anonymous. There are villancicos, songs in the courtly love tradition, and a dozen Latin liturgical compositions. The texts of these, like many of the vernacular pieces, proclaim the Virgin’s praises. Others, like this innocent pastoral lyric, perfectly capture a recurrent pastoral theme through candid direct speech:
Why can’t I make him love me,
such a downhearted wretch am I?
The girl said to the shepherd:
‘Look shepherd, what breasts!’
The shepherd replied:
‘I’d rather two mushrooms,
my pouch, my sheepskin jacket,
my staff and my poniard,
my tinder and my steel.’
[¿Commo no le andaré yo,
mesquina, tan desmayda?
Dixo la niña al pastor:
‘Mira, pastor, qué tetas’.
Dixo el pastor a la niña:
‘Más me querría dos setas,
mi çurron, mi çamarrón,
mi cayada y mi almarada
y mi yesca y mi eslabón.’]
We may imagine that such pieces as these formed a regular part of courtly entertainment where nobles and royalty would come into contact with an idealized peasantry. If such pastoral themes provided rulers with some escape from the daily concerns of governance, others could me more overtly political. In celebration of Fernando’s marriage to Isabella, for instance, we find another anonymous song in the Cancionero de la Colombina:
In loud cruel voices,
the Catalonians blaspheme:
‘Begone, Duke Juan,
King Ferdinand is married.’
Return, Barcelona
to your true Lord,
Françia juega dedos val:
¡Sus, e mate por la dona!
Throughout the world,
courier come and go shouting
‘Begone, Duke Juan,
King Ferdinand is married.’
[Muy crüeles bozes dan
catalanes blasfemando:
¡Fuera, fuera, duque Juan,
que es casado el Rey Fernando!
Torna, torna, Barçelona,
a tu señor natural
Françia juega dedos val:
¡Sus, e mate por la dona!
Correos vienen, correos van
por todo’l mundo gritando:
¡Fuera, fuera, duque Juan,
que es casado el Rey Fernando!]
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